“With bigger ships on the way we need to understand how our channels will cope, and how we can navigate the bigger ships safely into the Port, especially if conditions are difficult,” he said.
The computer model for the simulation was developed by Australian oceanographic research company Cardno, Lawson Treloar as part of a strategic suite of investigations the VRCA is undertaking. In the simulation, the type of ship, the effects of engine speeds and rudder movements and wind direction and strength contribute to the sense of reality for the viewer.
The ships were navigated through the channel to their destinations by qualified pilots from the Port Phillip Sea Pilots.

The 3D simulation featured projection screens with a field of view of 200 degrees complemented by full surround‐sound, so someone sitting in the laboratory with the ship’s controls around them could experience the reality of a channel transit.
The simulations were conducted over three days. On two of the days an invited audience of people with an interest in the port and its future were able to see the potential problems as larger ships try to access the port.

This is intended to provoke discussion about the port’s future over the next 15 or 20 years
Deakin’s Centre for Intelligent Systems Research (CISR) is home to Australia’s biggest team of academic experts in simulation; visualisation and haptics (touch) technology.  The venture was fortunate to have the help of CISR project leader Dr Doug Creighton.

Access to the capabilities, facilities and technology CSIR offers means VRCA can create simulations using real data to model large, complex systems, such as the Port of Geelong.
“Better still, CSIR is a local facility and its capabilities in Infrastructure Modelling and Visualisation make it ideally suited to further channel design and evaluation work as the next generations of ships come along.