A VR simulation framework integrated with multisource CAE analysis data for mechanical equipment working process

Nowadays, the virtual reality (VR) technology has been widely used in machinery to verify the working process and performance of equipment prototype in early design stage. To gain insight into the coupling of process verifying the timing and rhythm of equipment working and performance indicating the quality of equipment, a VR framework is proposed in this paper to integrate the modeling and simulation of working process with the visualization of multisource analysis data from various computer-aided engineering (CAE) software. The framework is equipped with an extended discrete event system specification (DEVS) method, named scripted DEVS, which divides the process modeling into two stages, namely, behavior modeling and data customization, and frees the mechanical designer from programming. Based on the method, a uniform procedure of data integration is designed to hide the specific structure and visualization implementation of diverse data from the modeler by a script format called PDTree (Process&Data Tree) and a series of visualization interfaces in model-view-controller (MVC) pattern. Three applications of different working processes are also presented finally to verify the flexibility and compatibility of the framework.