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

An approach to convert vertex-based 3D representations to combinatorial B-splines for real-time visual collaboration

Scientific Visualization and Virtual Reality are increasingly being used for the design of complex systems. These technologies offer powerful capabilities to make decisions that are cost and time effective. The next logical extension is to collaborate with these visual models in real-time, where parts of a design team are geographically separated. Specifically, visual collaboration enables ideas and proposed changes to be discussed exactly on a virtual model of a product. However, high-end visualization hardware and Internet technologies impede widespread use of real-time visual collaboration due to the large amount of data from which these representations are created. These data are typically in the form of 3D vertex-based models, which offer a high degree of realism when displayed, but at a price of storage, rendering speeds and processing efficiency. The more realistic the representation desired, the larger the number of vertices required and hence the higher the file size. In this paper, we propose a new data modeling and handling technique where traditional vertex-based models are converted into combinatorial B-Spline based wire-frame models that allow realtime visual collaboration in the context of typical virtual reality systems. Using appropriate filtering methods, parametric equations are computed for each curved segment in a vertexbased representation and bundled together with sampled linear segments of the model. The computed parametric equation based models occupy only a fraction of the size when compared to the original vertex-based models. These lightweight models can easily be transmitted over the Internet, in real-time, for viewing with a platform independent visual client program. The proposed methods were tested on several example data files to prove the method’s effectiveness

The development of a virtual reality based CAD system for design review

Virtual reality is currently utilized to view and evaluate product designs but is not used to alter designs. The design is typically completed on desktop workstations with CAD software and then evaluated within a virtual environment. Integrating VR and CAD could potentially improve designs by allowing several engineers and managers to critique and modify designs together, enabling concurrent engineering.;This thesis discusses the development of a virtual reality based CAD system for altering designs during a design review. A list of criteria was first created to assess the system\u27s effectiveness in a design review which formed the basis for the development. The system integrates Pro/Engineer using the J-Link interface and VR Juggler. A wireless networked tablet PC along with a wand and tracker were chosen to operate the system. The developed system proved to meet the majority of the criteria and shows potential to meet all of the criteria

E -commerce for the metal removal industry

The popularity of outsourcing fabrication introduces a problem, namely an inevitable loss of data as information is translated from design to fabrication or from one system to another. Unsatisfactory information, delivered to the outsourcing facility, and inefficient communications between design and fabrication certainly cause enormous economic losses from late product delivery or bad product quality. To overcome these data transferring problems and to improve communications between the design and fabrication sides, a design and manufacturing methodology for custom machined parts in E-Commerce is suggested and implemented in this dissertation. This methodology is based on the idea of a Clean Interface like the Mead-Conway approach for VLSI chip fabrication [MEAD81]. Essential design information for fabricating parts properly with NC (Numerical Controlled) milling machines is expressed in machining/manufacturing features, fabrication friendly terminologies, and is represented by a new language called NCML (Numerical Control Markup Language). NCML is based on XML (Extensible Markup Language)---the document-processing standard proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). NCML is designed to include the minimum requisite information necessary for the manufacturer to produce the product. The designer defines NCML, which overcomes geographical separation between design and manufacturing, and minimizes unnecessary interactions caused from lack of information. To prove the possibility of custom machine part fabrication and E-Commerce with NCML, three software systems are implemented. These three systems are FACILE/Design, FACILE/Fabricate, and E-Mill. FACILE is a prototype CAD/CAM system developed to verify NCML feasibility as an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) format. FACILE/Design is a system based on manufacturing features like holes, contours, and pockets. It can be used to create geometric models, verify the design, and create NCML files. The NCML file is imported by FACILE/Fabricate and turned into G-codes by applying appropriate cutting conditions. Simplified machining simulation and cost estimation tools using NCML inputs are also developed to show some examples of NCML applications that can help design and manufacturing activities. To demonstrate how NCML could be used in a web-based application, an E-Business model called E-Mill has been implemented. E-Mill is a market place for machined parts whose data is encoded in NCML. To make E-Mill a feasible E-Commerce model, two-way communication based on NCML data and the visualization of 3D geometric models in the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) are equipped with a competitive matchmaking mechanism. In this dissertation, a whole system based on NCML bridges the gap between design and manufacturing. As a part of the NCML validation process for the new system, the pros and cons of NCML design features are discussed. A system for cost estimation is calibrated and compared to real cutting results for the purpose of validation

Immersive Visualization in Biomedical Computational Fluid Dynamics and Didactic Teaching and Learning

Virtual reality (VR) can stimulate active learning, critical thinking, decision making and improved performance. It requires a medium to show virtual content, which is called a virtual environment (VE). The MARquette Visualization Lab (MARVL) is an example of a VE. Robust processes and workflows that allow for the creation of content for use within MARVL further increases the userbase for this valuable resource. A workflow was created to display biomedical computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and complementary data in a wide range of VE’s. This allows a researcher to study the simulation in its natural three-dimensional (3D) morphology. In addition, it is an exciting way to extract more information from CFD results by taking advantage of improved depth cues, a larger display canvas, custom interactivity, and an immersive approach that surrounds the researcher. The CFD to VR workflow was designed to be basic enough for a novice user. It is also used as a tool to foster collaboration between engineers and clinicians. The workflow aimed to support results from common CFD software packages and across clinical research areas. ParaView, Blender and Unity were used in the workflow to take standard CFD files and process them for viewing in VR. Designated scripts were written to automate the steps implemented in each software package. The workflow was successfully completed across multiple biomedical vessels, scales and applications including: the aorta with application to congenital cardiovascular disease, the Circle of Willis with respect to cerebral aneurysms, and the airway for surgical treatment planning. The workflow was completed by novice users in approximately an hour. Bringing VR further into didactic teaching within academia allows students to be fully immersed in their respective subject matter, thereby increasing the students’ sense of presence, understanding and enthusiasm. MARVL is a space for collaborative learning that also offers an immersive, virtual experience. A workflow was created to view PowerPoint presentations in 3D using MARVL. A resulting Immersive PowerPoint workflow used PowerPoint, Unity and other open-source software packages to display the PowerPoint presentations in 3D. The Immersive PowerPoint workflow can be completed in under thirty minutes

Virtual Human Project

This paper describes the development of a comprehensive human modeling environment, the Virtual Human, which will be used initially to model the human respiratory system for purposes of predicting pulmonary disease or injury using lung sounds. The details of the computational environment, including the development of a Virtual Human Thorax, a database for storing models, model parameters, and experimental data, and a Virtual Human web interface are outlined. Preliminary progress in developing this environment will be presented. A separate paper at the conference describes the modeling of sound generation using computational fluid dynamics and the modeling of sound propagation in the human respiratory system