Preliminary realization of immersive EAST system using virtual reality

Abstract

Aiming at the complex and confined environments of experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) and the need to improve the ability of resident and visiting scientists to access and understand EAST, the immersive EAST system based on virtual reality is developed. Compared to previous virtual EAST systems, model reality, rendering speed, immersion and interaction functions are greatly increased. In the previous system, models were transformed from CATIA and imported to 3DS Max for subsequent processing. While those models have the advantages of being very precise and easily generated, they come at the price of decreased rendering speed and poor rendering quality because of a large loss of triangle faces. In this regard, EAST models are rebuilt and materials created by photos of EAST device are assigned to models. Moreover, because virtual reality is quite effective at creating experiment scenarios thanks to their ability to provide the feeling of immersive operation and collaborative environments, model libraries are built during this research for future scheme generation and hardware installation training. The immersive EAST system is developed in the Unity3D environment using a Client/Server architecture, the HTC Vive and handheld devices are used to provide the immersive scene, intuitive controls and realistic haptic feedback. Users can roam in the virtual scene and interact with the immersive EAST using the handheld devices and communicate with other users in the system. The establishment of the system provides the framework for a comprehensive and cooperative experiment and training environment for EAST.