PRODUCT LIFECYCLE DATA SHARING AND VISUALISATION: WEB-BASED APPROACHES

Both product design and manufacturing are intrinsically collaborative processes. From conception and design to project completion and ongoing maintenance, all points in the lifecycle of any product involve the work of fluctuating teams of designers, suppliers and customers. That is why companies are involved in the creation of a distributed design and a manufacturing environment which could provide an effective way to communicate and share information throughout the entire enterprise and the supply chain. At present, the technologies that support such a strategy are based on World Wide Web platforms and follow two different paths. The first one focuses on 2D documentation improvement and introduces 3D interactive information in order to add knowledge to drawings. The second one works directly on 3D models and tries to extend the life of 3D data moving these design information downstream through the entire product lifecycle. Unfortunately the actual lack of a unique 3D Web-based standard has stimulated the growing up of many different proprietary and open source standards and, as a consequence, a production of an incompatible information exchange over the WEB. This paper proposes a structured analysis of Web-based solutions, trying to identify the most critical aspects to promote a unique 3D digital standard model capable of sharing product and manufacturing data more effectively—regardless of geographic boundaries, data structures, processes or computing environmen

Platform Independent Real-Time X3D Shaders and their Applications in Bioinformatics Visualization

Since the introduction of programmable Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and procedural shaders, hardware vendors have each developed their own individual real-time shading language standard. None of these shading languages is fully platform independent. Although this real-time programmable shader technology could be developed into 3D application on a single system, this platform dependent limitation keeps the shader technology away from 3D Internet applications. The primary purpose of this dissertation is to design a framework for translating different shader formats to platform independent shaders and embed them into the eXtensible 3D (X3D) scene for 3D web applications. This framework includes a back-end core shader converter, which translates shaders among different shading languages with a middle XML layer. Also included is a shader library containing a basic set of shaders that developers can load and add shaders to. This framework will then be applied to some applications in Biomolecular Visualization

Ontology of a scene based on Java 3D architecture

The present article seeks to make an approach to the class hierarchy of a scene built with the architecture Java 3D, to develop an ontology of a scene as from the semantic essential components for the semantic structuring of the Web3D. Java was selected because the language recommended by the W3C Consortium for the Development of the Web3D oriented applications as from X3D standard is Xj3D which compositionof their Schemas is based the architecture of Java3D In first instance identifies the domain and scope of the ontology, defining classes and subclasses that comprise from Java3D architecture and the essential elements of a scene, as its point of origin, the field of rotation, translation The limitation of the scene and the definition of shaders, then define the slots that are declared in RDF as a framework for describing the properties of the classes established from identifying the domain and range of each class, then develops composition of the OWL ontology on SWOOP Finally, be perform instantiations of the ontology building for a Iconosphere object as from class expressions defined

Multilingual Information Framework for Handling textual data in Digital Media

This document presents MLIF (Multi Lingual Information Framework), a high-level model for describing multilingual data across a wide range of possible applications in the translation/localization process within several multimedia domains (e.g. broadcasting interactive programs within a multilingual community)

The design of 3D cyberspace as user interface: Advantages and limitations

Virtual reality propagandists, technologists and the Internet community have long debated the issue of the usability of online three-dimensional (3D) environments. A lot of work was published about the benefits of 3D spaces for human-computer interaction and information visualisation due to their realism (Anders, Kalawsky, Crossley, Davies, McGrath, Rejman-Greene, 1998, Hamit, 1993, Heim, 1992, Aukstakalnis, Blatner, Roth, 1992). This topic also receives continuous industry support including standardisation of Virtual Reality Modeling Language ( VRML, VRML Consortium, 1997) and the more recent Macromedia & Intel alliance to bring web 3D to the mainstream (200 1, Intel Corporation). The actual implementation of this technology is, however, still challenging (McCarthy & Descartes, 1998) and minimal because 3D is too new and waiting for good design to be discovered (Nielsen, 1998). The practical aim of this project is to fulfil the niche by creating a functional 3D interface for the access of two-dimensional (2D) information, such as text, using VRML. The theoretical aim is to contribute to further research into 3D usability by describing and analysing the design process in terms of possibilities, challenges and limitations

Virtual cities management and organisation

This paper presents a recent overview of the increasing use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for the simulation of urban environments. It builds on previous research conducted on the identification of three-dimensional (3D) city models and offers an analysis of the development, utilization and construction of VR city models. Issues pertaining to advantages, barriers and ownership are identified. The paper describes a case study of the development of a VR model for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and outlines the role that academic institutions can play in both the creation and utilization of urban models. The study offers a new approach for the creation, management and update of urban models and reflects on issues which are emerging. Areas for future research are discussed

An overview of virtual city modelling : emerging organisational issues

This paper presents a recent overview of the increasing use of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for the simulation of urban environments. It builds on previous research conducted on the identification of three-dimensional (3D) city models and offers an analysis of the development, utilization and construction of VR city models. Issues pertaining to advantages, barriers and ownership are identified. The paper describes a case study of the development of a VR model for the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and outlines the role that academic institutions can play in both the creation and utilization of urban models. The study offers a new approach for the creation, management and update of urban models and reflects on issues which are emerging. Areas for future research are discussed