VIRTUAL PROTOTYPING

Introduction

Virtual reality (VR) entails the use of advanced technologies, including computers and various peripherals, to produce a simulated environment that users perceive as comparable to real world objects and events. This technology helps engineers to build, test, and verify designs on computers. Some of the areas where VR can contribute to increase engineering productivity are in the areas of design, prototyping, design for maintenance and assembly, factory planning, networked design, and concurrent engineering. These virtual worlds can be animated, interactive, shared, and can expose behavior and functionality. Some of the useful applications of VR include training in a variety of areas (military, medical, equipment operation, etc.), education, design evaluation (virtual prototyping), architectural walk-through, human factors and ergonomic studies, simulation of assembly sequences and maintenance tasks, assistance for the handicapped, entertainment, and etc. Since design evaluation is an important and time consuming activity in product development, the VR in this direction got lot of attention. Virtual prototyping (VP) is found to be an alternative for above product development difficulties.

Virtual prototyping is a software-based engineering discipline that entails modeling a mechanical system, simulating and visualizing its 3D motion behavior under real-world operating conditions, and refining/optimizing the design through iterative design studies prior to building the first physical prototype.

Why VP?

Ø To cut down on the number of physical prototypes they need to build,

Ø To save time from design schedules, and

Ø To make better products.

What it can do?

Ø Traditional CAD systems optimize the design of individual part or component geometry.

Ø But today’s Engineering teams demand the ability to view their designs at the system level, so they know the interrelated effects of motion on the complete product.

Ø Using virtual prototyping allows engineers, earlier in the development cycle, to visualize their full-system design ideas on the computer, with realistic 3D models, and make these models move, just as they would in the real world, under any operating conditions.

Ø Users can navigate through and interact with designs in real time to assess assembly, operation, and maintenance issues early in the design process.

Ø Virtual prototyping tools will enable engineers to check for potential design problems, such as

o Difficult to access components,

o Impossible to complete assembly sequences, and

o Coordinated operation of multiple assemblies.

Ø Engineers can perform realistic motion tests on hundreds or even thousands of design variations before building a single hardware prototype.

Applications

Ø Virtual prototyping is used to model and simulate the behavior of everything from vehicles to camcorders, robots to earth movers, and washing machines to defense systems.

Ø The VP software can provide a simulated virtual manufacturing environment to develop and optimize fabrication, assembly, machining, and other manual and robotic manufacturing processes, eliminating the need for physical product prototypes or production tooling mockups. Virtual prototyping can be used to model the work flow, facility layout, throughput, line balancing, and product cost.

VIRTUAL REALITY FACILITY AT PSG COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY

VR center at PSG College of Technology is established at the cost of about Rs. 20 millions. The hardware components of facility can be grouped under computing facility and display & interactive facility. Computing facility basically consists of SGI’s Onyx 3000 Series with InfinitePerformanceTM graphics system and Display & interactive facility includes display screen of size 8’X6’ with images projected by BARCO projector, Head Mounted Device, cyber glove, 3D mouse etc. These hardware elements will be controlled with the help of software “Division MockUp 2000i2” developed by PTC.

Processing Capabilities

SGI® ONYX® 3200 Model onyx 3 InfiniteReality: SGI Onyx 3000 series with InfinitePerformance graphics offers the industry's highest interactive performance and price/performance in a scalable visualization system. These systems are based on 10 years of SGI research and development and combine the modular scalability of the SGI® NUMA® architecture with cost-effective workstation-class graphics and breakthrough scalable graphics compositor technology to deliver up to 141 million triangles per second and 3.8 billion pixels per second to a single display. The combination of graphics power and price/performance enables the deployment of SGI Reality Center installations at all levels of an organization.

Configurations

Processors: 4 (500 MHz IP35 Processors, MIPS R14000)

Main memory: 4GB

Graphics: InfiniteReality3

Base I/O: One I-brick

System disk: 140GB (2 disks; each 70GB capacity)Operating system: IRIX® 6.5.14

Texture memory: 256MBDisplay: 1280 X 1024 pixels with 60Hz

Display/Interactive Subsystem

Ø Screen Size: Flat screen of 8’ X 6’ fixed to the wall.

Ø Projector: BARCO graphics 808s CRT projector is a high-performance rear-screen projection system, capable of displaying high resolution images with outstanding light output, rich contrast and clarity under high ambient lighting conditions.

Ø V6 Head Mount Display:- Virtual Research Systems’ (http://www.virtualresearch.com/) V6 establishes a new standard of quality and price for the mid-range, professional HMD. New active matrix LCD’s with 640 x 480 pixel resolution provide rich, vibrant color quality and a superior image.

Ø CrystalEyes®3(http://www.stereographics.com/products/crystaleyes/body_crystaleyes.html) is for 3D visualization in molecular modeling, virtual prototyping, and aerial photography/ mapping. CrystalEyes 3 - active liquid crystal shutter eyewear (includes 2 CR2032 batteries) requires emitter

Ø The CyberGlove® is a fully instrumented glove that provides up to 22 high-accuracy joint-angle measurements. It uses proprietary resistive bend-sensing technology to accurately transform hand and finger motions into real-time digital joint-angle data.

Ø Wanda is a navigation device with a joystick and 3 programmable buttons. With an embedded 6 DOF sensor, Wanda can be used in free space, unlike a typical mouse or joystick. Ideal for CAVE environments, Wanda can be used to manipulate 3D objects in a virtual environment.

Ø Flock of Birds® The Flock can be configured to track from one to four sensors simultaneously with one or more RS-232 interfaces to a host computer.

Software

Division MockUp: DIVISION MockUp interoperates with Pro/ENGINEER and many other CAD systems and graphical standards. It reduces costs and development time with features that allows usability, manufacturability, and design reviews to be conducted with virtual - rather than physical - prototypes.

Major Activities Possible on the System

1. Virtual prototyping – Design Checks under static and dynamic conditions.

2. Development of Assembly Sequences and feasibility studies.

3. Studies on interior and exterior styling of products

4. Development of video clips of product features, which can be played outside.

5. Enable concurrent design improvements

6. Support interactive flythrough of products

7. Support import of models form modelling softwares namely ProE and I-DEAS.

8. Provide training on use of VR techniques in product development.