A new product design method based on virtual reality, gaming and scenarios

Through the years, many methods and tools have been developed that support designers in creating good products. Current trends, for example, are to use virtual reality (VR) simulation, gaming principles, and scenario based techniques during product design processes. Each of these methods and tools contributes to the potential effectiveness and efficiency of product design processes. However, in current practice, they are often applied in an ad-hoc manner. This paper presents a new product design method that integrates elements of a number of important trends in contemporary product design processes. Using VR simulation, gaming principles and scenarios, the new product design method gives non-designers (e.g. users, production engineers, marketing managers, maintenance workers) a proactive role in the design process. Within a dedicated design environment, all stakeholders are allowed to create their own designs and immediately test these in a wide variety of use scenarios. By letting stakeholders realistically interact with their personal creations, designers can quickly and reliably pinpoint their needs and preferences. At the same time, good designs are generated. The new product design method was applied to the design of a lane change support system; a system that supports the driver of a vehicle in performing lane change maneuvers. Using the design environment that was established for this case, the designer was able to get a consistent image of everyone's preferences as well as to draw a reliable conclusion about what would be a good design.     

Mixed reality system for evaluating designability and operability of information appliances

In the product development process, designability and operability are evaluated using physical mock-ups which require high costs and a long time to build. In this paper, virtual mock-ups (3D digital models) are used instead of physical mock-ups to solve these problems of cost and time. Given that designers want to touch and operate the designed product in the evaluation process, to cover the disadvantage of virtual mock-ups which do not allow this, this paper proposes a system for evaluating designability and operability of products under development using mixed reality technology. With the proposed method, a physical mock-up covered with a designed virtual mock-up can be touched and operated to evaluate the design being developed in the mixed space of virtual and real ones from the viewpoint of designability and operability.     

Virtual reality aided design of parts and assemblies

Current virtual reality (VR) systems provide an enormous potential for enhancing the visualization of 3D-design drafts. Based on new navigation techniques the designer is able to interact, model in a more intuitive and efficient way. In our contribution we present a novel interaction metaphor that facilitates the synthesis of efficient virtual reality interaction and visualization techniques with modern feature based CAD systems. We present “NAVIMODE”, an alternative approach for navigation, manipulation and selection, to combine the advantages of VR and CAD systems. The design engineer has the chance to design in his/her habitual environment using the advantage of virtual reality concurrently.     

A Welding Capability Assessment Method (WCAM) to support multidisciplinary design of aircraft structures

Designing aircraft engines is a complex process in which requirements from multiple disciplines need to be considered. Decisions about product geometry and tolerances to achieve optimized aerodynamics, product life and weight can affect the manufacturing process. Therefore, providing information to designers about process capabilities is necessary to support design exploration and analysis. In this paper, the authors propose the Welding Capability Assessment Method (WCAM) as a tool to support the systematic identification and assessment of design issues related to product geometry critical to the welding process. Within this method, a list of potential failure modes during welding is connected to specific design parameters. Once the critical design parameters have been identified, quantitative methods are proposed to calculate tolerances to reduce the likelihood of welding failures. The application of this method is demonstrated through an industrial case study where a combination of interviews and welding simulations is used to study the welding capability of a number of product geometries. This method represents an advancement from traditional qualitative guidelines and expert judgments about welding difficulties towards a more quantitative approach, supporting virtual design.     

Creativity-based design innovation environment in support of robust product development

In today’s highly demanding customers and aggressive competitors, product development is getting more complex and needs to innovate continuously. On the other hand common direction towards cost savings and shortening of design cycle forces to make the product design process highly efficient at high level of performance. Accordingly, this paper provides a new creative design tool to support robust product development by taking advantage of a creativity-based design process to achieve the goals of innovative product design. It describes a pilot prototype of software system used for computer-aided product development which has been developed based on the characteristics of the product design process, integrating the creative thinking methods, information technologies and computer application technologies (CAD system, LabVIEW, Game Technology, etc.). This new design environment leads to a flexible working flow of designing a product hand in hand with searching a product library that is arranged by geometric properties and allows designers, engineers and other professionals to collaborate with each other on the same platform in the product development process.     

Instructions to authors effective 1981

Abstract

There are three barriers that must be overcome in designing vehicles to meet the needs of mature adults. These barriers are (a) the ages of the designers of the product, (b) young designers (and most of society's) perceptions of the capabilities of older adults, and (c) the lack of applied research on the interaction of older adults with their vehicles. This article addresses each of the three barriers and the challenges it brings to the vehicle design process. Emphasis is placed on the third barrier—the serious lack of applied research in the topic to support product designers in their work—because it is the most difficult to surmount.     

Taking account of information maturity in assessing product risk

We focus on the product development process based on virtual prototyping, which allows earlier evaluation of product performance. Uncertainty in information and in the behavioural models used by designers may introduce the risk of under- or over- achieving the product requirements. Two aspects of uncertainty are considered: uncertainty in information content, such as a design parameter that is characterised by a tolerance ( \(10\pm 2\,\hbox {mm}\) ) and in the behavioural models used to assess the proposed design. Maturity is defined as uncertainty in the context of the design parameters and behavioural models that may evolve in the course of the design process, such as a dimension that has not been fixed and a simplified model that needs to be refined. Risk assessment typically accounts for the content uncertainty (variability) but not the maturity of design information. We propose a method for enriching risk assessment taking into account the maturity of information in risk assessment.     

Data exchange and multi-layered architecture for a collaborative design process in virtual environments

The design review process of new products is time consuming, requires the collaboration and synchronization of activities performed by various experts having different competences and roles, and is today performed using different tools and different product representations. In order to improve the performances of the overall product design process, it would be beneficial the availability of Computer Aided tools supporting both conceptual design and analysis activities within an integrated environment based on a multi-disciplinary model paradigm. The paper presents an environment named PUODARSI that allows product designers to intuitively modify the shape of a product through haptic interaction and to test in real-time the structural and fluid-dynamics impact of these changes. The research work shows that a smooth and effective integration of modeling tools based on haptic interfaces, fluid-dynamics analysis tools, and Virtual Reality visualization systems is feasible in real-time through the use of a proper data model exchange.     

Interaction and evaluation tools for collaborative virtual environment

The design of the virtual environment (VE) has to take into account several factors including the input and output devices, the design of the interaction metaphor and the application domain. In addition to these considerations, the design of collaborative virtual environment (CVE) needs to take into account the collaborative aspect of the interaction metaphor. in one hand, the interaction metaphor must be designed to produce the most possible task performance. In the other hand, the influence of the interaction metaphor on the user’s experience (in terms of psychological and social considerations) constitutes an important research question. To address this research question, we presented a new user-centred method for Collaborative Virtual Environments in taking into account human factors. Our goal is to study the effect of 3D interaction metaphors in CVE on copresence, involvement, awareness and collaborative effort.     

IDGL,an interaction design framework based on systematic innovation and quality function deployment

Concerns about human-machine interaction are becoming one of the most important thrusts for the development of innovative and successful products. Interaction design methods and tools are already described in literature and available for designers, and the analysis of their characteristics suggests the synergy with other research fields aimed at developing an interaction design framework as complete as possible. The complementary aspects of the inventive problem solving theory named TRIZ were considered, and the linking was done thanks to the structured approach to information gathering of the house of quality, one of the data structures in the quality function deployment (QFD) design method. The result is the interaction design guidelines (IDGL), a framework implemented in a Microsoft access database that supports designers starting from collecting users’ needs up to the generation of design solutions. This paper describes the IDGL development, together with a first adoption in the field and a validation of the process and results.     

A comparative evaluation of human interaction for design and assembly of 3D CAD models in desktop and immersive environments

Computer aided design (CAD) systems have become today the basic tools used to design and develop products in the industry. In current CAD software most of the editing commands are issued with the aid of widgets and alphanumeric data input devices, while research community is proposing the use of virtual reality environments for CAD modelling. This paper presents an experimental study which compares the performance and usability of a multimodal immersive VR (virtual reality)-CAD system with a traditional CAD system. A comparative analysis was done for the modelling and the assembling process of 3D models. The results obtained from this investigation have shown that, in spite of the variety of interface devices in the virtual environment which provide a natural interaction to the user, the modelling time is about the same compared with a traditional desktop interface. The assembling time, however, is shown to be much smaller for multimodal system. Furthermore, the multimodal interface poses a higher physical stress factor, the hand movement distance being on average 1.6–2.3 times greater than the desktop interface for modelling process and assembling process, respectively. A post-experiment questionnaire shows that the multimodal system produce a great satisfaction for users in modelling and assembly processes.     

Using high-level models for modeling industrial machines in a virtual environment

The work presented in this paper deals with a platform independent model formalism for designing virtual reality applications. In our approach, we focused on industrial machine simulators design. The structure of an industrial machine model is composed by “Virtual Components” which corresponds to the physical industrial components of the machine and a control part which corresponds to the functional specification of the machine. Each virtual component is modeled by VRML model for geometry and by hybrid automata (HA) for behavior. The control part is modeled by Sequential Function Charts (SFC), as it is the case in the majority of industrial machines. Those SFC are translated to HA and composed with the virtual components HA. The whole HA model of the machine is then implemented in the generic virtual environment “OpenMASK” by specific software translation tools which was developed previously. This method makes virtual prototyping accessible by the specialists in the domain of industrial machine design domain In this paper, we describe the high level modeling method putting the accent on the coupling between the control part and the process and then we apply it in the case of an assembly machine.     

Application of the CMII model to an integrated engineering and manufacturing development environment

In all product development cycles, the change process is one of the most critical elements which must be well controlled. This change process, which is comprised within the configuration management methodology, must be one of the key processes supported by an integrated product development environment which supports the concurrent development of design and manufacturing. The CMII business process model proposed by the Institute of Configuration Management is very well documented and has become a reference for modelling the change process within an enterprise. It was thus proposed to evaluate how this model can be implemented within a virtual product development laboratory at école Polytechnique de Montréal which integrates CAD, PDM and MPM technologies. MPM technologies support manufacturing engineers and process planners for the development and analysis of all manufacturing process information. The study has shown that the CMII business model is totally compatible with the methodologies and technologies supported in the laboratory, but that the existing technologies have to support more sophisticated workflow capabilities to support the CMII model. Moreover, the model was found to foster a highly collaborative product and manufacturing process development environment where both engineering and manufacturing information structures are kept synchronized in real time.     

CAD data workflow toward the thermal simulation and visualization in virtual reality

This paper presents a CAD transfer method to visualize thermal simulation results in a virtual environment in order to optimize building design determined by energy efficiency. As the goal is to present a more immersive thermal simulation and to project the calculation results in projective displays particularly in cave automatic virtual environment, the main idea of the method is to provide a workflow so that the thermal result can be visualized and simulated in the virtual environment (VE). The paper shows the experiment results conducted in an immersion room by some respondents. An evaluation of the method has demonstrated that it is possible to conduct a specific data workflow in order to represent building performance data and particularly thermal simulation results in virtual reality (VR). With this method, the data flow that starts from the design process is completely and accurately channeled to the VR system. CAD data in 3D mock-up models composed of basic geometry are usually designed and transferred to other tools particularly if intended for VR. However, CAD data needed for the VE is not simple, it needs to be structured in a workflow method. Challenges in data exchange and interoperability among design, simulation and VR tools used have become an important issue to investigate how the workflow works.     

A RE-CAE methodology for re-designing free shape objects interactively

The paper represents the contribution to the PUODARSI (Product User-Oriented Development based on Augmented Reality and Interactive Simulation) research project in the development of a design environment which integrates modeling tools and CAE simulation capabilities. Typically, aerodynamic and mechanical performances of the object shape are in contrast with the stylistic requirements. Integrated tools and numerical simulations are then needed to support designers during the conceptualization of a new shape or when re-designing a product. This work combines Reverse Engineering methodologies and CAE tools to easily analyze the interaction between the aerodynamic behavior and the stress-strain state, due to viscous and pressure loads, of a physical object. A friendly interactive tool, based on MatLAB^® and linked to Comsol Multiphysics^®, was developed to drive user during the simulation and the visualization of results.     

Interactive simulation of CAD models assemblies using virtual constraint guidance

In the context of virtual reality (VR) and of computed aided design (CAD), haptic simulations are used to perform assembly tasks between 3D objects. To ensure the good assembly of those objects, we propose a new method of interactive assembly that uses both kinematic constraints and guiding virtual fixtures. Modelling a haptic assembly task as a combination of mechanical joints, we focus on the guidance of objects and on the activation cues of kinematic constraints in physical simulation. In this article, we first outline the difficulties related to the haptic-assembly of CAD objects in VR simulation. Introducing the virtual constraint guidance (VCG), we present a new method for haptic guidance that decomposes a task in two independent steps: a guiding step which use geometries as virtual fixtures to position objects, and a functional step which use kinematic constraints to perform the assembly task. We finally present a complete application of our method on a peg-in-hole insertion task.     

Robust design of car packaging in virtual environment

This paper presents a statistical methodology to improve the car packaging setup in the first phase of a new mini-car design. An original procedure for comfort assessment using virtual manikins is formulated. The Robust Design approach enables to identify the optimal level for the main design factors of the new car packaging. The optimal solution is the most insensitive to anthropometric variability. The case study of a new mini-car packaging setup is exploited. The experimental results in virtual environment are obtained using the virtual manikin Jack by UGS. On the base of adequate comfort indexes, the proposed methodology allows defining a car packaging which is, on average, more comfortable than that obtainable as initial setting by applying the Enhanced SAE Packaging Guidelines and the Posture Prediction algorithms proposed by the UMTRI (UMI-USA).     

Turning virtual reality into reality: a checklist to ensure virtual reality studies of eating behavior and physical activity parallel the real world

Virtual reality (VR) provides a potentially powerful tool for researchers seeking to investigate eating and physical activity. Some unique conditions are necessary to ensure that the psychological processes that influence real eating behavior also influence behavior in VR environments. Accounting for these conditions is critical if VR-assisted research is to accurately reflect real-world situations. The current work discusses key considerations VR researchers must take into account to ensure similar psychological functioning in virtual and actual reality and does so by focusing on the process of spontaneous mental simulation. Spontaneous mental simulation is prevalent under real-world conditions but may be absent under VR conditions, potentially leading to differences in judgment and behavior between virtual and actual reality. For simulation to occur, the virtual environment must be perceived as being available for action. A useful chart is supplied as a reference to help researchers to investigate eating and physical activity more effectively.