Open architecture for embedding VR based mechanical tools in CAD

Hrishikesh S. Joshi

Virtual assembly technology is revolutionizing the way we design mechanical assemblies. This technology enables the users to interact with virtual models of mechanical assemblies in an immersive environment. The user interacts with the virtual environment via various hardware devices, which can track motion and other user inputs. These devices Haptic devices are also capable of providing touch and force feedback to the user. The existing virtual assembly systems however are not tightly integrated with the CAD systems that are primarily used for modeling the assemblies. This disconnect between the CAD systems and virtual reality (VR) environments is one of the most important limitation in the existing virtual assembly systems. In this thesis we propose an open architecture for embedding VR based virtual mechanical tools in the CAD systems. The goal of this research is to enhance the CAD experience by allowing the user to interact with the CAD assemblies inside a virtual environment in a more realistic manner. The open architecture is designed to leverage off of the inherent visualization capabilities provided by any commercial CAD system. The architecture consists of a CAD plugin module, which is primarily responsible for interacting with the CAD system and handling the visualization through the application programming interface (API) exposed by the CAD system. The other significant module of the proposed architecture is the Graphics-Haptics bridge (GHBridge), which is built on top of the haptics API. The GHBridge enables the integration of haptic devices with diverse visualization systems. Thus, the CAD plugin and the GHBridge together facilitate tight integration between the CAD system and the haptic devices. We also propose a CAD model library structure for managing virtual tools that can be used for assembly operations in the virtual environment. The proposed architecture is implemented to provide virtual assembly functionality for CATIA V5 CAD system and VirtualHand toolkit haptics API. This implementation (VR Tools) supports assembly and disassembly operations on CATIA assemblies that use threaded fasteners. The user can choose from available virtual tools to manipulate compatible fasteners in the virtual environment.

Open architecture for embedding VR based mechanical tools in CAD

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