Three-dimensional Digital Environment Research Articles

Mixed Reality-based chemical reactor visualization

A multi-tubular reactor for butadiene synthesis was developed, visualized using Microsoft HoloLens2, and built to allow immersive human interaction. Fluid analysis is particularly important in reactor design, including heat generation, temperature distribution, and mole fraction of reactants and products. Flow analysis is mostly executed with CFD tools like Open FOAM and ANSYS Fluent. Post processing software visualizes the CFD findings. However, the post-processing software is focused on the engineer, which lacks user-friendliness for the user who actually builds the reactor [Matthias Berger and Verina Cristie, 2015]. Contemporary technologies like virtual reality and mixed reality were applied to improve this. Virtual reality is a technique that creates a virtual world in a three-dimensional digital environment that blocks out the actual world. Furthermore, mixed reality technology interacts with virtual things made in the real world, minimizing heterogeneity and creating a smart environment where reality and virtuality are united by maximizing immersion. So, using Unity 3D, a gaming engine, a multi-tube reactor was created in virtual reality. Menus, selection windows, and buttons are also implemented in C# to facilitate interaction. This VR was then deployed to Microsoft HoloLens2 via Visual Studio. The HoloLens2 is an un tethered wearable holographic computer that offers bidirectional video, speech, and MR composite communication [Guy Martin et al., 2019]. An integrated mixed reality system was finally created that instantly reflected mutual conversation. This approach can also be employed in distillation towers, heat exchangers, separators, pumps and other process equipment performance monitoring. Smart manufacturing and a digital twin termed future plant can be accomplished by observing the actual process and implementing an autonomous data interaction system.

INTEGRATION OF BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING AND AGENT-BASED MODELING FOR EVACUATION SIMULATION

Abstract. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a highly advanced spatial modeling method that is fully incorporated in the building lifecycle. With the support of Information Technologies, the use of BIM has become common in building management such as energy efficiency, indoor navigation and emergency evacuation simulations. This study focuses on emergency evacuation simulations since, integrating BIM and Spatial Information Science, could mitigate casualties in emergencies. Traditional evacuation management methods are generally inadequate since they are based on 2D evacuation plans, they are static and do not consider the characteristics/interactions of the people in the building. This study aims to integrate BIM and Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) for emergency evacuation simulations, where characteristics of the building and the users are incorporated. Istanbul Technical University Faculty of Civil Engineering was selected as study area and the BIM model was created by using the CAD drawings of the floor plans. The users of the Faculty building such as students, academicians, administrative staff and visitors are considered for simulations. The BIM model was transferred to the ABM environment, and the routes used during the fire evacuation were generated. Fire evacuation simulations were performed, where agents having different characteristics evacuate the building according to the rules predefined. Three different scenarios were tested. Major conclusion of this study is that, via integrating BIM and ABM, it is possible to model people’s behavior within a three-dimensional digital environment, where decision-makers could be performing simulations such as fire evacuation supported by dynamic, realistic and accurate information.

Preventing Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders in Manufacturing by Digital Human Modeling

This research concerns the workplace design methodology, involving digital human models, that prevents work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). We propose an approach that, in conjunction with one of the classic WMSD risk assessment methods, allows one to simplify simulations in a three-dimensional digital environment. Two real-life workstations from a manufacturing industry were modelled in a 3D Studio Max environment by means of an Anthropos ErgoMax system. A number of simulations show that, for the examined cases, classic boundary mannequins’ approaches can be replaced by using 50th percentile of a population individual, with a minimal impact on the WMSD risk. Although, the finding might not be suitable in all situations, it should be considered, especially where compromise solutions are being sought due to other criteria.

Augmented and Virtual Reality in Surgery

Augmented and virtual reality are transforming the practice of healthcare by providing powerful and intuitive methods of exploring and interacting with digital medical data, as well as integrating data into the physical world to create natural and interactive virtual experiences. These immersive technologies use lightweight stereoscopic head-mounted displays to place users into simulated and realistic three-dimensional digital environments, unlocking significant benefits from the seamless integration of digital information with the healthcare practitioner and patient's experience. This review article explores some of the current and emerging technologies and applications in surgery, their benefits and challenges around immersion, spatial awareness and cognition, and their reported and projected use in learning environments, procedure planning and perioperative contexts and in the surgical theatre. The enhanced access to information, knowledge, and experience enabled by virtual and augmented reality will improve healthcare approaches and lead to better outcomes for patients and the wider community.

Darkness and brightness of the cybernaut's behavior in the Three-dimensional Immersive Digital Environments

This work is an exploratory study on the subject of the behavior of the cybernaut that oscillates between the darkness of the unknown and the brilliance of the discovered when experiencing immersion in three-dimensional digital environments. However, technoscientific advances not only offer advantages but also present risks for the end-users of the devices that are managed to access virtual worlds, virtual reality, and augmented reality. In the best scenario, all developers would be in the dynamic of offering entertainment programs to promote new ways of learning and living together. However, the intentions oscillate between the search for profit, the concealment of deviant intentions, or even the pleasure of dominating or harassing third parties. To avoid such abuses, studies are required that prevent such deviations and that propose pedagogical objectives to use such advances in favor of citizenship education in general and, in particular, to encourage new generations in their own integral development which It can be enhanced through simulation and fiction programs that trigger the creative imagination capable of bringing out the virtues emitted by the brilliance of wisdom and full life from darkness, by exercising in decision-making that involves others, especially the most vulnerable by their age or condition.

Development of a Foss-Based Hardware-in-the-loop Platform for Control Engineering Education

This work deals with the development of a laboratory platform based on the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation techniques, designed and assembled for utilization as a didactic tool in the control engineering education area. It allows simulation and analysis of industrial control loops and controllers dynamics belonging to the shop floor operations, but with potentiality for operation in the supervisory level, incorporating safety and optimization techniques. The developed module, based on Java language and Eclipse compiler, that are Free Open Source Software ( FOSS) tools, encompasses a three-dimensional digital environment that simulates an industrial plant dynamics, but whose operation is based on hardware components: an external PID controller and an industrial inverter. Being a FOSS-based development this module has no restriction for its utilization. The interface between the hardware components and the three-dimensional digital environment is based upon a PIC 16F877A design. The developed module simulates, partially, the dynamics of a real pilot plant belonging to the Industrial Process Laboratory of the Engineering College of the UFJF, incorporating some of its complexities and nonlinearities and operates with the same time constants. The developed HIL platform, totally FOSS-based, can reinforce the educational laboratory practices for improving engineering education especially that one related to industrial process control, supervision, and optimization.

Discrete Event Simulation Implemented in a Virtual Environment

Virtual reality (VR) technology provides a human-computer interface that allows participants to interact naturally with digital objects which are represented as three-dimensional images that occupy positions in a three-dimensional world. Related to problems of engineering design and manufacturing, this new technology offers engineers the ability to work with computer models in a three-dimensional, immersive environment. This paper describes a virtual reality application where the results of a discrete event simulation of a manufacturing cell are integrated with a virtual model of the cell to produce a virtual environment. The program described in this paper, the VRFactory, combines results from a commercial discrete event simulation program, SLAM II, with a virtual environment. This allows the user to investigate, using three-dimensional computer models, how various changes to the manufacturing cell affect part production. This investigation is performed while immersed in a computer-generated three-dimensional representation of the cell. Existing discrete event programming software allows only two-dimensional views of the factory as the parts progress through the simulation. Parts are shown only as primitive geometric shapes on the computer monitor and instantaneously move from one station to the next. The virtual environment implementation of the SLAM II results allows users to experience the simulation in a fully immersive three-dimensional digital environment. The virtual environment used here is a CAVE™-like projection screen-based facility called the C2, which is located at Iowa State University. This paper describes the creation of the VR model of the manufacturing cell, the animation of the environment and the implementation of the results of the discrete event simulation.