Objective and subjective measures of performance in virtual reality environments increase as more sensory cues are delivered and as simulation fidelity increases. Some cues (colour or sound) are easier to present than others (object weight, vestibular cues) so that substitute cues can be used to enhance informational content in a simulation at the expense of simulation fidelity. This study evaluates how substituting cues in one modality by alternative cues in another modality affects subjective and objective performance measures in a highly immersive virtual reality environment. Participants performed a wheel change in a virtual reality (VR) environment. Auditory, haptic and visual cues, signalling critical events in the simulation, were manipulated in a factorial design. Subjective ratings were recorded via questionnaires. The time taken to complete the task was used as an objective performance measure. The results show that participants performed best and felt an increased sense of immersion and involvement, collectively referred to as ‘presence’, when substitute multimodal sensory feedback was provided. Significant main effects of audio and tactile cues on task performance and on participants' subjective ratings were found. A significant negative relationship was found between the objective (overall completion times) and subjective (ratings of presence) performance measures. We conclude that increasing informational content, even if it disrupts fidelity, enhances performance and user’s overall experience. On this basis we advocate the use of substitute cues in VR environments as an efficient method to enhance performance and user experience.
The current challenges in manufacturing engineering are the integration of the product/process/factory worlds (data and tools) and the synchronization of their lifecycles. Major ICT players already offer allcomprehensive Product Lifecycle Management suites supporting most of the processes. However, they do not offer all the required functionalities and they lack of interoperability. An answer will be given by the development of a Virtual Factory Framework (VFF): an integrated virtual environment that supports factory processes along all the phases of its lifecycle. This paper will focus on the Virtual Factory Manager (VFM) that acts as a server supporting the I/O communications within the framework for the software tools needing to access its data repository. The VFM will ensure data consistency and avoid data loss or corruption while different modules access/modify partial areas of the data repository at different times. Finally, an industrial case study will show the potentiality of the VFM.
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