An Educational Support for Casting Design Using Immersive Virtual Environment

Abstract

An environment where Japanese industry has been paid with respect is changing tremendously due to the globalization of economics, where other Asian countries are undergoing economical and technical development as well as advancing in information technology. With acceleration of manufacturing bases relocating abroad, industrial hollowing out is happening; hence effort to transfer the technology and the design knowledge of machine design in a company is becoming an important subject. For example, in the design of custom casting products, a designer who is lacking in casting knowledge may not be able to produce a good design. In order to obtain a good design and manufacturing, it is necessary to equip the designer and manufacturer with a support system related to casting process or so called, knowledge transfer and creation system. This paper proposes a new educational support system for manufacturing technology; where machine design, which requires added values such as advanced technology, high quality, and short delivery time, is taken as an example and both its explicit and tacit knowledge are cooperated by using synchronized multimedia and immersive virtual environment.