Collaborative Engineering and Virtual Prototyping Within Virtual Reality

Synonyms

Collaborative engineering; Computer aided design; Computer aided engineering; Prototyping; Virtual reality

Definitions

Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) are now benefiting from advantages of virtual reality systems in terms of visual collaboration between engineers, designers, and customers, reducing prototyping costs and minimizing required design and development time.

Introduction

Virtual prototyping is a method in the process of product development. It uses outputs of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software to validate the design before making a physical prototype. Traditionally, it is done by using one or combination of more than one 3D computer software to generate geometrical shapes and combining them in order to test mechanical motions, functions, and fit. These geometrical shapes represent parts of the project and they could be manipulated by CAE software to simulate the behavior of the part in the real...