Virtual Reality for Product Layout Configuration

One of the main problems of the product design and realisation process is the prototyping: the construction of prototypes for the functional, technical, aesthetic and ergonomic tests is a reason for modifications and recalls. It is also a cause of physical modification of the prototype itself. In this way, in the process there are just the spread of raw materials and the use of resources as machines, time and money. The use of Virtual Reality (VR) to make the prototyping process digital, immersive and interactive improves the process saving raw materials, costs and time. In this paper is presented a leading application in immersive-VR, developed at ITIA - CNR in the context of Eureka CODERAVI project, for the layout configuration of whitegoods in a designers technical meeting: a user wears a HMD and a dataglove and, by interacting with the virtual environment, s/he chooses the components from a library, mounts them together, modifies them, therefore generating a circular process until the obtainment of the desired result. The virtual experience of this user is projected on a wide screen so that the designers team can interact with him in a virtual meeting where suggestions and comments can be lived in real-time thanks to the actions of the user directly immersed in the virtual environment. A virtual user interface into the environment allows the user to manage the objects and the actions in a natural way. The tool developed and presented in this paper is an example about how VR can be conceived as a support tool for the virtual prototyping, by working in a virtual world where it is possible to perform several tests without any danger and cheaper then the traditional way.