Using virtual reality and 3D industrial numerical models for immersive interactive checklists

At the different stages of the PLM, companies develop numerous checklist-based procedures involving prototype inspection and testing. Besides, techniques from CAD, 3D imaging, animation and virtual reality now form a mature set of tools for industrial applications. The work presented in this article develops a unique framework for immersive checklist-based project reviews that applies to all steps of the PLM. It combines immersive navigation in the checklist, virtual experiments when needed and multimedia update of the checklist. It provides a generic tool, independent of the considered checklist, relies on the integration of various VR tools and concepts, in a modular way, and uses an original gesture recognition. Feasibility experiments are presented, validating the benefits of the approach

Virtual Prototyping for Rapid Product Development

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Feasibility Study: Development and Demonstration of Virtual Reality Simulation Training for the BHPB Olympic Dam Site Inductions

This report presents the findings of the project ―Feasibility Study: Development and Demonstration of Virtual Reality Simulation Training for the BHPB Olympic Dam Site Inductions.‖ The project was a collaborative exercise between the University of New South Wales (UNSW) - School of Mining Engineering, the University of Adelaide - Australian Centre for Visual Technologies, BHPB Olympic Dam Expansion, RESA, TAFESA and Skills DMC. The project Chief Investigators were Dr Phillip Stothard (UNSW) and Prof Anton van den Hengel (University of Adelaide).The project was a pilot study research project that looked into the feasibility of developing interactive virtual reality simulations for mine site inductions in the hard rock industry. Many simulations have been successfully implemented into the coal industry and the aim was to build a pilot module that looked at a high risk environment on a surface mine that would also have application to the wider construction industry and other heavy industries. The project collaborators came together as a group of parties interested in virtual reality simulation. The research and development was led by UNSW and University of Adelaide. Invaluable input was provided by the collaborators. The project had a value of $431, 306. Of which$208,563 was in cash and $222,743 was in kind. The budget was fully expended during the course of the project. The subject area of the project was ̳Working at Heights‘ and this was chosen because it is a high risk area. Substantial documentation, mining industry input and effort was placed on building the five sub-modules that form the Working at Heights module. The outcome is a high quality visualisation of an area of the Olympic Dam Mine Site. This high quality visualisation is enhanced by the inclusion of interaction within the module that requires the user to interrogate data within the site and to assess and understand issues that arise when working at heights in relation ladders, scaffolding, open excavations and elevated work platforms. Much project emphasis and time was placed on producing the 3D model. Also, as much information as possible was placed into the module itself as this was to be a pilot example to show to the Olympic Dam Expansion Project Team. The module allows users to interact with Safety Documentation and equipment and procedures that they would encounter on sit

Internet-Supported Multi-User Virtual and Physical Prototypes for Architectural Academic Education and Research

Architectural Engineering +Technolog

Using Virtual Reality Modelling to Enhance Electrical Safety and Design in the Built Environment.

This thesis presents a prototype desktop virtual reality model entitled ‘Virtual Electrical Services’, to enhance electrical safety and design in the built environment. The model presented has the potential to be used as an educational tool for third level students, a design tool for industry, or as a virtual electrical safety manual for the general public. A description of the development of the virtual reality model is presented along with the applications that were developed within the model. As part of the VR development process, this research investigates the cause and effects of electrical accidents in domestic properties. This highlights the high-risk activities, which lead to receiving an electric shock in a domestic property and identifies at-risk groups that could most benefit from electrical safety interventions. It also examines the theory of transfer touch voltage calculations and expands on it to show how to carry out a sensitivity analysis in relation to the design parameters that are being used by designers and installers. The use of Desktop Virtual Reality systems for enhancing electrical safety and engineering design is a novel prospect for both practicing and student electrical services engineers. This innovative approach, which can be readily accessed via the World Wide Web, constitutes a marked shift in conventional learning and design techniques to a more immersive, interactive and intuitive working and learning environment. A case study is carried out to evaluate the users’ attitudes toward VR learning environments and also the usability of the prototype model developed. From the completed case study, it appears that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that virtual reality could enhance electrical safety and design in the built environment and also advance training methods used to educate electrical services engineers and electricians. The thesis includes a discussion on the limitations of the system developed and the potential for future research and developmen

Virtual reality for fixture design and assembly

Due to today's heavy, growing competition environment, manufacturing companies have to develop and employ new emerging technologies to increase productivity, reduce production costs, improve product quality, and shorten lead time. The domain of Virtual Reality (VR) has gained great attention during the past few years and is currently explored for practical uses in various industrial areas e.g. CAD, CAM, CAE, CIM, CAPP and computer simulation etc. Owing to the trend towards reducing lead time and human effort devoted to fixtureplanning, the computerization of fixture design is required. Consequently, computer aided fixture design (CAFD) has become an important role of computer aided design/manufacture (CAD/CAM integration. However, there is very little ongoing research specially focused on using the VR technology as a promising solution to enhance CAFD systems' capability and functionality. This thesis reviews the possibility of using interactive Virtual Reality (VR) technology to support the conventional fixture design and assembly process. The trend that the use of VR benefits to fulfil the optimization of fixture design and assembly in VE has been identified and investigated. The primary objectives were to develop an interactive VR system entitled Virtual Reality Fixture Design & Assembly System (VFDAS), which will allow fixture designers to complete the entire design process for modular fixtures within the Virtual Environment (VE) for instance: Fixture element selection, fixture layout design, assembly, analysis and so on. The main advantage of VFDAS is that the VR system has the capability of simulating the various physical behaviours for virtual fixture elements according to Newtonian physical laws, which will be taken into account throughout the fixture design and evaluation process. For example: gravity, friction, collision detection, mass, applied force, reaction force and elasticity. Almost the whole fixture design and assembly process is achieved as if in the real physics world, and this provides a promise for computer aided fixture design (CAFD) in the future. The VFDAS system was validated in terms of the collision detection, rendering speed, friction, mass, gravity, applied force, elasticity and toppling. These simulation results are presented and quantified by a series of simple examples to show what the system can achieve and what the limitations are. The research concluded VR is a useful technology and VFDAS has potential to support education and application for fixture design. There is scope for further development to add more useful functionality to the VFDAS system

Virtual reality for fixture design and assembly

Due to today's heavy, growing competition environment, manufacturing companies have to develop and employ new emerging technologies to increase productivity, reduce production costs, improve product quality, and shorten lead time. The domain of Virtual Reality (VR) has gained great attention during the past few years and is currently explored for practical uses in various industrial areas e.g. CAD, CAM, CAE, CIM, CAPP and computer simulation etc. Owing to the trend towards reducing lead time and human effort devoted to fixtureplanning, the computerization of fixture design is required. Consequently, computer aided fixture design (CAFD) has become an important role of computer aided design/manufacture (CAD/CAM integration. However, there is very little ongoing research specially focused on using the VR technology as a promising solution to enhance CAFD systems' capability and functionality. This thesis reviews the possibility of using interactive Virtual Reality (VR) technology to support the conventional fixture design and assembly process. The trend that the use of VR benefits to fulfil the optimization of fixture design and assembly in VE has been identified and investigated. The primary objectives were to develop an interactive VR system entitled Virtual Reality Fixture Design & Assembly System (VFDAS), which will allow fixture designers to complete the entire design process for modular fixtures within the Virtual Environment (VE) for instance: Fixture element selection, fixture layout design, assembly, analysis and so on. The main advantage of VFDAS is that the VR system has the capability of simulating the various physical behaviours for virtual fixture elements according to Newtonian physical laws, which will be taken into account throughout the fixture design and evaluation process. For example: gravity, friction, collision detection, mass, applied force, reaction force and elasticity. Almost the whole fixture design and assembly process is achieved as if in the real physics world, and this provides a promise for computer aided fixture design (CAFD) in the future. The VFDAS system was validated in terms of the collision detection, rendering speed, friction, mass, gravity, applied force, elasticity and toppling. These simulation results are presented and quantified by a series of simple examples to show what the system can achieve and what the limitations are. The research concluded VR is a useful technology and VFDAS has potential to support education and application for fixture design. There is scope for further development to add more useful functionality to the VFDAS system

Virtual reality for the built environment: A critical review of recent advances

This paper reviews the current state of the art for Virtual Reality (VR) and Virtual Environment (VE) applications in the field of the built environment. The review begins with a brief overview of technological components involved in enabling VR technology. A classification framework is developed to classify 150 journal papers in order to reveal the scholarly coverage of VR and VE from 2005 to 2011, inclusive. The classification framework summarizes achievements, established knowledge, research issues and challenges in the area. The framework is based on four layers of VR: concept and theory, implementation, evaluation and industrial adoption. These layers encompass architecture and design, urban planning and landscape, engineering, construction, facility management, lifecycle integration, training and education. This paper also discusses various representative VR research work in line with the classification framework. Finally the paper predicts future research trends in this area

Investigation of an emotional virtual human modelling method

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.In order to simulate virtual humans more realistically and enable them life-like behaviours, several exploration research on emotion calculation, synthetic perception, and decision making process have been discussed. A series of sub-modules have been designed and simulation results have been presented with discussion. A visual based synthetic perception system has been proposed in this thesis, which allows virtual humans to detect the surrounding virtual environment through a collision-based synthetic vision system. It enables autonomous virtual humans to change their emotion states according to stimuli in real time. The synthetic perception system also allows virtual humans to remember limited information within their own First-in-first-out short-term virtual memory. The new emotion generation method includes a novel hierarchical emotion structure and a group of emotion calculation equations, which enables virtual humans to perform emotionally in real-time according to their internal and external factors. Emotion calculation equations used in this research were derived from psychologic emotion measurements. Virtual humans can utilise the information in virtual memory and emotion calculation equations to generate their own numerical emotion states within the hierarchical emotion structure. Those emotion states are important internal references for virtual humans to adopt appropriate behaviours and also key cues for their decision making. The work introduces a dynamic emotional motion database structure for virtual human modelling. When developing realistic virtual human behaviours, lots of subjects were motion-captured whilst performing emotional motions with or without intent. The captured motions were endowed to virtual characters and implemented in different virtual scenarios to help evoke and verify design ideas, possible consequences of simulation (such as fire evacuation). This work also introduced simple heuristics theory into decision making process in order to make the virtual human’s decision making more like real human. Emotion values are proposed as a group of the key cues for decision making under the simple heuristic structures. A data interface which connects the emotion calculation and the decision making structure together has also been designed for the simulation system

An Augmented Interaction Strategy For Designing Human-Machine Interfaces For Hydraulic Excavators

Lack of adequate information feedback and work visibility, and fatigue due to repetition have been identified as the major usability gaps in the human-machine interface (HMI) design of modern hydraulic excavators that subject operators to undue mental and physical workload, resulting in poor performance. To address these gaps, this work proposed an innovative interaction strategy, termed “augmented interaction”, for enhancing the usability of the hydraulic excavator. Augmented interaction involves the embodiment of heads-up display and coordinated control schemes into an efficient, effective and safe HMI. Augmented interaction was demonstrated using a framework consisting of three phases: Design, Implementation/Visualization, and Evaluation (D.IV.E). Guided by this framework, two alternative HMI design concepts (Design A: featuring heads-up display and coordinated control; and Design B: featuring heads-up display and joystick controls) in addition to the existing HMI design (Design C: featuring monitor display and joystick controls) were prototyped. A mixed reality seating buck simulator, named the Hydraulic Excavator Augmented Reality Simulator (H.E.A.R.S), was used to implement the designs and simulate a work environment along with a rock excavation task scenario. A usability evaluation was conducted with twenty participants to characterize the impact of the new HMI types using quantitative (task completion time, TCT; and operating error, OER) and qualitative (subjective workload and user preference) metrics. The results indicated that participants had a shorter TCT with Design A. For OER, there was a lower error probability due to collisions (PER1) with Design A, and lower error probability due to misses (PER2)with Design B. The subjective measures showed a lower overall workload and a high preference for Design B. It was concluded that augmented interaction provides a viable solution for enhancing the usability of the HMI of a hydraulic excavator