ONESVIEW: An Integrated System for One-Stop Virtual Design Review

Abstract

The influence of design aspects on the commercial success of a product is increasingly important nowadays. For many consumer products, such as television sets and mobile phones, an appealing design is often even more important for the purchase decisions of customers than functional aspects. This observation stresses the importance of adequate design decisions early in the creative process for a new product. Progress in virtual reality technology enables us nowadays to observe and evaluate virtual prototypes of products; thereby, we obtain a realistic impression of the design and properties of their physical equivalents. These prospects raise the need for an integrated design process from product data management (PDM) to virtual reality. In this article, we introduce ONE-Stop VIrtual dEsign revieW (ONESVIEW), which is a novel approach for an integrated virtual design review system that consists of several interrelated subsystems developed in this article, namely, Middleware for Exchanging Machinery and Product Data in Highly Immersive Systems (MEMPHIS), Virtual Material Laboratory (VMLab), Collaborative Design Review System (CORE), and Mixed Reality In Virtual Engineering (MRIVE). By MEMPHIS and VMLab, realistic virtual prototypes can be created more quickly, conveniently, and efficiently. Using CORE, the design review can be carried out in collaboration. Finally, through MRIVE, we can evaluate and determine the final design in a real-world environment. All the data involved in this process can be managed by the revision control system of CORE and the entire process, from PDM to the selection of the design, is a one-stop process. As a result of this study, it is possible that decision making can be done effectively at an early stage within the design process.