Immersive Engineering Simulation on Your Desktop

ESI Group, a provider of virtual prototyping software and services, has announced the upcoming version 11 release of its industrial-grade VR (virtual reality) solution IC.IDO. ESI reports that version 11 builds off the enhancements introduced earlier this year in version 10.2 by extending the system’s capabilities to provide immersive VR simulations on the individual engineering desktop. A second major enhancement in IC.IDO version 11 cited by the company is new ECM (engineering change management) support for updating simulation and VR attributes.

ESI Group says that the upcoming version 11 release of its IC.IDO VR (virtual reality) engineering simulation system will enable engineers wearing an HMD (head-mounted display) to interact with designs using their desktop workstation. Image courtesy of the ESI Group and the Ford Motor Company.

IC.IDO 11, according to ESI, will empower individual engineers and small work groups without access to a CAVE (cave automatic virtual environment) or a Powerwall display installation to use VR for virtual assembly and service simulations as well as immersive visualizations and CAD data interaction. Body suits and active body tracking are not required.

A key new component, the new IDO.NaturalInteract module, enables engineers wearing an HMD (head-mounted display) to interact with a human simulation with a realistic, first person view, according to ESI. With this capability, engineers can perform “human in the system” evaluations using fully simulated hands, forearms and upper arms to interact with their designs. Engineers can interact with CAD data at a 1:1 full scale as well as walk among, lift, carry, push and pull their designs with full interactivity in a room-scale virtual reality.

ESI Group says that IC.IDO 11’s new ECM support ensures that VR attributes assigned to imported CAD objects update automatically when they are replaced with newer engineering release-level data. This, explains the company, gives virtual prototyping engineers the potential to build and evolve their models continuously without stopping to re-create models based on new part geometry. A company spokesperson adds that IC.IDO’s new ECM support should reduce the amount of time engineers spend moving “from PLM (product lifecycle management) to revised virtual reality sessions significantly.”

Additional enhancements introduced in IC.IDO version 11 include a new high-performance rendering framework and modern object data modeling. The earlier IC.IDO 10.2 release saw two new complementary modules, IDO.SolidMechanics and IDO.Elastic, introduced.

IDO.SolidMechanics enables engineers to simulate the dynamic behavior of multiple rigid components simultaneously. Features include realistic spatial depiction of virtual products and the possibility to interact directly with those virtual products for such operations as assembly and joining sequences.

With IC.IDO version 11, engineers can perform “human in the system” evaluations using fully simulated hands, forearms and upper arms to interact with their designs. Engineers will be able to lift, carry, push and pull their designs with full interactivity in a room-scale virtual reality. Image courtesy of the ESI Group and the Ford Motor Company.

The IDO.Elastic module extends IDO.SolidMechanics by simulating 1D elastic components, including cables and hoses. Based on the IDO.SolidMechanics’ solver, IDO.Elastic predicts in real-time the dynamic behavior of individual flexible components as well as complete wire harnesses and full cable branches.

With the IC.IDO 11 release, ESI “foresee[s] a potential degree of magnitude increase in session data ready for immersive reviews in a CAVE, on Powerwall or through individual immersive desktop workstations,” wrote a company spokesperson in an e-mail to DE.

ESI Group also predicts “more individual engineering reviews of subsystem or subassembly decisions [using] immersive desktop sessions as well as improved maturity of data at Gate reviews [and] fewer high impact to cost, quality or lead-time issues identified at major Gate reviews or during physical prototyping.”

For more information on IC.IDO, visit ESI Group.

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Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.