Development of VR Monitoring System for Gas Plant

Abstract

VR(Virtual reality) technologies have given engineers the ability to design, test, and evaluate engineering systems in a virtual environment. The virtual plant is the highlight of the application of the VR technology to plant engineering. Plant design, maintenance, control, management, operation are integrated in the virtual plant. The VR monitoring system including the concept of the virtual plant is developed to replace a current control room that has number of gages and warning lamps in two-dimensional panels which shows the operating status of a plant. The operating status of the plant is displayed in the VR monitoring system through the realistic computer graphics. Sophisticated, realistic and prompt control becomes possible. The VR monitoring system consists of advanced visualization, walk-through simulation and navigation. In the virtual environment, a user can navigate and interact with each component of a plant. In addition, the user can access the information by just clicking interesting component. The VR monitoring system is operated with various modules, such as (1) virtual plant constructed with Graphic Management System (GMS), (2) Touch & Tell System, and (3) Equipment DB System of Part. In order to confirm the usefulness of the VR monitoring system, a pilot gas plant which is currently being used for plant operator training is taken as application. The end of the paper gives an outlook on the future work and a brief conclusion.