AeroVR: An immersive visualisation system for aerospace design and digital twinning in virtual reality

ABSTRACTOne of today’s most propitious immersive technologies is virtual reality (VR). This term is colloquially associated with headsets that transport users to a bespoke, built-for-purpose immersive 3D virtual environment. It has given rise to the field of immersive analytics—a new field of research that aims to use immersive technologies for enhancing and empowering data analytics. However, in developing such a new set of tools, one has to ask whether the move from standard hardware setup to a fully immersive 3D environment is justified—both in terms of efficiency and development costs. To this end, in this paper, we present AeroVR—an immersive aerospace design environment with the objective of aiding the component aerodynamic design process by interactively visualizing performance and geometry. We decompose the design of such an environment into function structures, identify the primary and secondary tasks, present an implementation of the system, and verify the interface in terms of usability and expressiveness. We deploy AeroVR on a prototypical design study of a compressor blade for an engine.This work was supported by studentships from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC-1788814), and the Cambridge European & Trinity Hall Scholarship in the case of Slawomir Tadeja. The second author, Pranay Seshadri, acknowledges the support of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) Strategic Priorities Fund, managed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); grant number EP/T001569/1

Digital Twin Assessments in Virtual Reality: An Explorational Study with Aeroengines

We present an immersive environment where Virtual Reality (VR) is used to visualize the performance of a fleet of aircraft engines. Our virtual environment uses 3D geometric computer-aided design (CAD) models of the engines paired with performance maps that characterize their nominal working condition. These maps plot pressure ratio and efficiency as a function of shaft speed and inlet flow capacity for the numerous engine sub-systems. Superimposed on these maps is the true performance of each engine, obtained through real-time sensors. In this bespoke virtual space, an engineer can rapidly analyze the health of different engine sub-systems across the fleet within seconds. One of the key elements of such a system is the selection of an appropriate interaction technique. In this paper we explore the potential of interaction methods supported by a combination of gaze-tracking and hand-tracking achieved via an additional sensor attached to the front of the VR headset, with no need for the user to hold a controller. We report on an observational study with a small number of domain-experts to identify usability problems, spot potential improvements, and gain insights into our design interaction capabilities. The study allows us to trim the design space and to guide further design efforts in this area. We also analyze qualitative feedback provided by the end-users and discuss the lessons learned during the design, implementation, verification and validation of the system.EPSRC (EPSRC-1788814); Cambridge European and Trinity Hall; Cambridge Philosophical Society Research Studentship; Tsinghua Academic Fund for Undergraduate Overseas Studies; und from Tsien Excellence in Engineering Program; Wave 1 of The UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund under the EPSRC Grant EP/T001569/1, particularly the ``Digital Twinning in Aeronautics'' theme within that grant & The Alan Turing Institut

Exploring parallel coordinates plots in virtual reality

Parallel Coordinates Plots (PCP) are a widely used approach to interactively visualize and analyze multidimensional scientific data in a 2D environment. In this paper, we explore the use of Parallel Coordinates in an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) 3D visualization environment as a means to support the decision-making process in engineering design processes. We evaluate the potential of VR PCP using a formative qualitative study with seven participants. In a task involving 54 points with 29 dimensions per point, we found that participants were able to detect patterns in the dataset compared with a previously published study with two expert users using traditional 2D PCP, which acts as the gold standard for the dataset. The dataset describes the Pareto front for a three-objective aerodynamic design optimization study in turbomachinery.Cambridge European & Trinity Hall Scholarshi

Virtual reality-based parallel coordinates plots enhanced with explainable ai and data-science analytics for decision-making processes

We present a refinement of the Immersive Parallel Coordinates Plots (IPCP) system for Virtual Reality (VR). The evolved system provides data-science analytics built around a well-known method for visualization of multidimensional datasets in VR. The data-science analytics enhancements consist of importance analysis and a number of clustering algorithms including a novel SuMC (Subspace Memory Clustering) solution. These analytical methods were applied to both the main visualizations and supporting cross-dimensional scatter plots. They automate part of the analytical work that in the previous version of IPCP had to be done by an expert. We test the refined system with two sample datasets that represent the optimum solutions of two different multi-objective optimization studies in turbomachinery. The first one describes 54 data items with 29 dimensions (DS1), and the second 166 data items with 39 dimensions (DS2). We include the details of these methods as well as the reasoning behind selecting some methods over others.</jats:p

Exploring Parallel Coordinates Plots in Virtual Reality

Parallel Coordinates Plots (PCP) are a widely used approach to interactively visualize and analyze multidimensional scientific data in a 2D environment. In this paper, we explore the use of Parallel Coordinates in an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) 3D visualization environment as a means to support the decision-making process in engineering design processes. We evaluate the potential of VR PCP using a formative qualitative study with seven participants. In a task involving 54 points with 29 dimensions per point, we found that participants were able to detect patterns in the dataset compared with a previously published study with two expert users using traditional 2D PCP, which acts as the gold standard for the dataset. The dataset describes the Pareto front for a three-objective aerodynamic design optimization study in turbomachinery

Exploring aerospace design in virtual reality with dimension reduction

One of the today’s most propitious immersive technologies is virtual reality (VR). This term is colloquially associated with head-sets that transport users to a bespoke, built-for-purpose immersive 3D virtual environment. It has given rise to the field of immersive visual analytics—a new field of research that aims to use immersive technologies for enhancing and empowering data analytics. In this paper we present a VR aerospace design environment with the objective of aiding the component aerodynamic design process by interactively visualizing performance and geometry. This virtual environment uses ideas from parameter-space dimension reduction to enhance the exploration and exploitation of the design space. We decompose the design of such an environment into function structures, present an implementation of the system, and verify the interface in terms of usability and expressiveness

Supporting iterative virtual reality analytics design and evaluation by systematic generation of surrogate clustered datasets

Virtual Reality (VR) is a promising technology platform for immersive visual analytics. However, the design space of VR analytics interface design is vast and difficult to explore using traditional A/B comparisons in formal or informal controlled experiments---a fundamental part of an iterative design process. A key factor that complicates such comparisons is the dataset. Exposing participants to the same dataset in all conditions introduces an unavoidable learning effect. On the other hand, using different datasets for all experimental conditions introduces the dataset itself as an uncontrolled variable, which reduces internal validity to an unacceptable degree. In this paper, we propose to rectify this problem by introducing a generative process for synthesizing clustered datasets for VR analytics experiments. This process generates datasets that are distinct while simultaneously allowing systematic comparisons in experiments. A key advantage is that these datasets can then be used in iterative design processes. In a two-part experiment, we show the validity of the generative process and demonstrate how new insights in VR-based visual analytics can be gained using synthetic datasets.Trinity Hall and Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust; Cambridge Philosophical Societ

AeroVR: An immersive visualisation system for aerospace design and digital twinning in virtual reality

One of today's most propitious immersive technologies is virtual reality (VR). This term is colloquially associated with headsets that transport users to a bespoke, built-for-purpose immersive 3D virtual environment. It has given rise to the field of immersive analytics-A new field of research that aims to use immersive technologies for enhancing and empowering data analytics. However, in developing such a new set of tools, one has to ask whether the move from standard hardware setup to a fully immersive 3D environment is justified-both in terms of efficiency and development costs. To this end, in this paper, we present AeroVR-An immersive aerospace design environment with the objective of aiding the component aerodynamic design process by interactively visualizing performance and geometry. We decompose the design of such an environment into function structures, identify the primary and secondary tasks, present an implementation of the system, and verify the interface in terms of usability and expressiveness. We deploy AeroVR on a prototypical design study of a compressor blade for an engine

AeroVR: Immersive Visualization System for Aerospace Design

One of today's most propitious immersive technologies is virtual reality (VR). This term is colloquially associated with headsets that transport users to a bespoke, built-for-purpose immersive 3D virtual environment. It has given rise to the field of immersive analytics---a new field of research that aims to use immersive technologies for enhancing and empowering data analytics. However, in developing such a new set of tools, one has to ask whether the move from standard hardware setup to a fully immersive 3D environment is justified---both in terms of efficiency and development costs. To this end, in this paper, we present the AeroVR--an immersive aerospace design environment with the objective of aiding the component aerodynamic design process by interactively visualizing performance and geometry. We decompose the design of such an environment into function structures, identify the primary and secondary tasks, present an implementation of the system, and verify the interface in terms of usability and expressiveness. We deploy AeroVR on a prototypical design study of a compressor blade for an engine

Digital Twin Assessments in Virtual Reality: An Explorational Study with Aeroengines

We present an immersive environment where Virtual Reality (VR) is used to visualize the performance of a fleet of aircraft engines. Our virtual environment uses 3D geometric computer-aided design (CAD) models of the engines paired with performance maps that characterize their nominal working condition. These maps plot pressure ratio and efficiency as a function of shaft speed and inlet flow capacity for the numerous engine sub-systems. Superimposed on these maps is the true performance of each engine, obtained through real-time sensors. In this bespoke virtual space, an engineer can rapidly analyze the health of different engine sub-systems across the fleet within seconds. One of the key elements of such a system is the selection of an appropriate interaction technique. In this paper we explore the potential of interaction methods supported by a combination of gaze-tracking and hand-tracking achieved via an additional sensor attached to the front of the VR headset, with no need for the user to hold a controller. We report on an observational study with a small number of domain-experts to identify usability problems, spot potential improvements, and gain insights into our design interaction capabilities. The study allows us to trim the design space and to guide further design efforts in this area. We also analyze qualitative feedback provided by the end-users and discuss the lessons learned during the design, implementation, verification and validation of the system