Virtual reality (VR) refers to an immersive, interactive, multi-sensory, viewer-centered, three-dimensional (3D) computer generated environment and the combination of technologies required to build such an environment (Cruz-Neira, 1993). Related to problems of engineering design and manufacturing, this new technology offers engineers the ability to work with computer models in a three-dimension...

This Science Fiction Prototype explores the idea that the current interest in maker space activities could continue to grow to the point where it causes a sea change in the manufacturing industry as it shifts from centralised production in factories, to a distributed production in people’s communities or homes. This move is a natural extension of a number of research trends, such as the increas...

This paper presents a method for simulating basic manufacturing operations (unload, load, process, move, and store) in a 3D virtual environment. The virtual environment provides a framework for representing a facility layout in 3D, which encapsulates the static and the dynamic behavior of the manufacturing system. The 3D manufacturing objects in the facility are mapped with the nodes in the fra...

The Virtual Organizations paradigm is gaining a growing importance in manufacturing as an instrument to help companies face the challenges of fast evolving market conditions. In this context an overview of current trends in areas such as virtual enterprises, industry clusters, virtual communities, remote supervision and virtual laboratories, and required infrastructures is presented. Fast shop-...

During the analysis and design of manufacturing systems, enterprises are challenged by existing restrictions and the running production. To handle these key issues, different digital tools and approaches have widely been implemented in recent years. By mean of such tools and approaches, a manufacturing system is able to be adapted whenever changes occur. As one of the most important approaches,...

Virtual Reality technology is becoming an increasingly popular in diverse areas from scientific data analysis to entertainment. An important feature of this technology is the Stereoscopic display of computer-generated images to produce three-dimensional visual effects. The visualization tool is an ASCII text file driven system to visually simulate the modeled operation in 3D virtual space. Ster...

Nowadays, with the increasing pressure of the competitive business environment and demand for diverse products, manufacturers are force to seek for solutions that reduce production costs and rise product quality. Cellular manufacturing system (CMS), as a means to this end, has been a point of attraction to both researchers and practitioners. Limitations of cell formation problem (CFP), as one o...