A system for rapid creation and assessment of conceptual large vehicle designs using immersive virtual reality

Currently, new product concepts are often evaluated by developing detailed virtual part and assembly models with traditional computer aided design (CAD) tools followed by appropriate analyses (e.g., finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, etc.). The creation of these models and analyses are tremendously time consuming. If a number of different conceptual configurations have been determined, it may not be possible to model and analyze each of them due to the complexity of these evaluation processes. Thus, promising concepts might be eliminated based solely on insufficient time and resources for assessment. In addition, the virtual models and analyses performed are usually of much higher detail and accuracy than what is needed for such early assessment. By eliminating the time-consuming complexity of a CAD environment and incorporating qualitative assessment tools, engineers could spend more time evaluating concepts that may have been previously abandoned due to time constraints. To address these issues, the Advanced Systems Design Suite (ASDS), was created. The ASDS incorporates a PC user interface with an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment to ease the creation and assessment of conceptual design prototypes individually or collaboratively in an immersive VR environment. Assessment tools incorporate metamodeling approximations and immersive visualization to evaluate the feasibility of each concept. In this paper, the ASDS system and interface along with specifically designed immersive VR assessment tools such as state saving and dynamic viewpoint creation are presented for conceptual large vehicle design. A test case example of redesigning an airplane is presented to explore the feasibility of the proposed system.