CEA LIST - Assembly/Disassembly of mechanical Components for Industry

CEA List

Interactive systems and devices are playing an increasingly important role in our daily lives and are the key to intelligent applications of the future. As part of its Virtual Reality and Sensorial Interfaces Program, the CEA List’s and simulation tools to meet industrial needs for virtual prototyping and mission planning.

The Application

This application was developed within the framework of the PerfVR project (part of an RNTL platform - financed by the French Ministry of Research). A joint project including CEA List, Renault, PSA, Dassault Aviation, ADS/CCR,
Haption, and Ondim, PerfRV seeks to establish working methods based on new technologies capable of responding to the needs of industry: cost reduction and improved productivity.

The goal of CEA List’s application is to develop a virtual system for visualizing assembly/ disassembly processes of a mechanical device and - with the help of a 6D force-feedback arm – test its feasibility, ergonomics and relative diffi culty. This system is to be marketed for use by engineering fi rms working for major industrial clients.

The Challenge

To simulate the assembly conditions of mechanical devices in
order to:

• visualize the assembly/disassembly for feasibility and ergonomics
  before the actual fabrication phase,
• reduce the number of physical prototypes to reduce product
  development costs and delays.

To develop this application, CEA List needed a 3D development tools that would allow:

• 3D simulation of different assembly scenarios in a an immersive
  environment,
• an easy transition from CAD to real time graphics,
• rapid and easy integration of modules for physics calculations.

The Solution

The authoring tools of Virtools Dev and the Virtools VR Pack allowed the development team to simplify the application’s conception and creation process. Starting with Virtools’ proprietary and intuitive graphic user interface, CEA List conceived of an application that optimally manages VR displays and peripheral devices.
For this application CEA List chose to work with industry standard tools such as Catia and Solidworks for the CAD data and Havok and Vortex for the real time dynamic and physics calculations. Virtools Dev’s fl exible open architecture (complete with SDK, graphic programming, and the Virtools Scripting Language) allowed the development team to interface highly realistic, interactive physics simulations modules. The threeprogrammer development team continued working on its usual software programs, concentrating on industry specific modules that were combined with Dev’s behavioral and rendering engines, without dealing with incompatibility problems. Virtools software suite’s latest addition, Virtools OpenCAD, allowed users to optimize their 3D CAD models and quickly export them to the Virtools fi le format. Once these models are imported into Dev, all the necessary interactivity can be easily added.

Key Benefits

• Comprehensive real-time 3D authoring platform (Virtools Dev and Virtools VR Pack) that allow the rapid creation of multimodal immersive applications.
• Flexible, open architecture that allows the integration of third party software for advanced VR/Simulation applications.