OMNeT ++ direct message transmission visualizations in 3D

Question

I am new to OMNeT++ and I'm trying to implement a drone network that communicate with each other using direct messages.

I want to visualize my drone network with the 3D visualization in OMNeT using the OsgVisualizer in inet.visualizer.scene package.

In the dronenetwork.ned file, I have used the IntegratedVisualizer and the OsgGeographicCoordinateSystem. Then in the omnetpp.ini file, the map file to be used is defined and so the map loading and mobility of the drones works fine in the 3D visualization of the simulation run.

However, the message transmissions between the drones are not visualized in 3D even though this is properly visualized in the 2D canvas mode.

I tried adding both NetworkNodeOsgVisualizer and NetworkConnectionOsgVisualizer to my drone module as visualization simple modules and also I have defined the drones as a @networkNode and @networkConnectionNode. But it still hasn't been able to visualize the message transmissions.

Any help or hint regarding this would be highly appreciated.

Code used for visualizations in the simple module drone is as follows

import inet.visualizer.scene.NetworkNodeOsgVisualizer;
import inet.visualizer.scene.NetworkConnectionOsgVisualizer;
module drone
{
   parameters:
    @networkNode;
    @networkConnection;
   submodules:
      networkNodeOsgVisualizer: NetworkNodeOsgVisualizer {
            @display("p=207,50");
            displayModuleName = true;   
            visualizationTargetModule = "^.^"; 
            visualizationSubjectModule = "wirelessInterface.^.^";          
      }  
      networkConnectionOsgVisualizer : NetworkConnectionOsgVisualizer{
        visualizationTargetModule = "^.^"; 
        visualizationSubjectModule = "wirelessInterface.^.^";
        displayNetworkConnections = true; 
      }

Thank you

Answer 1

Message passing and direct message sending visualizations are special cases implemented by the Qtenv automatically for 2D (default) visualization only. You can add custom 2D message visualization (like the one in the aloha example). OMNeT++ does not provide any 3D visualization by default. All the code must be provided by the model (INET in this case). This is also true for any transient visualization. There is an example for this in the osg-earth omnet example where communication between cows are visualized by inflating bubbles.

So, you have to implement your own visualization effect. There is something in INET which is pretty close to what you want: DataLinkOsgVisualizer and PhysicalLinkOsgVisualizer which flashes an arrow if communication on data link or physical layer has occurred. This is not the same as message passing, but close enough. Or you can implement your own animation using these visualizers as a sample.