Virtual Prototyping for Concurrent Engineering

James Oliver
Judy M. Vance
Greg Luecke
Carolina Cruz-Neira
Iowa Center for Emerging Manufacturing Technology
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011-2160

International Projection Technology Workshop Proceedings, Stuttgart, Germany, July 15, 1997, pp.51-57.

Abstract
Preliminary results are presented from an ongoing cooperative industry/university research project exploring the application of synthetic environment technology to stream-line the product development process. We are investigating the development and use of virtual prototypes of vehicles systems for a variety of product development applications including customer evaluation of design alternatives, consensus resolution of conflicting design and manufacturing constraints, and optimization of assembly and production processes. By making such tools available to an entire product development team, we feel that synthetic environment have the potential to become the primary communication medium facilitating concurrent engineering practices of the future.

Click to see an image.