Engineering Graphics Research Articles

Технологии дополненной реальности в проектной деятельности студентов

This study’s relevance is determined by the absence of serious research, science-based, tested and verified programs and training materials related to the use of Augmented Reality (AR) technologies when getting students education in Engineering and Computer Graphics (ECG). The study’s aim was the introduction of AR-technologies in the project activities of first-year students. The study was conducted on the base of St. Petersburg Mining University. 48 first-year students of the Civil Engineering Faculty, pursuing a specialist's degree in “Construction of Unique Buildings and Structures”, participated in the project activity. The students' project activities results showed that at present, AR-technologies have gained popularity not only among designers and planners, but also among schoolteachers, as well as among lecturers and students of technical universities. A student team of St. Petersburg Mining University solved the design problem using AR-technology and created an informational 3-D model of the building structure. The existing methods related to students training have been completed and updated with the method of graphical presentation for the students' project activities results with the help of AR-technologies. As a result of the students’ project activities study, has been revealed the thoroughly obvious need for teaching a new generation of students to use AR-technologies. The aim is implementation of AR-technologies by students in the perspective, with continuous and subsequent self-education, as well as teaching future designers of rational use of AR-technologies to solve educational and practical problems, including areas of engineering and computer graphics. The study had showed that currently there is not enough of scientifically based learning materials for the organization of students' project activities using AR-technologies. Has been revealed the need for further scientific research in the field of AR-technologies implementation in the students’ project activities within the framework of ECG academic discipline. The paper materials can be useful for lecturers of all levels.

3D-MODELLING OF THE AIRCRAFT ASSEMBLIES AND PARTS USING COMPAS-3D. AIRCRAFT STRENGTH ASSEMBLIES AND PARTS (HOLDERS) DRAWINGS DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY

It is obvious that the fundamental knowledge of the general technical discipline “Engineering graphics” should be in combination with a practical course of computer graphics, which allows students to integrate into the aviation products development system at the contemporary level. The article highlighted the need of design teaching at the initial stage of engineering and computer graphics study process. A drawing methodology includes 3D-modeling in a computer aided design program named COMPAS-3D. It is described a specific example of the mechanical part (aviation detail's elements – holders) with complex shape modeling algorithm in the application to the manufacturing technology of real products (casting, stamping, mechanical processing). Drawings development is based on 3D-modeling in COMPAS-3D. Proposed methodology was tested during engineering and computer graphics lessons in Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University).

Engineering and computer graphics for effective training in a construction university

One of the most important disciplines for the training of civil engineers is engineering and computer graphics. However, traditional training in engineering graphics does not bring tangible results, so there is a need for the introduction of modern innovative approaches and methods. It is proposed and justified the use of a combined approach to teaching engineering graphics, based on the combination of three-dimensional modeling in AutoCAD 2018 and traditional, on paper, manually. Studies conducted on the basis of the Kazan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering have shown the feasibility of using a combined approach. So, as a result of the experiment, it turned out that the most effective assimilation of educational material according to the results of graphic work was demonstrated by the group of students who, when it was used, used both the capabilities of 3D modeling and the ability to manually perform graphic work, with this approach, students receive additional skills, which will become relevant in their future professional activities.

FEATURES OF TEACHING ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS.

FEATURES OF TEACHING ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS.

An Exploration of First Year Pre-service Engineering Graphics and Design Teachers’ Spatial Visualisation Ability at a University of Technology

The critical shortage of engineers in South Africa is linked directly to the schooling systems’ inability to develop fundamental skills required in engineering courses, such as spatial visualization ability. Not much is known on the factors that enable or constrain the development of students’ spatial visualization skills. This study aimed to explore first-year Engineering Graphics and Design (EGD) Pre-Service Teachers’ (PSTs) spatial visualization skills and the factors that enables or constrains their spatial visualization skills. A mixed-method approached was used to generate data. Data were from twenty-one first year EGD PSTs at a University of Technology, in Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa. The participants were purposively selected to participate in the study. The Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations (PSVT: R) was used as a benchmark to establish participants level of spatial visualization skills. Collages and focus group interviews were used to explore the factors that enabled or constrained PSTs spatial visualization skills. The PSVT test results was analysed and categorized as per rotation. Qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. The findings of this study differ from that of other studies on student’s spatial visualization skills. Other studies provide consistent evidence that male students have better developed spatial visualization skills than females. First-year female participants in this study have higher scores than male participants in the PSVT:R. The factors that enhanced female students’ spatial visualization ability were playing with Legos, enjoying mathematics, working with indigenous patterns while teachers and violence at schools constrained the development of spatial visualization skills.

CONTEMPORARY NEEDS OF MEDIA LEARNING MATERIALS FOR FUTURE Z-ENGINEERS

Modern students are digital natives: from an early age, they are used the Internet, social networks and mobile systems. Due to the specific brain structure of Generation Z students, the use of traditional teaching tools makes the learning process not effective. Also, an insufficient number of lecture hours in curricula requires from students more independent work. This article presents the experience of creating interactive teaching materials designed to study and master the skills of graphical engineering subjects. Educators of technical universities from five countries took part in the development of the material. These interactive teaching tools are created with the aim of improving the quality of engineering education, the rapid and effective presentation of educational material, which will contribute to the understanding of difficult topics.

Near-Threshold Voltage Design Techniques for Heterogenous Manycore System-on-Chips

Aggressive power supply scaling into the near-threshold voltage (NTV) region holds great potential for applications with strict energy budgets, since the energy efficiency peaks as the supply voltage approaches the threshold voltage (VT) of the CMOS transistors. The improved silicon energy efficiency promises to fit more cores in a given power envelope. As a result, many-core Near-threshold computing (NTC) has emerged as an attractive paradigm. Realizing energy-efficient heterogenous system on chips (SoCs) necessitates key NTV-optimized ingredients, recipes and IP blocks; including CPUs, graphic vector engines, interconnect fabrics and mm-scale microcontroller (MCU) designs. We discuss application of NTV design techniques, necessary for reliable operation over a wide supply voltage range—from nominal down to the NTV regime, and for a variety of IPs. Evaluation results spanning Intel’s 32-, 22- and 14-nm CMOS technologies across four test chips are presented, confirming substantial energy benefits that scale well with Moore’s law.

Enhancement of Learning Outcomes by Using Active Learning Technique for Engineering Graphics Course

This paper presents the implementation of Project Based Learning for diploma First year Mechanical Engineering students for Engineering Graphics course. Engineering Graphics course is an important basic communication tool of engineers. The concepts of graphical language are used in expressing the ideas, conveying the instructions, which are used in carrying out the jobs on the sites, shop floor. It is expected that the students should develop the idea of visualizing the actual object or part on the basis of drawings and blue prints. Traditional learning styles in classroom education are questionable and lacking in providing the necessary tools needed by the students to meet ever growing demands of industries. This paper aims to demonstrate improved student learning outcomes and increased student participation using active learning tools. The performance of the students of two consecutive batches is compared where for one batch this technique is not used and for other the technique is implemented. This consideration concludes that project-based learning is the best way to fulfil industry needs and it will facilitate students to innovatively and creatively transfer their knowledge to the real world situation.

On the Issue of Practical Orientation of Teaching Students of Technical Universities the Basics of Descriptive Geometry

Purpose of the research. The introduction of a distance education system in the form of an electronic educational environment in modern conditions requires new approaches to increasing the interest of students in learning the material. This is especially true for general education subjects. One of the ways to improve the efficiency of learning disciplines is to link theory with practice. In addition, traditional practical tasks on subjects of the general education cycle do not fully take into account the application of the acquired knowledge in the future professional activity of students. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to study the methodology and develop solutions to tasks that most fully take into account the practical orientation of the studied subjects of the general education cycle in technical universities. Materials and methods. As the object of research, the course of descriptive geometry was chosen as the most difficult subject for students of the first year of higher educational institutions of technical direction. Based on the analysis of the structure of the discipline “descriptive geometry and engineering graphics", the authors propose to link the practical part of the course to a specific technical device. Then, using the accepted assumptions, theoretical positions and goals of studying descriptive geometry, we need to develop a set of interrelated tasks that describe the design of a technical device and the interaction of its elements, allowing you to develop the initial skills of the student with mechanical drawings manually, as well as through computer programs both standard and developed by lecturers of the Department “Descriptive Geometry and Graphics " of the Penza State University of Architecture and Construction. Results. The article presents the results of applying the practical orientation of the theoretical provisions of descriptive geometry for students studying in the direction of “Operation of transport and technological machines and complexes" of the Penza State University of Architecture and Construction. As a visual technical device, the liquid supply regulator, used in automotive equipment is selected. Essentially practical orientation is to solve three interrelated problems to determine controller parameters by the methods of descriptive geometry: relative position of subassemblies of the regulator (integrated positional task); determination of the actual values of the elements of the regulator (how to convert a drawing); characterization of the body of the regulator for creation of the flask when casting (intersection of the surfaces and scan one of the bodies coated with line-crossing). The results of solving the tasks are presented in the form of calculation and graphic works and laid out in the electronic environment of distance learning, as the final report documents for the study of the main sections of the course of descriptive geometry. The lecturer places examples of calculation and graphic works’ implementation in the electronic educational environment, features of formation of initial skills for drawing and reading machine-building drawings, and students upload their decisions to the page of the corresponding course in stages or the work performed as a whole.Conclusion. In the final part of the article, conclusions are formulated based on the results of the research, made by the authors. The conclusions reflect the ways to achieve the goals of studying descriptive geometry using computer technologies and e-education. In addition, the uniqueness and results of using the proposed method in a technical University are shown.

Адаптация дисциплины «прикладная геометрия» к программам бакалавриата эксплуатационных направлений авиационного вуза

The problem of teaching and formulating the tasks for the “Applied Geometry” discipline is considered in this paper. Currently, in aviation high educational institutions there is a tendency to reduce the number of hours allocated to graphic disciplines; in addition, “Descriptive Geometry” – the habitual name of the discipline – has been replaced by name “Applied Geometry”. This is certainly connected with the transition to learning on undergraduate programs, that implies a competency-based approach, i.e., training in accordance with the necessary knowledge and methods of activity in a particular area [4; 9; 23; 29; 30; 34]. The planned results of learning in “Applied Geometry” include knowledge of methods for solving applied engineering-geometric problems, as well as the ability to use the basic elements of applied geometry and engineering graphics in professional activities, and to solve specific applied problems of geometric modeling [4; 14; 20; 22; 32]. For these reasons arises the question of the need to adapt “Descriptive Geometry” to the requirements and programs for the training of bachelors, bringing it to conformity with the name “Applied Geometry” of the discipline. According to the results of “Applied Geometry” studying, students ought to gain experience and have the ability to independently solve cognitive, organizational and other problems related to their future professional activities [28–30]. In this paper is proposed a general approach to the formulation of “Applied Geometry” problems for cadets pursuing a bachelor's degree in “Air Navigation” (25.03.03) and “Operation of Airports and Flight Support of Aircraft” (25.03.04). Using rather simple examples, has been considered the possibility to formulate the problem in such a way that instead of the traditional formulation it could be applied for a specific bachelor's degree. As well has been considered a complex applied problem, which is suitable as a task for performing a computational and graphic work, since it integrates several topics of the discipline.

Architecturally truly diverse systems: A review

The pairing of traditional multicore processors with accelerators of various forms (e.g., graphics engines, reconfigurable logic) can be referred to generally as architecturally diverse systems. Our interest in this work is truly diverse systems, in which more than one accelerator is used in the execution of an application. These systems have the potential for substantial performance gains relative to multicores alone; however, they pose significant difficulties when it comes to application development.In spite of these difficulties, the use of accelerators in high performance computation, generally, has grown substantially over the past decade. This is primarily due to a pair of forces. First, with the demise of Dennard scaling, power has become a substantial limiting factor in systems development, pushing computations to be more power efficient (a strength of many accelerators). Second, the application development environments for accelerators have improved substantially in recent years.We review the use of multiple, distinct accelerators deployed in a individual system or, more to the point, used concurrently within an individual application. We give a history of architecturally diverse systems that use multiple accelerators, discuss the motivations for diversity in accelerators, and describe the approaches that both system designers and application developers have used to put accelerators to beneficial use.

Selecting an Initial Lemma List in Specialized Lexicography: A Case Study in the Field of Graphic Engineering

Specialized lexicography in graphic engineering has never had a tool in dictionary format that facilitates knowledge acquisition for students and meets their specific lexicographic needs in a technical university context. This paper presents an initial lemma list for a Spanish dictionary in the field of graphic engineering. The Delphi method has been used to assure expert consensus in this area. In addition, two equally professional surveys have been conducted by an expert and endorsed by experts. The fundamental concepts are considered, either because of the difficulty they represent, or due to their importance within our field of knowledge for which engineering documents and technical standards with technical graphic elements have been employed. Students have taken part in the process, thereby allowing identification of convergences and divergences between both groups of participants. The paper concludes with, on the one hand, a final list of accepted concepts and, on the other, of additional uncertain concepts, which could satisfy dictionary user needs and constitute the beginning of a functional online dictionary.

<p>Reliability and Validity for a 3-D Modeling Self-Efficacy Scale for Pre-College Students</p>

Engineering graphics education has long been a required component of technology and engineering education at the university level. In middle and high schools, the number of computer-aided design (CAD) programs continue to proliferate and grow. Lacking in the research related to these programs is the effect on non-cognitive factors such as self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a predictor of success and perseverance and is an important consideration in technology and engineering education. This research investigates the psychometric properties of an instrument designed to measure the three-dimensional modeling self-efficacy among middle and high school students.
 This study found the Three-Dimensional Modeling Self-Efficacy Scale to be a reliable measure within this population with strong evidence of validity. Based on these findings, the scale was revised, and recommendations for future study were made. This research begins to fill a gap not only in research related to engineering graphics self-efficacy but also within a pre-college population, especially those who are historically underrepresented in engineering disciplines, in this case, female students.

Computer practice in engineering graphics

The article discusses the problems of teaching students engineering and computer graphics in a single course based on a computer-aided design (CAD) system. Examples of training tasks for acquiring knowledge, skills and abilities in the environment of the drawing and graphic editor of the AutoCAD system are given. They are necessary when performing drawings on engineering graphics, as well as the graphic part of course projects for students of mechanical specialties. Examples of exercises for self-study of the material are considered for a deeper study of the drawing-graphic module structure of the system and the acquisition of skills to work with its tools. The article also discusses several topics for studying the graphical editor AutoCAD, it reveals their contents and provides methods for completing practical tasks. 
 A comprehensive training program extends the ability of teachers to submit material, increases students' interest in graphic disciplines, so it can achieve better results in their development. However, there are a number of problems with this approach. Different levels of basic knowledge of students in the field of computer technology require greater individualization in the organization of the educational process. An additional burden for the teacher is to check the electronic drawings and to control the independence of students' work when performing graphic works using CAD. Combining engineering and computer graphics requires more intensive work from students.
 It is noted that the implementation of the proposed set of tasks is only the first stage of training students in computer technologies for creating design documentation. The acquired knowledge, skills and working skills in the environment of the AutoCAD system will be in demand when studying modern means of three-dimensional modeling. The execution of drawings using computer tools is undoubtedly more attractive to students, compared to traditional drawing. 
 It is also important to create conditions for actualizing the intellectual potential of students, as well as the formation of positive motivation. Enthusiastic students independently master the functions of the system that are not intended for study by the curriculum. They participate with pleasure in Olympiads in engineering and computer graphics.
 Ways of improving the verification of graphic works by a teacher are developped. A partial solution to the problem of checking the graphic part of course projects using preliminary drawings in a draft version and intermediate printouts of their electronic versions are proposed.

Multi-GPU Island-Based Genetic Algorithm

Genetic algorithms are effective in solving many optimization tasks. However, the long execution time associated with it prevents its use in many domains. In this paper, we propose a new approach for parallel implementation of genetic algorithm on graphics processing units (GPUs) using CUDA programming model. This paper introduces a novel implementation of the genetic algorithm exploiting a multi-GPU cluster. The proposed implementation employs an island-based genetic algorithm where every GPU evolves a single island. Recently there has been a growing interest in developing parallel algorithms using graphic processing units (GPU) also referred as GPU computation. Advances in the video gaming industry have led to the production of low-cost, high performance graphics processing units that possess more memory bandwidth and computational capability than central processing units (CPUs). As GPUs are available in personal computers, and they are easy to use and manage through several GPU programming languages, graphics engines are being adopted widely in scientific computing.

Efficient & Flawless Output in Engineering Drawing, Through Pat Software Tools

Perception, Analyzing skills and cogitating levels of the 21st century students makes them to stand one step ahead of the yesteryear's practices of teaching. 20th century was an era wherein it was a mandate for everyone to have a teacher or instructor to guide and make a student learn the concept as well train them as an expertise in that domain. The traditional way teaching concepts still holds it upper hand or supremacy in most of the domains of engineering subjects. Areas like Engineering Drawing not only needs the traditional methods but also the aid of software's as virtual approach plays a vital role in bringing accurate output & helps for a better understanding. The traditional method of chart and scale is never an outdated one, its the pioneer in drawing but the need of the hour has changed as the student is thinking through a creative aura of imagination/virtual reality, and which can be easily executed in less time, through the software, than the traditional method. Moreover its been evident that the 21st century students and highly inclined towards the Practical Learning, through a survey conducted on 75 students who were taught with both traditional and applied approaches. This paper's purpose is to elevate this concept. Understanding and executing is very important in drawing, but efficacy is the most important ingredient in achieving the accurate result which can be possible with the aid of, a variety of soft ware tools. This improvisation of efficacy is possible at both ends, Instructor as well the Learner. Finally this paper aims at discussing the usage of 10 possible software tools that were already tested and used for effective teaching of Engineering Graphics.

Transversal applying of the digitalization strategy

A brief overview of the possibility and readiness for digitalization of automotive industry companies has been presented. Since production processes and systems can be more intelligent, they allow to reach the high-quality standards required in service, what is the only way to maximize the improvement of its components from the very beginning of the process.Digitalization is one of the main levers to enhance business and increase competitiveness in the industry, that provides huge opportunities in the future. One of the important conditions is increase flexibility, that allows quickly to adapt production facilities and processes to changes in production and product lines of customer. The digitalization strategy should be applied transversely to all processes, starting from production, logistics, and quality till design, procurement, human resources, or finance. Transversal applying of digitalization strategy is possible in the creation of technology centers graphic engineering worldwide, the use of computerized simulation, CAD systems and virtual 3D environments for research, analysis, evaluation, validation and improvement of production processes. The important aspect to form the future is the development of innovative solutions that contribute turning new concepts into an industrial reality.The revolution in logistics digitalization gives automakers and service providers the opportunity to stay flexible and to be ahead of time. The main transformers are data and digital rethinking of the supply chain, that contribute a significant growth in trade. Advanced automakers create a digital workforce and program robots to solve repetitive tasks. All this provides full flexibility in software development with integrated in it robot’s hardware, fast iterations and adjustments, when it is necessary, which might not have been easily achieved using traditional methods. These projects can be extended to ones with greater investment. Mainly, more flexible and service-oriented solutions can be implemented as a response to speed and automation in logistics. Thereby, it is possible to satisfy the changing and demanding needs of customers now and in the future.

A Semi-Fragile Reversible Watermarking for Authenticating 2D Engineering Graphics Based on Improved Region Nesting

To achieve high tampering localization precision and low distortion, a semi-fragile reversible watermarking for authenticating 2D engineering graphics is proposed based on an improved region nesting and a novel watermark generation. First, an intensive investigation is performed to the recently proposed region nesting (RN) partition. It is found that the original vertex and its mapped one cannot be guaranteed to be on the same line, which means that it still has room for improvement in term of distortion. Based on this, an improved region nesting partition (IRN) is proposed. Secondly, inspiring by the idea of soldiers parading, a novel watermark generation based on the short hash of the adjacent geometric features is developed. Then, a new coordinate system is constructed to achieve invariability of translation, scaling, rotation and entity re-arrangement. Based on the above techniques, a semi-fragile reversible watermarking for authenticating 2D engineering graphics is put forward. Experimental results and analysis show that IRN can obtain at least 15% distortion reduction compared with RN, the precision of tampering localization can be improved to a single vertex, and a certain semi-fragility in translation, scaling, rotation, and entity re-arrangement can be achieved. Furthermore, it has no file size expansion, and can obtain a good balance among imperceptibility, semi-fragility and tampering localization precision.

Improvement of graphic training of first year students of design specialties

The work considers issues of improvement of geometric and graphic training of students of the first year of architectural specialties. The low graphic culture of applicants entering design specialties is due to many factors, among them the lack of creative examination on drawing when entering these specialties in higher education institutions. The work shows that in order to improve the profile competence of future artists already from the first year it is necessary to improve their graphic culture, creating in the course of discipline "Project graphics" professionally oriented graphic tasks. First of all, it concerns the study of the topic "Line Curves." The results of many years of experience in the Department of Descriptive Geometry and Engineering Graphics at KNUCA and the analysis of Student’s drawings works made it possible to draw conclusions about the need to study the tasks of construction circular curves and manual draw smooth curves of varying radii using patterns (a French curve). Second-order curves should lines (quadric), also be used in the professional activities of future designers. They can be used to base the geometry and create geometric models of curved planar contours of different geometric entitiesAnalysis of graphic training of students of the first year of creative specialties showed the need for immediate improvement of their graphic culture. Graphic competence requires further training and improvement of the specifics of professional training of bachelor's degrees. The development and use of special graphic assignments, which will be oriented to further professional activities of future specialists, will allow setting up students to solve professional design issues.

Dynamic Wind Field Simulation and Efficiency Analysis Over 3D Terrain Based on the Lagrangian Method

A method for simulating a three-dimensional wind field is proposed in which a graphics engine is used together with some feature data from CFD (computational fluid dynamics) calculations. First, important data such as DEM (digital elevation model), wind speed and wind direction data are extracted from the CFD output file. Combined with data that may represent the characteristics of wind, including wind speeds, wind directions, grid unit wind direction vectors and unit vectors normal to the topography, the wind properties of each grid are derived. Then, the organization mode of the terrain grid is optimized based on the OSG (OpenSceneGraph) graphics engine. Furthermore, multithreading tasks load the segmented terrain maps and generate the texture. The main thread renders all the generated textures in batches according to the index file and synthesizes the whole terrain. In this way, the nodes of the wind field are set up and modified according to the properties of the corresponding grids. Finally, the Euler and Lagrangian methods are applied to describe the wind field features: the former describes the velocity and direction of each point in the field at a certain time, while the latter is adopted to continuously represent the changes in the velocity and direction of a particle. Experimental results show that the FPS (frames per second) value is within a reasonable range and can still meet the real-time requirements of rendering as the research area expands.