A Haptics-based Virtual Environment for Engineering Design and Manufacturing Applications

Haptic technology is revolutionizing the way people work in 3D on computers. Haptics allows people to directly interact with digital objects and data exactly as they do in the real world-using their sense of touch. Hitherto, designers and artists have used haptics to intuitively sculpt models using digital clay. Haptic feedback devices allow doctors to perform remote virtual surgical operations. Most applications however seek to make up for the lack of sense of touch and its effects. The following paper investigates the application of the haptics loop using for decision support activities in core engineering areas like shop floor design and manufacturing. An architecture combining large-scale visualization environments with haptics is proposed. The interaction of multiple loops running an application and the procedural advantages and difficulties faced are addressed. Finally, the Virtual Factory environment (VFACT) is used as a test-bed to validate the efficacy of haptics for facility design and layout. A prototype using haptics for intuitive exploration of the design space for single row machine layout is implemented. “