Immersive Virtual Reality In Cable and Pipe Routing: Design Metaphors and Cognitive Ergonomics

Holt, Patrik O'Brian; Ritchie, James Millar; Day, Philip N.; Simmons, John E.; Robinson, G.; Russell, George; Ng, F. M.

doi:10.1115/1.1759696

Cited by 37 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Piping algorithms can be categorized into two major groups, the automatic methods and the semi-automatic ones [ 1 ]. The former group includes deterministic and heuristic methods [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 19 ], while the latter is mainly composed of expert systems and immersive virtual reality procedures [ 2 , 18 ]. Deterministic piping procedures always produce the optimum solution when routing a single pipe.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The problem domains of pipe routing vary on a case-by-case basis, and the applications of the pipes are very different [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 15 , 18 , 19 ]. Experts’ experiences and domain knowledge are valuable for routing pipes.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, a researcher proposed building immersive virtual reality tools [ 18 ] and expert systems for pipe routing [ 3 , 5 , 12 ]. In these systems, real-time visualization is incorporated into pipe-routing programs to help the designers lay out pipes and evaluate the results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Distance-Field-Based Pipe-Routing Method

Ueng

Huang²

2022

Materials

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Pipes are commonly used to transport fuels, air, water, gas, hydraulic power, and other fluid-like materials in engine rooms, houses, factories, airplanes, and ships. Thus, pipe routing is essential in many industrial applications, including ship construction, machinery manufacturing, house building, laying out engine rooms, etc. To be functional, a pipe system should be economical while satisfying spatial constraints and safety regulations. Numerous routing algorithms have been published to optimize the pipe length and the number of elbows. However, relatively few methods have been designed to lay out pipes which strictly meet the spatial constraints and safety regulations. This article proposes a distance-field-based piping algorithm to remedy this problem. The proposed method converts the workspace into a 3D image and computes a distance field upon the workspace first. It then creates a feasible space out of the workspace by peeling the distance field and segmenting the 3D image. The resultant feasible space is collision-free and satisfies the spatial constraints and safety regulations. In the following step, a path-finding process, subjected to a cost function, is triggered to arrange the pipe inside the feasible space. Consequently, the cost of the pipe is optimized, and the pipe path rigidly meets the spatial constraints and safety regulations. The proposed method works effectively even if the workspace is narrow and complicated. In three experiments, the proposed method is employed to lay out pipes inside an underwater vehicle, a machinery room, and a two-story house, respectively. Not only do the resultant pipes possess minimal costs, but they also meet the spatial constraints and safety regulations, as predicted. In addition to developing the routing procedure, we also design a visualization subsystem to reveal the progression of the piping process and the variation of the workspace in the run time. Based on the displayed images, users can therefore evaluate the quality of the pipes on the fly and tune the piping parameters if necessary.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Distance-Field-Based Pipe-Routing Method

Ueng

Huang²

2022

Materials

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“…Unfortunately, these complex 3D designs are still most often viewed on a 2D computer screen, which requires advanced spatial reasoning skills to piece together a 3D mental model of the design [16]. Past studies with VR have shown that people are able to understand these complex 3D designs faster and more completely in an immersive virtual environment (VE) where they can see the design in 3D.…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of an Immersive Virtual Environment for Collaboration With Gesture Support Using Low-Cost Hardware

Coburn

Salmon

Freeman

2018

Journal of Mechanical Design

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Since the advent of modern computer-aided design software, engineers have been divorced from the highly collaborative environment previously enjoyed. Today's highly complex designs require modern software tools and the realities of a global economy often constrain engineers to remote collaboration. These conditions make it highly impractical to collaborate locally around physical models. Various approaches to creating new collaboration tools and software, which alleviate these issues, have been tried previously. However, past solutions either used expensive hardware, which is not widely available, or used standard two-dimensional (2D) monitors to share three-dimensional (3D) information. Recently, new low-cost virtual reality (VR) hardware has been introduced, which creates a highly immersive 3D experience at a tiny fraction of the cost of previous hardware. This work demonstrates an immersive collaborative environment built using a network of this hardware, which allows users to interact with gestures virtually and conducts a study to show its advantages over traditional video conferencing software.

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“…Given the need for alternative methods of interaction, many different methods and devices have been developed and tested. Past methods include wands [71,72], sensor-gloves [16,73,74], force-balls [75] and joysticks [16,37], voice command [37,76], and marked/markerless IR camera systems [77][78][79][80]. More recently, the markerless IR camera systems have been shrunk into consumer products such as the Leap Motion TM Controller and Microsoft Kinect V R .…”

Section: Recent Research In Steroscopic Displaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of the Capabilities of Current Low-Cost Virtual Reality Technology and Its Potential to Enhance the Design Process

Coburn

Freeman

Salmon

2017

Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering

120

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In the past few years, there have been some significant advances in consumer virtual reality (VR) devices. Devices such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Leap Motion™ Controller, and Microsoft Kinect® are bringing immersive VR experiences into the homes of consumers with much lower cost and space requirements than previous generations of VR hardware. These new devices are also lowering the barrier to entry for VR engineering applications. Past research has suggested that there are significant opportunities for using VR during design tasks to improve results and reduce development time. This work reviews the latest generation of VR hardware and reviews research studying VR in the design process. Additionally, this work extracts the major themes from the reviews and discusses how the latest technology and research may affect the engineering design process. We conclude that these new devices have the potential to significantly improve portions of the design process.

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Immersive Virtual Reality In Cable and Pipe Routing: Design Metaphors and Cognitive Ergonomics

Cited by 37 publications

References 7 publications

A Distance-Field-Based Pipe-Routing Method

A Distance-Field-Based Pipe-Routing Method

Effectiveness of an Immersive Virtual Environment for Collaboration With Gesture Support Using Low-Cost Hardware

A Review of the Capabilities of Current Low-Cost Virtual Reality Technology and Its Potential to Enhance the Design Process

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