A Virtual Reality Environment for Spherical Mechanism Design

Pierre Larochelle
Mechanical Engineering Department
Florida Institute of Technology
Melbourne, FL 32901-6988

Judy M. Vance
Iowa Center for Emerging Manufacturing Technology
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011

J. Michael McCarthy
Mechanical Engineering Department
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92717

1997 National Science Foundation Design and Manufacturing Grantees Conference Proceedings, Seattle, Washington, January 7-10, 1997, pp. 85-86.

Abstract
In this paper we present our ongoing effort to develop a virtual reality environment to facilitate the design of spherical mechanisms. Moreover, we review the practical motivations for the ongoing research and discuss the goals that we expect to achieve. This virtual reality design environment will be based upon new synthesis and analysis theory as well as the existing state-of-the-art results in the fields of spatial mechanism design and virtual reality. It is our hope that this new and innovative design tool will facilitate the design and implementation of spherical mechanisms in industry.

For more information on this project, see the research project: Isis – Interactive Synthesis of Spherical Mechanism Design