Interactive web‐based training tool for CAD in a virtual environment

Abstract

AbstractInnovative products and reduced time‐to‐market are essential for competitiveness in the modern market. Consequently, it is very important for industry to apply new information technologies and training tools to support product development, production planning, and other product processes. Virtual reality is one of these enabling technologies. This investigation proposes a novel approach to enhance CAD training and design in a web‐based environment such as a Web browser or VR browser. Previous investigations successfully developed a CAD curriculum analysis and design, and also proposed the use of virtual reality modeling to improve training techniques. For this reason, this study designs a simple interactive web‐based training tool for CAD in a virtual environment, along with an integrated graphics real‐time system. Using OpenGL, the proposed system can run on different operating systems, such as Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows NT, Linux and Macintosh. Owing to the increasing need for design and training CAD in network environments, drawing real‐time complex curves and surfaces in a network browser is an emerging technological trend. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 10: 182–193, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.10024