Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the problems, the invention aims to provide a resource integration and application verification system which has the capacity of resource integration, can process real-time data, update situation display information in real time and perform multi-level and multi-detail situation display and guiding adjustment control on battlefield information.
In order to achieve the above purpose, the technical scheme adopted by the invention is as follows:
a resource integration and application verification system, comprising:
the visual resource allocation tool is used for acquiring data and transmitting the data to the visual theme layout allocation tool;
The visual theme layout configuration tool is used for performing theme configuration on the data transmitted by the visual resource configuration tool and transmitting the data to the visual rendering tool;
The visual rendering tool is used for rendering the data after the theme configuration and sending the data to the comprehensive display and control tool for display;
The comprehensive display and control tool is used for developing various visual plug-ins and driving the various visual plug-ins to display and apply the data by utilizing the data rendered by the visual rendering tool;
The simulation application guiding and adjusting control module is used for processing the combat training data and the basic geographic information data in the simulated combat training by means of the visual resource allocation tool, the visual theme layout allocation tool and the visual rendering tool, displaying the data and the simulated combat training process and the training state through the comprehensive display and control tool, and guiding and adjusting the simulated combat training process and the training state according to the display result.
Further, the visual resource allocation tool comprises the following submodules:
the visualized data sub-module is used for processing the visualized data in the acquired data and transmitting the processed data to the visualized theme layout configuration tool;
the map service sub-module is used for processing map data in the acquired data and transmitting the processed data to the visual theme layout configuration tool;
And the three-dimensional model sub-module is used for processing the three-dimensional model data in the acquired data and transmitting the processed data to the visual theme layout configuration tool.
Further, the visual rendering tool includes the following sub-modules:
The fight situation display plug-in sub-module is used for carrying out entity creation and model rendering on the data after the theme configuration through the plug-in;
The two three-dimensional map display plug-in sub-module is used for displaying the rendered model in the fight situation display plug-in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional map scene;
and the drilling three-dimensional style configuration plug-in sub-module is used for providing a three-dimensional earth display style in a three-dimensional map scene.
Further, the integrated display and control tool includes the following sub-modules:
The visual interaction sub-module is used for ensuring compatibility with a large screen when the software is put on the large screen in the situation display process, and ensuring good operability of the software;
And the visual theme display sub-module is used for displaying the analyzed data according to the configuration theme.
Further, the simulation application guiding control module comprises the following submodules:
The instruction guiding and regulating sub-module is used for controlling the basic states of entities such as red and blue square weapon equipment, combat units, radars, sensors and the like;
the emotion report regulating submodule is used for simulating a guiding and regulating task and a guiding and regulating process which are realized by information in the training process;
and the situation guiding and regulating sub-module is used for simulating a guiding and regulating control process realized based on the situation information and the deployment situation of the target in the training process.
The invention also discloses a method for integrating resources and verifying applications, which is characterized by comprising the following steps:
Step 1, acquiring data and transmitting the data to a visual theme layout configuration tool;
Step 2, performing theme configuration on the data transmitted in the step 1 and transmitting the theme configuration data to a visual rendering tool;
step 3, rendering the data subjected to the theme configuration in the step 2, and sending the data to a comprehensive display and control tool for display;
developing various visual plug-ins, and driving the various visual plug-ins to display and apply the data by utilizing the data rendered in the step 3;
And 5, processing the combat exercise data and the basic geographic information data in the simulated combat training by means of a visual resource allocation tool, a visual theme layout allocation tool and a visual rendering tool based on the steps 1-4, displaying the data and the simulated combat training process and training state by a comprehensive display and control tool, and guiding and controlling the simulated combat training process and training state according to the display result.
Further, step 3 includes the following sub-steps:
Step 3-1, carrying out entity creation and model rendering on the data subjected to the theme configuration in the step 2 through a battle situation display plug-in;
Step 3-2, displaying the rendered model in the fight situation display plug-in the step 3-1 in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional map scene by using two three-dimensional map display plug-ins;
And 3-3, providing a three-dimensional earth display style under the three-dimensional map scene for the three-dimensional map scene in the step 3-2 by using the drilling three-dimensional style configuration plug-in.
Further, step 4 includes the following sub-steps:
Step 4-1, in the process of displaying the data rendered in the step 3, large-screen throwing is performed by using software, compatibility of the software and the large screen is ensured, and good operability of the software is ensured;
And 4-2, analyzing the data in the step 4-1 according to the configuration theme, and displaying the analyzed data.
The invention also discloses an electronic device, which comprises a processor and a memory, and is characterized in that the memory is stored with computer instructions, and the processor is used for running the computer instructions stored in the memory so as to realize a method for integrating resources and verifying applications.
The invention also discloses a computer readable storage medium having stored thereon computer instructions for causing a computer to perform a method of resource integration and application verification.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the advantages that the improvement is that,
The invention provides a resource integration situation display and simulation pilot tone application control method for simulation training, which can provide support for guidance, monitoring, director conditioning and judging of the whole training or exercise process, make the countermeasure process in the simulation training process be embodied, make the countermeasure process pilot tone preparation be quick, make the pilot tone control be actual combat, make the pilot tone implement flow, make the whole network data share and make the system operation and maintenance centralized, so as to efficiently and conveniently meet the visual display and pilot tone control of training tasks, meet the format requirement of entity input data in joint tone joint test in the joint simulation training process, and facilitate the development of joint tone joint test.
The method provided by the invention can guide the user to meet the requirements of resource integration and application verification, and can display the situation of resource integration and conduct simulation application guiding and adjusting control in the whole simulation training process.
The method provided by the invention can be used for carrying out multi-level and multi-detail visual display on the simulated training process data, and can provide basis for command decision requirements in different scenes.
Detailed Description
In order to enable those skilled in the art to better understand the technical solution of the present invention, the technical solution of the present invention is further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples.
The resource integration and application verification system of the application comprises:
the visual resource allocation tool is used for acquiring data and transmitting the data to the visual theme layout allocation tool;
The data comprises external data and visual data, 1) the external data (namely data acquired in real time) mainly come from a service system, and the data are transmitted to a visual theme layout configuration tool through a data communication middleware and are in butt joint;
2) The visual data (i.e. non-real-time data) mainly comprises visual display data such as visual data, map data, three-dimensional model data, real-time history situation data and the like, and is transmitted into a visual resource configuration tool, and finally transmitted into a visual theme layout configuration tool through processing of a visual data module, a map service module and a three-dimensional model module and is in butt joint.
The visual theme layout configuration tool is used for transmitting the data transmitted by the visual resource configuration tool to the comprehensive display and control tool for display, and performing theme configuration on the data transmitted by the visual resource configuration tool and transmitting the data to the visual rendering tool;
The method comprises the steps of connecting required visual resources through a visual resource allocation tool by a visual theme layout allocation tool to form a situation display resource pool, developing various visual plugins through a comprehensive display and control tool, driving the various visual plugins to display and apply data by utilizing the data resources led by the visual resource allocation tool, combining various functional plugins through the visual theme allocation tool on the basis of an application integration frame, configuring system layout to generate a multi-screen visual theme application, and finally converging and displaying various situation information and basic geographic information by utilizing a visual rendering tool by taking an EV-Globe space-time remote sensing big data three-dimensional platform as a unified platform to realize comprehensive display of a multi-dimensional battlefield situation.
The visual rendering tool is used for rendering the data after the theme configuration and sending the data to the comprehensive display and control tool for display;
The comprehensive display and control tool is used for developing various visual plug-ins and driving the various visual plug-ins to display and apply the data by utilizing the data rendered by the visual rendering tool;
The simulation application guiding and adjusting control module is used for processing the combat training data and the basic geographic information data in the simulated combat training by means of the visual resource allocation tool, the visual theme layout allocation tool and the visual rendering tool, displaying the data and the simulated combat training process and the training state through the comprehensive display and control tool, and guiding and adjusting the simulated combat training process and the training state according to the display result.
The simulation application guiding and adjusting module controls the guiding and adjusting module to receive a planning scheme issued by a training planning seat by using the simulation application guiding and adjusting plan making sub-module, performs scheme deduction, sets guiding and adjusting events, inserts examination points or evaluation points in the scheme deduction process, generates a guiding and adjusting plan, stores the generated guiding and adjusting plan into the training resource comprehensive management subsystem, and after the guiding and adjusting plan is made, the simulation application guiding and adjusting sub-module executes the guiding and adjusting plan to conduct guiding and adjusting on the simulation training countermeasure process, guiding and adjusting can be performed according to the plan in the guiding and adjusting process, and random guiding and adjusting can be performed according to the requirement, and real-time intervention can be performed on the simulation training process.
It should be noted that the visual resource allocation tool includes the following submodules:
the visualized data sub-module is used for processing the visualized data in the acquired data and transmitting the processed data to the visualized theme layout configuration tool;
the map service sub-module is used for processing map data in the acquired data and transmitting the processed data to the visual theme layout configuration tool;
And the three-dimensional model sub-module is used for processing the three-dimensional model data in the acquired data and transmitting the processed data to the visual theme layout configuration tool.
The visual theme layout configuration tool includes the following sub-modules:
the theme configuration sub-module is used for analyzing the data acquired by the visual resource configuration tool, collecting the analyzed data into the visual rendering tool, and displaying the analyzed data according to the configuration theme.
The visual rendering tool includes the following sub-modules:
The fight situation display plug-in sub-module is used for carrying out entity creation and model rendering on the data after the theme configuration through the plug-in;
The two three-dimensional map display plug-in sub-module is used for displaying the rendered model in the fight situation display plug-in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional map scene;
and the drilling three-dimensional style configuration plug-in sub-module is used for providing a three-dimensional earth display style in a three-dimensional map scene.
The integrated display and control tool comprises the following submodules:
The visual interaction sub-module is used for ensuring compatibility with a large screen when the software is put on the large screen in the situation display process, and ensuring good operability of the software;
And the visual theme display sub-module is used for displaying the analyzed data according to the configuration theme.
The simulation application guiding control module comprises the following submodules:
The instruction guiding and regulating sub-module is used for controlling the basic states of entities such as red and blue square weapon equipment, combat units, radars, sensors and the like;
the emotion report regulating submodule is used for simulating a guiding and regulating task and a guiding and regulating process which are realized by information in the training process;
and the situation guiding and regulating sub-module is used for simulating a guiding and regulating control process realized based on the situation information and the deployment situation of the target in the training process.
The application also discloses a method for integrating resources and verifying applications, which comprises the following steps:
Step 1, acquiring data and transmitting the data to a visual theme layout configuration tool;
Step 2, performing theme configuration on the data transmitted in the step 1 and transmitting the theme configuration data to a visual rendering tool;
step 3, rendering the data subjected to the theme configuration in the step 2, and sending the data to a comprehensive display and control tool for display;
developing various visual plug-ins, and driving the various visual plug-ins to display and apply the data by utilizing the data rendered in the step 3;
And 5, processing the combat exercise data and the basic geographic information data in the simulated combat training by means of a visual resource allocation tool, a visual theme layout allocation tool and a visual rendering tool based on the steps 1-4, displaying the data and the simulated combat training process and training state by a comprehensive display and control tool, and guiding and controlling the simulated combat training process and training state according to the display result.
Wherein, step 3 comprises the following sub-steps:
Step 3-1, carrying out entity creation and model rendering on the data subjected to the theme configuration in the step 2 through a battle situation display plug-in;
Step 3-2, displaying the rendered model in the fight situation display plug-in the step 3-1 in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional map scene by using two three-dimensional map display plug-ins;
And 3-3, providing a three-dimensional earth display style under the three-dimensional map scene for the three-dimensional map scene in the step 3-2 by using the drilling three-dimensional style configuration plug-in.
Step 4 comprises the following sub-steps:
Step 4-1, in the process of displaying the data rendered in the step 3, large-screen throwing is performed by using software, compatibility of the software and the large screen is ensured, and good operability of the software is ensured;
And 4-2, analyzing the data in the step 4-1 according to the configuration theme, and displaying the analyzed data.
Examples
The resource integration and application verification system aims at comprehensive application of combat exercise data and basic geographic information data, and provides comprehensive battlefield situation information guarantee for users through 4 stages of data collection and import, data storage management, data resource configuration and data comprehensive application, so that the conversion from data to capability is realized. The system adopts unified space-time reference to perform standardization processing and organization management on the multi-source data.
When the resource integration and application verification system is used for conducting pilot control of simulated combat training, firstly, a visual resource allocation tool is used for acquiring data, and the data is transmitted to a visual theme layout allocation tool;
The data flow process is shown in fig. 3, and specifically includes the following aspects:
1) Data collection importation
The data connection mode comprises network message receiving, file importing, database reading, geographic information service accessing and the like, and the data content of the connection comprises map tile data, vector map element data, three-dimensional model data, equipment animation data, particle special effect data, real-time message data, historical situation data, weapon equipment data, script files and the like. The data of an external service system can be acquired from a network environment where the external service system is deployed and operated in a network message receiving mode to acquire real-time situation information, and various historical situation information, force information, scheme data and geographic information can be led in through file importing, database reading, geographic information service access and other modes.
2) Data storage management
And constructing a storage database of various data by adopting a file system, a relational database and other mixed storage environments, and realizing the storage management of various data by utilizing a unified data access engine interface. The data access engine performs abstract design on different database interfaces, shields storage difference of a physical layer, provides support for accessing various data in the system, and provides a standardized access interface.
3) Data resource allocation
The data resource allocation is to allocate data resources for various visual display plug-ins, and the data resource allocation is driven by various data resources led and stored by the method, and a visual interface is provided for selecting and allocating data sources and fields, so as to drive two three-dimensional map plug-ins, evaluation and analysis display plug-ins, graphic introduction plug-ins, situation display plug-ins, backtracking plug-ins, real-time arbitration result display (key event) plug-ins, three-dimensional style allocation plug-ins, visual chart plug-ins, guide and regulation planning plug-ins, guide and regulation control plug-ins, guide and regulation plan display plug-ins and other plug-ins for displaying and applying data.
4) Data synthesis and use
The method comprises the steps of comprehensively utilizing data, utilizing a visual resource configuration tool, constructing a client application system, configuring and combining functional plug-ins under typical application scenes such as resource integration situation display, simulation application guide adjustment control and the like, realizing personalized customization of a system working environment, processing data resources by utilizing various functional modules, and converting the data into information which is convenient for users to understand in various application display means such as two-dimensional map display, graphic introduction, situation display, visual charts, fine equipment model display and the like, and interactive modes such as terminals, large screens and the like, so as to realize data-to-capability conversion. The system ensures that the service data effectively and correctly circulate in the system according to the design requirement through the effective control and interaction of the service logic information among the plug-ins, and supports the normal use of the service functions.
Secondly, after the data flow is completed, using a visual theme layout configuration tool to perform theme configuration on the data transmitted by the visual resource configuration tool and transmitting the data to a visual rendering tool;
specifically, the resource integration situation display is used for leading visual resources required by a system through a visual resource allocation tool to form a situation display resource pool; the method comprises the steps of realizing theme display and interaction control through a comprehensive display and control tool, driving various visual plug-ins to display and apply data by utilizing data resources led by a visual resource configuration tool, combining various functional plug-ins by using the visual theme configuration tool on the basis of an application integration frame, configuring system layout and generating a multi-screen visual theme application;
The visual theme configuration tool is combined in a plug-in loading and unloading mode, the application integration framework refers to a plug-in management tool reserved with a unified plug-in interface and is equivalent to a plug-in board, the plug-in board is equivalent to a socket, the system layout refers to a system and a system existence mode, the system = various functional plug-ins + the application integration framework, and the system layout configuration refers to the configuration of the positions, the sizes, the display modes and the display styles of the various functional plug-ins when the various functional plug-ins are displayed.
In general, the system layout herein refers to a system of a multi-screen visual theme application, which needs to load a plug-in with an application integration framework (which can be understood as a plug-in management tool), and configure the size, position and display of the plug-in on a page.
After the multi-screen visual theme application is generated, a visual rendering tool is finally utilized to aggregate and display various situation information and basic geographic information by taking an EV-Global space-time remote sensing big data three-dimensional platform as a unified platform, so that the comprehensive display of the multi-dimensional battlefield situation is realized.
The visual rendering tool is used for rendering the data after the theme configuration and sending the data to the comprehensive display and control tool for displaying, and comprises:
And after the data sent by the external system is acquired by the visual theme tool, the visual theme layout configuration tool processes the data, and finally, entity creation and model rendering are carried out through the plug-in.
The two-dimensional map plug-in provides a two-dimensional map and a three-dimensional map scene for display, and after the visual theme tool acquires data sent by an external system, the geographic position information data (namely longitude, latitude, altitude, gesture, pitching and rolling of an entity in the fight situation display plug-in) in the data sent by the external system are extracted through the processing of the visual theme layout configuration tool, and a model in the fight situation display plug-in is displayed in the two-dimensional or three-dimensional scene according to the geographic position information data.
The plug-in is configured for the three-dimensional style, the plug-in provides a three-dimensional earth display style under a three-dimensional scene for a user, and the user can switch the three-dimensional style through the plug-in so as to achieve different display effects.
The rendering tool is an imaging display of the data of the whole process, without the tool, the whole process only has data interaction, and the simulation training process cannot be directly seen. The simulation application pilot control can visually see the actual condition of the whole training process through the visual angle of the emperor, and pilot control is performed, namely pilot control instructions (instruction pilot control, emotion report pilot control and situation pilot control) are input for pilot control.
After the visual rendering tool renders the data, the rendered data is sent to the comprehensive display and control tool for display.
The comprehensive display and control tool is used for developing various visual plug-ins and driving the various visual plug-ins to display and apply data by utilizing the data rendered by the visual rendering tool;
Simulation application guide regulation control receives a planning scheme issued by a training planning seat by using a simulation application guide regulation plan modulation sub-module, carries out scheme deduction, and sets a guide regulation event, inserts a check point or an evaluation point in the scheme deduction process to generate a guide regulation plan; after the adjustment guiding plan is formulated, the simulation application adjustment guiding and controlling sub-module executes the adjustment guiding plan, the adjustment guiding and controlling process is conducted in the simulation war training process, the adjustment guiding and controlling process can be conducted according to the plan, the adjustment guiding and controlling process can also be conducted randomly according to the requirement, and the simulation training process is interfered in real time.
The simulation application director control business flow is shown in fig. 2.
Simulation application guiding control business flow:
1) After a series of training exercises are performed on the training and planning seats, a planning scheme is generated and issued, the simulation application guiding and adjusting plan making sub-module receives the planning scheme, and according to the planning results of the two red and blue parties, information such as weapon forces, deployment, weapon equipment, attack weapons, attack places, airlines and the like is contained in the results, and scheme deduction is performed under the support of the simulation application guiding and adjusting sub-module.
2) In the scheme deduction process, setting of the pilot tone event is carried out, wherein the content and the rule of the pilot tone event are mainly focused, the correct treatment method and the time limit of the time are set, after the pilot tone event is set, the set pilot tone event, examination points or evaluation points are inserted to form a training subject pilot tone evaluation event sequence, and a pilot tone plan is generated.
3) The pilot control is a tool and means for conducting systematic pilot control after the start of simulation training, and penetrates through the whole actual simulation training process. After the adjustment guiding plan is formulated, the simulation application adjustment guiding and controlling sub-module is responsible for executing the adjustment guiding and controlling plan, and conducting adjustment guiding and controlling according to the plan or randomly in the simulated combat training process, wherein the adjustment guiding and controlling content is divided into information adjustment guiding, situation adjustment guiding and instruction adjustment guiding.
The guiding control is an important link in the acquisition and verification of the training information of the army, and has an important effect on supporting the guiding control of the whole training process and ensuring the smooth training.
The guide control system consists of guide control software, a portable guide control terminal, a central computer, a server and other hardware. The main functions of this system include:
Training plan configuration before exercise. The method comprises the steps of configuring a drilling regional map, setting a formation grouping scheme, pairing the corresponding relation between the participating weapons and equipment, carrying out initialized setting of weapons types, team marks, bullets and the like, and setting the fight time.
And displaying the combat situation in the exercise. Through the network platform, the system receives various interaction information such as weapon equipment situation, striking, guiding and adjusting, judging and the like in real time, monitors situations of the two parties in real time on an electronic map, and controls the starting and killing effect of a remote gunfire striking area.
Conducting and judging in exercise. And simulating various fire fights according to exercise situation and exercise rules, judging the weapon, and in-situ issuing guide and regulation instructions to induce the progress of exercise.
Playback assessment after exercise. And calling exercise process information stored in the database, replaying the exercise process, and generating a weapon combat operation proposal report through objective analysis of exercise data.
It should be noted that, compared with the existing pilot control, the pilot control of the simulation application of the present application makes the following adjustments in control mode:
1. The guiding and controlling modes are divided into two types, namely a planning guiding and controlling mode and a random guiding and controlling mode, wherein the planning guiding and controlling mode inputs guiding and controlling events through guiding and controlling plans in the training process, the mode has good effect on effect inspection of a training scheme, and the random guiding and controlling mode conducts guiding and controlling on a certain equipment or a certain army node in the training process, and has good effect on the inspection of fighting power of a certain equipment and a certain army node due to randomness and uncertainty of the random guiding and controlling mode. 2. The instruction type of the pilot tone is divided into three types according to the pilot tone content, namely instruction pilot tone, information pilot tone and situation pilot tone, and the pilot tone has visual control means for controlling certain equipment, information intercommunication or pilot control of deployment positions, so that the pilot tone operator can operate conveniently.
The workflow of the resource integration and application verification system is shown below, and the flowchart is shown in fig. 4:
Step 1, acquiring data and transmitting the data to a visual theme layout configuration tool;
the acquired data includes the following contents:
1) External data (i.e. data acquired in real time) mainly come from a service system, and the data are transmitted to a visual theme layout configuration tool through a data communication middleware and are in butt joint;
2) The visual data (i.e. non-real-time data) mainly comprises visual display data such as visual data, map data, three-dimensional model data, real-time history situation data and the like, the visual data are transmitted into a visual resource configuration tool, and finally are converged into the visual theme layout configuration tool through processing of a visual data module, a map service module and a three-dimensional model module.
Step 2, performing theme configuration on the data transmitted in the step 1 and transmitting the theme configuration data to a visual rendering tool;
The visual rendering tool is used for rendering weapons or entities according to received data, the rendering is used for classifying the data, rendering the model into a three-dimensional scene according to the data type, setting a display mode for configuring a theme, setting a display layout of a visual graph in a theme layout, taking a plurality of layouts as a theme, and saving the theme configuration to facilitate reloading the theme.
Step 3, rendering the data subjected to the theme configuration in the step 2, and sending the data to a comprehensive display and control tool for display;
developing various visual plug-ins, and driving the various visual plug-ins to display and apply the data by utilizing the data rendered in the step 3;
And switching the loading theme file according to the requirements of the clients to finish the preparation work of visual display. If the computer of the resource integration and application verification system is connected with the external display large screen, the comprehensive display and control tool can display the visual display content on the large screen display terminal.
And 5, processing the combat exercise data and the basic geographic information data in the simulated combat training by means of a visual resource allocation tool, a visual theme layout allocation tool and a visual rendering tool based on the steps 1-4, displaying the data and the simulated combat training process and training state by a comprehensive display and control tool, and guiding and controlling the simulated combat training process and training state according to the display result.
It should be noted that the data sources in the pilot control are training plan and simulation engines, three types of pilot instructions exist,
The instruction guiding and adjusting instruction, the information guiding and adjusting instruction and the situation guiding and adjusting instruction are respectively divided into a general instruction, a red party special instruction and a blue party special instruction. The three guiding and adjusting instructions comprise the control of basic states of entities such as red and blue weapon equipment, combat units, radars, sensors and the like.
In modern military operations, the coordination criteria of the red-side specific instructions and the blue-side specific instructions is a critical task. Through accurately and efficiently conveying the red square instruction and the blue square instruction, the combat efficiency can be effectively improved, and misunderstanding and errors are reduced.
Here, the red party specific instruction is taken as an example to describe a command for the combat army, to which requirements in terms of strategy, tactics, command, action, etc. are conveyed, so as to ensure smooth development of combat actions. Red party instructions are critical to both commander and soldiers, and they provide key information on goals, tasks, schedules, etc. of actions. The good red side instruction can ensure that command functions at all levels can accurately understand tasks and act according to a preset plan, so that the efficiency and success rate of the whole combat action are improved. In the simulation training process, the special command of the red party abstracts the above-mentioned commands into information of interaction between systems and gives the information to subordinate units of the red party, thereby meeting the requirement of the simulation training.
The foregoing has shown and described the basic principles, principal features and advantages of the invention. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above, and that the above embodiments and descriptions are merely illustrative of the principles of the present invention, and various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, which is defined in the appended claims. The scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims and equivalents thereof.