I am employed by IBM, and I currently work on a project called the High Performance Storage System.   We provide a multi-platform UNIX based storage solution to the supercomputing industry.   I am a computer science major, and I spent the first two years at IBM doing software development.   Somehow I have found my way to the deployment and support teams.   I travel about nine weeks out of the year; which is not too bad.   Actually, I really enjoy my work.   My work is close to home, and the people I work with are really sharp.

What does a deployment person do?   Well, I get to design a storage system based on the user's requirements.   This includes server and mover workstations, disk drives, tape drives, tape robots, network interfaces and operating systems.   Once designed, I get to bring everything together.   I've got to make sure that the system will handle the required data and transaction rates as well as reliability requirements.   I follow the system into the production phase of the lifecycle.   My support duties are to simply keep production systems running (phone and on-site support).   As a support person, I get a couple of opportunities a year to teach classes.

Before joining IBM, I worked for the United Space Alliance (USA), at NASA/JSC.   I was the lead software engineer for the Distributed Earth Model & Orbiter Simulation (DEMOS) and the Projection Plotting Display (PPD) applications.   Both applications use real-time telemetry data, from the space shuttle, and render an image that represents the orbiter's position over the Earth.   These two tools were primary situational awareness tools used in the Mission Control Center (MCC).   They are the two world maps that are projected onto the front display screens of the MCC -- one is 3D view and the other is a 2D view.

I worked on a two-man project that lasted for three months.   We successfully rendered a "pilot's eye view" of landing.   We used satellite images and 3D models of ground structures to create two landing areas; one for Kennedy Space Center, and one for Edwards Air Force Base.   We simply tied real-time telemetry data to a model manager, and we flew a camera to the runway.   We also provided a heads-up-display (HUD).   A demo of our application was provided to the MCC community during an actual shuttle landing.   The folks in the MCC were so enthusiastic about the images generated by our application on the front screen.   During that landing, there was an alarm that went off, and nobody noticed it because they were watching our application.   Our application is considered a distraction, and the project was cancelled shortly afterour demo.  

Because people have asked...

We used the down range, cross range, and altitude elements from telemetry, for the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the camera.   These three elements are "runway relative."   We also use the orbiter's M50 element to provide the yaw, pitch, and roll of the camera.   The M50 element is "M50 centric," and it must be translated to earth centric, then to runway relative (a single conversion matrix).

CONTACT ME

Jim Gerry : contact.me@gerryco.com