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Visualizing STK Intervals

By: Valerie Lesser

I’m a visual learner and while having an STK report often provides the information that I want, sometimes I find that the data is easier to understand if it’s displayed visually with a contrast of colors. Fortunately for me, STK provides that capability. For example, for each parent object In STK,  I can set a unique color to each access time interval and then display those intervals in the 3D Graphics Window.

Access Intervals

Custom intervals provide information that is easy to understand visually. One of the easiest custom intervals to add is when a parent object has available accesses. If you navigate to the parent object’s properties and choose 2D Graphics > Attributes, you can select Access Intervals. Use this page to display when you have access to any available object. You can also show when there is no access. The following image illustrates when an aircraft has access to different place objects.

Access Intervals Using Custom Intervals

More importantly, I want to specify when my parent object has access to each individual object. I can do this by selecting Custom Intervals. This  shows when the parent object has access to each object, including more than one access to the same object. In the following image, you can see that the aircraft accesses Place 4 twice.

Time Components

Use time components to specify a duration of time, and then display it in a specific color. This visual tool can be helpful if your parent object is speeding up or slowing down. For example, If the colored region is shorter and all the intervals of time are the same, then your parent object is slowing down.

Custom Intervals

One of the handiest tools in STK is Analysis Workbench (AWB). You can use AWB to create intervals that can depict any aspect of your scenario, which can also be displayed in the 3D graphics window! Once you have created a custom interval in AWB for your parent object, navigate to the 2D Graphics Attributes tab, and select Custom Intervals. Now, you can associate a color with the interval of interest. This provides unlimited possibilities of how to view your mission.

Posted: 1/13/2020 2:14:21 PM