Designing and evaluating a workstation in real and virtual environment: toward virtual reality based ergonomic design sessions

Abstract

This paper adresses the issue of properly designing a digital mockup (DMU) to be used in an experiment comparing simulated assembly tasks in both real and virtual environments. Motivations and specifications relative to the experiment are reported, and the design process of the DMU is described and illustrated. Recommendations are proposed with a particular focus on specificities relative to the use of a DMU as a support for both manufacturing and virtual reality-3D visualisation and interaction. A subjective evaluation of Real (RE), Virtual (VE), and Virtual with Force Feedback (VEF) environments is provided. Results indicate a real sensory and difficulty gap between RE and VEF, whereas a smaller difference was observed between RE and VE. In further improvements of scale-1 (where the objects in VE have the same size as in the real environment), colocalized simulation using haptic devices are warranted to fill in this gap. Results also highlight the impact of cognition and sensory feedback on user's feeling and presence sensation. Applications of such numerical designs are presented in the last section, especially focusing on collaborative design sessions. Virtual Reality based evaluation of newly designed workstations will be a way in the future to improve design and user learning processes.

Model Based Compensation for Low Mass Objects Haptic Manipulation in Virtual Environments

“…To do so, it is necessary to evaluate objectively biomechanical quantities such as postures, joint angles or forces and compare them with the real task. Moreover, the comparison between what the user feels and what he actually does is of importance since it defines how transferable are the results from the virtual setup to the real world [6,7]. Indeed, the correlation between subjective ratings of discomfort and objective measurement such as postural rating and load capacity rating has been investigated in the past.…”

“…However, tasks requiring for a moderate or high level of force to be fulfilled cannot be properly simulated with such a device. Indeed, to ensure a high fidelity level for such cases, it is necessary to propose an interaction enabling forces exertion between the user and the virtual environment [7,8]. Haptic devices have the ability to ensure this realistic interaction since they provide a force feedback to the user when this user interacts with a virtual object.…”

Media and Technology for Understanding Cities: Rebuilding the Past and Designing Interactions in Future Urban Spaces With Ict

“…Interdisciplinary fields such as human-computer interaction (Barfiel, 2015, Shneiderman & Plaisant, 2017, interaction design (Pontonnier et al, 2014, Lin et al, 2017), ergonomics (Fan et al, 2017, Geiger et al, 2017 or affective computing (Chittaro & Sioni, 2014, Parsons & Courtney, 2016, applied to the area of virtual reality will be a key aspect in the improvement of our experience when interacting with a digital environment created to depict cultural heritage.…”

Multi-Embodiment of Digital Humans in Virtual Reality for Assisting Human-Centered Ergonomics Design

“…Pontonnier et al [36] investigated the difference between ergonomics evaluation in physical environment and VR with results suggesting that although VR is slightly inferior to physical environment, the difference is insignificant and the potential of VR is greater. VR is widely utilized in manufacture [5], industrial workstation [29] design and usability evaluation.…”