See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/251102885

Virtual Reality Aided Design. A survey of the use of VR in automotive industry

Article · January 2008

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-8200-9_13

CITATIONS READS

60 2,764

1 author:

Peter Zimmermann
Virtual Technologies Consulting
37 PUBLICATIONS 158 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

ivip - German government funded project View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Peter Zimmermann on 11 April 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Virtual Reality Aided Design: A Survey of the Use
of VR in Automotive Industry

P. Zimmermann

Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg, Germany

1 Virtual Development

Virtual development started in early 1970 with the first CAD software
packages. They were very bulky, not interactive and the users worked with
punch cards. The computers of those days were as big as 100 PC’s and the
power was really poor. But nevertheless 20 years later nobody in the in-
dustry would relinquish the new technique because CAD became highly
successful in shortening times, offering the possibilities of concurrent en-
gineering and enhancing quality of the results. Thus, CAD and all other
CAx tools were a success.
After the establishment of CAx technology there was the necessity to
extend virtual development by enhancing visualization quality and real-time
intuitive applications by means of Virtual Reality.
As we are now in a virtualized world it seems to be quite simple to in-
stall new virtual technologies with enhanced possibilities. The problem is
that the difficulties of human-machine-interface are rising overpropor-
tional.
The original meaning of VR is the definition as a real-time human-
machine-interface which should work perfectly with all human senses.
Today we are far away from this, it is still a vision [8].

277
D. Talabă and A. Amditis (eds.), Product Engineering: Tools and Methods
Based on Virtual Reality, 277–296.
© Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008
278 P. Zimmermann

2 History of VR in the Automotive Industry

In the early sixties there were some guys who had a vision, too (visions are
very important for mankind). The first head mounted displays were under
development. Some years later the first data gloves were designed. The
early experiments look quite funny for the today’s observer.
Since about 1990 there were the first public demonstrations of VR on
fairs and exhibitions. Like the CAD experiments they were very bulky,
too. But the outlook was quite promising for some of the observers from
industry and they started their own experiments.
At Volkswagen we began 1994, after a visit at the New York Virtual Real-
ity exhibition and in the Silicon Valley. First of all one had to look for some
software and hardware. Speaking of software, a co-operation was started
with the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt, headed by Prof. Encarnacao. The
next step was buying a Silicon Graphics computer and some other stuff in-
cluding spacemouse, data glove and HMD.
But there were nearly no applications available at that time apart from
visualization of some data (the most popular tea pot and some animals).
Resolution of data was some thousand triangles, real-time was about
5–10 fps.
In the course of time some start-ups were founded, mainly as spin-offs
from academia in US (Virtual Tool Kit, VPS) and Europe (vrcom, ICIDO).
Most of them continued developing existent software from their institutes.
The companies which developed hardware (mainly US, e.g. n-vision,
Polhemus, Virtual Technologies) were rather small companies too and
without the power to put a lot of money in the development of new features.
In the beginning market and business volume were restricted because only
big companies were able to finance the expensive equipment.
Silicon Graphics was the shooting star of the computer suppliers with
their new technologies for graphic boards. They were big enough to de-
velop new concepts especially for military customers. 1996 the famous
SGI Onyx IR was presented and was a big success because of their out-
standing power.
1997 and the following years more and more virtual studios were built
in the automotive and aerospace industry. The first attempts to productize
applications were started. The typical studio in these years consisted of a
SGI Onyx, a powerwall, a tracking system and some other equipment. In
the first hype stereoscopic view was in favor.
During this first attempt to enable VR technology as a productive tool it
became clear that supplying just technology is not enough. Data manage-
ment, data acquisition, change of process chains became important factors.
 Virtual Reality Aided Design 279

On the other hand it was obvious that there was a lack in interfaces and
usability of the tools [4, 13].

3 Virtual Reality Aided Design

Virtual Reality Aided Design (VRAD) is mostly on top of conventional

CAx design. Within the product development process the first stages are
producing data, e.g. styling and advance development groups. VR without
data from previous steps is a subject of research for universities and insti-
tutes but not for industry, in the moment.
Successful VRAD requires technical and organizational prerequisites as
well as skilled employees. Management and users have to realize and
accept VRAD as a useful tool.

3.1 Prerequisites

State-of-the-art technology is indispensable to ensure high quality for the

work with VR. Modern PDM systems and suitable tools for fast data ac-
quisition and conversion have to supply the appropriate data and some-
times meta data for the applications. Skilled employees are working in
time to ensure reliable results.

3.1.1 Technical

Especially for personal computers the product cycle is much shorter than
in the past with the big old computers and therefore both is a blessing and
a curse. On the one hand, one has to change hardware and drivers all the
time, on the other hand, the systems supply more power in a shorter period
of time. Thus, there is no other way to live with these circumstances.
Dependent on the application, single and multi processor systems as
well as cluster systems are used today. They have to be compatible as
much as possible in order to keep the software more simple.
In the past there were mainly 3 operating systems in use, Unix, Linux
and Windows. With the use of PC’s Unix plays no longer a role. Linux had
the advantage to be cheap, relatively independent and to support 64-bit
technology. But it seems to be that long term Windows and successors will
be the favorite system because of the overall usability of the hardware and
the compatibility. Another fact is the availability of drivers for new hard-
ware, especially new graphic cards. An important part of a virtual studio is
the display. In industry one can observe several types of displays.
280 P. Zimmermann

Table 1. Displays used.

No. Type of display Typical resolution Mono/stereo
1 Powerwall up to 7 × 3 m 3000 × 1200 both
2 CAVE with up to 4 sides 1200 × 1200 × 2 each stereo
3 L-Projection (2-sides) 1600 × 1200 × 2 stereo
4 HMD 1280 × 1024 × 2 stereo

Fig. 1. L-shape projection.

For some of the studios where displays are mainly used for visualization
tracking is dispensable. For all other, especially those which have CAVE
or 2-sided projections, tracking systems are necessary. In the last couple of
years, optical trackers became the favorite systems. They are normally
much more accurate than magnetic field trackers (about 10 times) and they
have no problems with ferrous metals. One small disadvantage may be
line-of-sight if there are not enough cameras [9].
For desktop interaction the spacemouse is the most used interface,
sometimes simply a mouse. But if the user is inside a CAVE or in front of
an L-shape projection the use of mouses is problematic. In these cases fly-
sticks in conjunction with the optical tracking are often the best solution. If
finger movement is important, e.g. in a seating buck, new developed data
gloves with a certain tactile feedback are appropriate [1].
Regarding the software one has to distinguish between pure visualiza-
tion with limited interaction and real-time Virtual Reality with lots of dif-
ferent interactions and collision detection.
Here we have the choice between many vendors and systems. Table 2
shows an extract of companies and where they are focusing on.
 Virtual Reality Aided Design 281

Table 2. Vendors and VR software products (Europe).

No. Vendor Origin Product Focus on
1 ICIDO GER IC:IDO Virtual Reality
2 Metaio GER Unifeye Augmented Reality
3 RTT GER DeltaGen Visualization
4 Vrcom GER VD2 Virtual Reality
5 vr-easy GER VRed Visualization
6 Dassault FRA Catia V5 CAD, Visualization
7 Dassault FRA Virtools Virtual Reality

3.1.2 Organizational

There exist different approaches to organize the use of VR in industry. As

today the normal designer is more familiar with CAx and does not use VR
every day, VR centers are established. According to the requirements and
the size of the company or the technical development it may be either good
to have one big center or to install several smaller VR studios (desktop VR
is the exception).
The advantage of centers is that all tasks, e.g. data acquisition, data con-
version, scene preparation and the maintenance of the equipment could be
performed by specialists. The user is the data provider and collector, the
coordinator for the meeting and the moderator.
Of course the data have to exist in a way which allows the user and the
specialist to collect everything fast and secure. This is the task of DMU
and PDM systems.

3.1.3 Data Collection and File Formats

The collected data have to be converted into an appropriate format, either

into a parametric format for later usage or directly into a triangle format.
For higher visualization quality the data have to be further provided with
special colors, textures and shaders. Furthermore depending on the type of
application the scene has to be edited, objects have to be made collidable
and meta data for physically based behavior have to be applied.
File-formats remain a big problem in VRAD. There are numerous for-
mats existing either for parametric or for triangle data, some have both
possibilities available. Storing data in a parametric way has some advan-
tages because with these data one can choose different resolutions for dif-
ferent applications and LODs. The de-facto-standard for this format is csb
(cosmo binary by SGI), although it is no longer supported. Many of the
tools from table 2 are able to work with csb. But quite often programs
are using extensions of formats e.g. for storing meta data. Therefore the
282 P. Zimmermann

exchange of data between different systems is difficult and not always

possible without the loss of data.

3.2 The Product Development Process

The Product Development Process (hereafter called PDP) or Product Process

is the central planning task in industry. This directive contains everything
that is important from the very beginning of a new product or car model
until start-of-production or life cycle. Each milestone and/ or gateway is
described in great detail. Deviations from this plan are strictly prohibited.
The PDP is of course a living process. Organizational changes will take
place more or less continuously. In fact it is a task where many internal
organizations including the top management are involved.
If a process inside the PDP should be changed, questions have to be
considered and answered:
a. Which technical and/or economical advantage does the new process
offer?
b. Is the new process safe in view of quality?
c. Will the new process remain at its prior place or not?
d. Is the responsible department able to run this new process?
e. Does the new process imply new/other milestones/gateways?
Before the new process is implemented various tests and phases have to
be passed.

Fig. 2. A simplified Product Development Process.

 Virtual Reality Aided Design 283

Table 3. Comparison Virtual/Physical as an example.

Item Virtual model Physical model
Pixel Resolution 3000 × 1200 pixel infinite
Model Resolution 5 million polygons infinite
Stereoscopic for all observer No Yes
Realistic colors and shadows High degree possible Yes
Zoomable Yes No
Fast creation/manufacturing Yes No
Fast changes Yes No
Show different layout Yes No
Same view on special item Yes Hardly
Show sections/cuts Yes No
Costs Low High

3.2.1 Aspects of Virtual Reality Aided Design

Taking the question b) in view of Virtual Reality or Visualization for ex-

ample the following issues have to be investigated :
a. Is the new process able to replace the established process?
b. Is the new process at least partially able to offer additional benefits?
c. If just partially replaceable, where is the benefit?
d. Is this process applicable for secure management decisions?
To make the importance of these issues visible, let’s assume that the top
management has to decide the exterior styling of a new car model at the
powerwall and not at the physical model (Table 3).
Decision for the PDP out of these investigations would be a new mile-
stone called “Virtual Prototype” (VPT). This VPT will replace partly the
old physical model in an iterative process. At the end of this VPT one
physical model will be build. With this solution all the advantages of
the virtual process and the secureness/reliability of the physical model
with reduced costs and shortened time will be achieved.
The visualization example shows some of the benefits of VRAD and
Visualization. Which other technical and/or economical advantages are
offered? The keyword for this is “Front Loading”. Front Loading normally
means that single processes/ milestones can be accomplished earlier in the
PD and thus shorten the whole PDP and the time-to-market.
The PDP consists out of various stages which are running sequentially
as well as parallel. Many stages are interlocked. Some processes need a lot
of time to proceed regardless of others (for example the time from ordering
a tool for production until its implementation, the development of impor-
tant parts by a system supplier). But working virtually without the need to
284 P. Zimmermann

wait for physical models or prototypes offers a lot of advantages in avoiding

mistakes. Each week there are concurrent engineering groups with members
from design, production planning and quality assurance sitting together,
discussing and presenting their work virtually. This is a well implemented
method within the PDP to encourage front loading.
Beside the first visualization example, where are other processes inside
the PDP where VRAD can be implemented with success? The global
answer is: VRAD is usefull in each process where CAx methods are not
sufficient and/ or conventional hardware is not really necessary.

3.2.2 Solutions of Virtual Reality Aided Design

Within the PDP there are many milestones where VRAD could be de-
ployed. In fact there are less milestones where VRAD really substitute
completely physical and/ or CAD development.
This discrepancy follows from the reasons mentioned before, namely
the acceptance from users and management and the imperfectness of
VRAD itself. Nevertheless it is impressive to see current VRAD activities
in the PDP in figure 3.

Fig. 3. VRAD in the PDP (simplified).

 Virtual Reality Aided Design 285

Fig. 4. Virtual Exterior Model.

3.2.2.1 Digital Models

There are 2 different types of digital models in the PDP, the first is the
virtual styling model, the second is the so called data control model. Some
years before both types were physically (see the comparison in Chapter
3.2.1). Today there are still a lot of physical models but they will now be
built at the end of a decision process (sometimes in between in the styling
phase) while the digital models are the working models (Fig. 4).

3.2.2.2 Ergonomics and Concepts

In an advanced development stage different concepts are evaluated and
compared. Although product specifications define the limits and require-
ments, there is still space to implement good or better solutions. Examples
are the interior concept for the passengers (e.g. reachability of instruments),
the philosophy of the driver’s facilities (e.g. displays, logic of handling),
reflections in the windshield and side windows.

Fig. 5. Seating Buck for Ergonomic Experiments.

286 P. Zimmermann

Fig. 6. Inside a CAVE.

It is evident that the earlier these concepts could be proofed the better
and cheaper the solution would be at the end of development. For these
tasks ergonomic software [15] as well as VRAD are used. Virtual experi-
ments are carried out in seating bucks or inside a CAVE [3]. In table 4
selected items are compared with the more conventional way.
Table 4 shows that planning and proof of ergonomics and concepts has
to carefully consider strengths and weaknesses of the respective technol-
ogy. But basically VRAD is a very cost effective way for a lot of early
investigations.

Table 4. Selected Items of Ergonomics and Concepts.

Item VRAD Physical Model/ Prototype
Realism of Interior To some degree Excellent
Realism of exterior view Fairly good Prototype necessary
Realism of Feedbacks Rather poor Good
Show Modifications/Variants Excellent To some degree
Enter the vehicle Rather poor Good
Loading of luggage compartment Rather poor Good
Experiencing percentiles (5% Good Not possible
female, 95% male)
Driving Fairly good Prototype necessary
Front Loading Effect Excellent Average
Costs Low High/very high
 Virtual Reality Aided Design 287

3.2.2.3 Virtual Assembly

Assembly is divided into 2 sectors, manufacturing and maintenance, where
in maintenance disassembling is an important factor, too. Today’s vehicle
front compartments are filled with numerous additional servos as well
as safety and electronic equipment, in opposite to those 20 years ago.
Within the factory assembling there are more possibilities to implement in-
telligent sequences, in maintenance it is sometimes elaborate to find good
ways to minimize the effort.
There exist a lot of tools like interactive DMU and automatic space and
path finder to find space which could be used for additional parts. The
problem of those software tools is that they are usually just observing
space and path of the part itself and not the reachability of the position and
the space needed for the tools and technicians body parts.

Fig. 7. Virtual Assembling at an L-shaped Display.

Table 5. Comparison of Assembly Try-out.

Item VRAD Conventional
Realism Average Excellent
Availability of data(1) Excellent Poor
Number of assembly checks Many Little
Check of variants Yes Hardly
Disassemble parts for better viewing Yes Hardly
Zooming Yes No
Front Loading Effect Excellent Average
Costs Low High
(1)
The equal status of parts in the conventional assembly is normally not guaranteed
because design is in progress during hardware manufacturing
288 P. Zimmermann

It is quite obvious to try to solve those problems with VRAD but the
devil is in the details. Virtual Assembly is very challenging because it is
not just visualization but highly interactive. At least the software has to
have a real-time collision detection module and even more challenging a
suitable user interface and some additional feedbacks, primarily force
and tactile feedback. For simple assemblies it might be sufficient to show
collisions with red color blinking but if the assembly size exceeds the
view volume it is nearly impossible to successfully simulate the sequence.
In addition there is the necessity to not just include the hands but also
other body parts like arms and the tools or parts have to be grasped in a
natural and correct way [2, 3, 7, 11, 14].
Fortunately there exist many assemblies which can be successfully per-
formed even without the above mentioned techniques and therefore virtual
assembly is a much used tool within the PDP. Advances in the computer
power (which is the field of PC cluster) make it possible to visualize mil-
lions of polygons at real-time speed on stereoscopic multi-sided displays.
Table 5 shows some items in comparison to conventional assembly try-out.

3.2.2.4 Hose Laying

There is a multitude of hoses or pipes within a vehicle. They are in dif-
ferent shape, made of metal and fix, of plastics and/ or rubber and flexible,
cut goods or vulcanized pieces. They are carrying air, water, oil, fuel and
electricity. They are straight, bended, simple way or branched. They are
fixed in different ways, just at their ends and/ or in between. They have a
considerable space requirement (cable harnesses are becoming bigger and
bigger due to increasing electric and electronic equipment). In conclusion,
hoses and cables are an important part of a vehicle and thus for the effort
of design.
The conventional way to design hoses is either to do it by way of CAD
with some assumption about their presumably shape (gravity, fixations if
soft) or by forming a metal substitute when the environment of this par-
ticular part is ready. The substitute is then measured and the data are im-
ported into CAD.
Hose laying by means of VRAD would be quite advantageous. The
complexity of electric harnesses with their different materials, connections
and branches is by far too high for today’s simulation possibilities, but
more simple hoses can be simulated, even if they have a flexible shape.
The usefulness of this frontloading process is manifold. It is not only im-
portant for early space requirement and assembly try-outs, the simulation
of airflow and thermal load of the engine compartment has to be done as
early as possible in order to avoid costly changes in later periods of the
PDP [5, 6].
 Virtual Reality Aided Design 289

Hose laying is one of the seldom applications where data are generated
in VRDP. They are designed according to the regulations for shape, radii
and fitting length, radii can be varied over the length. If they are flexible,
material properties can be included and the flexible behavior can be simu-
lated through FEM algorithms either in real-time or near real-time.
The output of the simulation will be either the center line in STEP format
for the export into CAD or coordinates for a bending machine.
Hose laying with VRAD software is really simple. Within the displayed
environment the user is acting with a cordless flystick and a 3D menu. Re-
strictions are included automatically, parallel pipes generation and asymp-
totic approximation to neighbor parts are completing this software tool.

Fig. 8. Hose Laying in Progress.

Table 6. Comparison of Hose Laying.

Item VRAD CAD/ Hardware
Real 3D generation Yes No/ Yes
Fast and Easy Yes No/ No
Data Export Yes Yes/ Yes (measures)
Collaborative Yes No/ No
Flexible Behaviour included Yes No/ No
Front Loading Effect Excellent Yes/ No
Costs Low Low/ High
290 P. Zimmermann

Fig. 9. Flexible Hose.

3.2.2.5 Augmented Reality and Mixed Mock-Up’s

Augmented Reality and Mixed Mock-Up’s (see figure 10) are the logical
evolutionary steps of Virtual Reality. Initial government funded projects
all over the world have substantially promoted this technology through-
out the last years [10]. Automotive and aerospace industry contributed
heavily to the success of these projects. After commercialization of software
and partly of hardware first results have been obtained for the daily work
[12]. These applications do not deal so much with latest findings but with
more simple techniques like superpositions and comparisons real/virtual.

Fig. 10. Milgram’s Continuum.

 Virtual Reality Aided Design 291

Fig. 11. Principal Layout of AR Application.

Technological ingredients of Augmented Reality applications are normally

– Optical tracking system
– Video camera
– Interface, e.g. optical flystick
– Video-see-through display
– AR software
Figure 11 shows the principal layout of an AR application.
The following applications are representative for the usage of AR and
Mixed Mock-up in industry:

Table 7. AR and Mixed Mock-up Applications in Industry.

Application Domain Task/Advantage
Superposition real/ Development/Quality Proof of accuracy part
virtual assurance and location
Designing virtual part/s) Development Fast design in prototype shop
in a real environment
Digital factory Production planning Proof-of-concept/layout in
a real factory with virtual robots/
production facilities
Digital factory Production planning Virtual vehicle on a real skid
drive-through in production
Comparison real/virtual Development Comparing new car model with
competitors car
292 P. Zimmermann

Fig. 12. AR Application Example.

Some additional AR applications would be possible with optical-see-

through systems (HMD’s), if this technology will become applicable. With
ergonomical HMD’s (Head-mounted-displays) which could be worn during
a working tour of several hours, AR technology could be used for many
tasks in the production.

3.2.2.6 Side Effects of Virtual Reality Aided Design

There are a couple of other techniques which are participating more or
less from VR technology and VR equipment. These are
– Presentation of results from FEM, Deep Draw Simulation, CFD
Computations
– Presentation of DMUs in form of complete data sets of the entire
vehicle
– Presentation of an entire factory
– Virtual Car Clinics

3.3 Economic Aspects

As already mentioned before, the challenges for automotive industry are

manifold. One important aspect is the economy of the development process
with simultaneous consideration of the quality of results. Virtual and
Augmented Reality are playing a relevant role in order to shorten the time-
to-market, increasing the quality of development and reducing the overall
costs.
 Virtual Reality Aided Design 293

Fig. 13. Economics.

More precisely, time-to-market is not only important to respond to market

trends and changes it is also an expense factor. The shorter development
time and the earlier start-of-production, the shorter amortization delay and
thus the better the return-of-invest will be. Figure 13 is illustrating these
facts.
Within the PDP the most important cost factors which could be posi-
tively influenced by VRAD and other virtual techniques are:
– Model and prototype costs
– Reduction of change costs
– Delay times (models, prototypes, parts)
– Communication
The potential of savings through the use of DMU and VRAD is significant.
An example should illustrate this. Let us assume that for a car model in-
cluding all 32 variants (different engines, gears, left and right steering) an
analysis has to be made concerning a new additional feature within the
front compartment. The “old way” would be to build 16 physical front
compartments under the assumption that the 16 missed variants will be
checked only by way of logic. The “new way” will be to build the most
important 8 by way of deduction in hardware and the other 24 by DMU
and VRAD. The cost effect will be about 50% savings and the additional
effect will be 100% provision against risk and a reduction of delay time.
The after effect of this mode of operation will be the reduction of
change costs. Change costs will occur during the end phases of PDP, for
example within the pilot production. Then changes in design will normally
294 P. Zimmermann

lead to heavily increased costs in opposite to the costs for software

changes in the early stage of development.

4 Summary

Virtual technologies like CAx are heavily used in industry for a long time.
Some years ago Virtual and Augmented Reality too started to play a
relevant role in the product development process. But there are high re-
quirements on the quality of software, hardware and user interfaces as well
as on the quality of results achieved with these techniques.
We are on the way to fulfill some of these requirements. Many VRAD
applications have entered the product processes of automotive and aero-
space industries. Some of these applications have been described and
marked as very useful and have been compared to more conventional tech-
niques. In many cases they have advantages. Normally they will be used in
collaboration with other tools and hardware. In conclusion VRAD adds
additional benefit for time-to-market reductions, quality enhancements and
cost savings to the product development process.

5 Outlook

As always mentioned before many questions concerning VR and AR tech-

nology remain open. The typical cost/benefit behaviour of technical sys-
tems is valid also for simulation. That means that, at a certain point, costs
will become overproportional to the benefits achieved. Thanks to the pro-
gress in hardware many components will not only become cheaper, they
will also become more powerful and they will offer new and additional
benefits.
Improvements have to be achieved in the following fields:
– Display resolution for powerwalls
– Multi-user displays for collaborative work
– Ergonomic head-mounted-displays with better field-of-view
– Force and tactile feedback interfaces/devices
– Natural interfaces, physically based
– Photo realistic effects in real-time including soft shadows, reflections,
refractions, high dynamic range, global illumination
– Markerless real-time tracking
– Authoring systems for AR applications
 Virtual Reality Aided Design 295

– Automated data acquisition and preparation with globally valid

formats
– Standards for improved data exchange

References

1. German patent application publication DE 10 2005 011 432 A1Data glove

with tactile feedback
2. Hulin T, Preusche C, Hirzinger G (2005) Haptic rendering for virtual
assembly verificationWHC World Haptics Conference 2005, Pisa, March 18-
20, 2005.
3. Moehring M, Fröhlich B (2005) Pseudo-Physical Interaction with a Virtual
Car Interior in Immersive Environments IPT & EGVE Workshop 2005, Oct.
6 - 7, 2005 • VR Media Lab • Aalborg University, Denmark
4. Purschke F, Rabätje R, Schulze M, Starke A, Symietz M, Zimmermann P
(1998) Virtual Reality (VR) – New Methods for Improving and Accelerating
Vehicle Development; Virtual Reality for Industrial Applications, Springer
Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg 1998, pp 105-122, ISBN 3-540-63348-0
5. Rabätje R (2003) Real-time simulation of deformable objects for assembly
simulations ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 36
Proceedings of the Fourth Australasian user interface conference on User
interfaces 2003 – Volume 18, Adelaide, Australia, pp 57 - 64 ISBN ~ ISSN:
1445-1336 , 0-909925-96-8
6. Symietz M (2000) Echtzeitbasierte Generierung und Verlegung von
Leitungsobjekten in einem digitalen Fahrzeugmodell mit einem Virtual-
Reality System PHD thesis; Bielefeld, Universität, Technische Fakultät, 2000
URN (NBN): urn:nbn:de:hbz: 361-3254
7. Zimmermann P, Preusche C, Rettig A (2002) Entwicklung eines Kraft-
Feedback-Systems für virtuelle Umgebungen Integrierte Virtuelle
Produktentstehung, Abschlussbericht, S. 125-133.

Internet Resources

8. http://interreality.org/static/docs/manual-html/x49.html
9. www.ar-tracking.de
10. www.arvika.de
11. www.haption.com
12. www.metaio.com
13. www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/conferences/eg2002/programme/ industrial.html#IS03,
Virtual and Augmented Reality in Industry, 2002
14. www.percro.org
15. www.ramsis.de
 296 P. Zimmermann

Notes

The following trademarks are belonging to their respective owners

Onyx, Onyx IR, SGI, cosmo binary, Silicon Graphics Inc.
CAVE, University of Illinois, Chicago
Windows, Microsoft Inc.

Glossary

AR Augmented Reality
CAD Computer Aided Design
CAx Computer Aided
CAVE Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
DMU Digital Mock Up
EOP End Of Production
FEM Finite Element Method
HMD Head Mounted Display
LOD Level Of Detail
PDM Product Data Management
ROI Return Of Invest
SOP Start Of Production
STEP Standard for The Exchange of Product model data
VR Virtual Reality

View publication stats