Industrial Case Studies
Seismic analysis and well planning on oil & gas fields
In the area of oil and gas exploration and field management, Schlumberger is an industry-leading service company. Their software division, Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS), develops and supports a powerful immersive application, Inside Reality, based upon technology developed by Norsk Hydro and Christian Michelsen Research AS. Inside Reality is used in immersive, tracked environments for interactive well planning, real-time geosteering and geophysical analysis.
With Inside Reality, tracking is an essential part of the user paradigm. Projected in a 3D immersive environment, integrated datasets consisting of 3D seismic data, geological interpretations, reservoir models, and well data is combined in a common virtual world. Geologists, engineers and managers collaborate in this virtual environment to analyze the data and to plan and optimize new well paths with the goal of maximizing production.
Through the use of tracked wands with buttons, interactive 2D slice planes are used to analyze seismic data sets or 3D probes to obtain the best view of possible new well locations. Buttons are used to activate and manipulate different types of graphical objects, like existing wells, or can be used to draw and plan new wells. Simple gestures, both with and without buttons pressed, are used to scale data sets and dismiss floating menus.
A significant benefit from the IS-900 Wireless Wand and Head Tracker when used with Inside Reality is the elimination of “trip hazards” associated with wired tracking devices. In dark immersive environments with several people viewing datasets, the use of wired tracking devices becomes a major safety issue. In addition, the wireless devices reduce awareness of the tracking equipment, thus increasing the immersion effect, which allows the user to concentrate on the data and work tasks.
The design of the software was built with tracking as an integral part, giving geologists a natural way to interact with the data so they may concentrate on the task of maximizing oil field production. The success of this approach is proving itself with tremendous savings of time and money by helping oil companies to reduce planning cycles, improve well placement, and maximize well profitability.
Visit the Schlumberger Information Systems Inside Reality product web site for additional information.
Virtual Automotive Design & Crash Testing
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Images courtesy of GM
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At General Motors, a major overhaul of the automotive design process is taking place. Time to market for new vehicle designs is down from three years to 18 months. At the center of this change is the use of 3D software and virtual technology allowing modeling, testing and design review to be conducted with computer models.
Innovative software and hardware developers at the GM R&D Centers are laying the groundwork for this digital overhaul at GM. Collaborative visualization is being used across multiple CAVE®s and other immersive displays to share designs and data worldwide between GM design centers. The participants in these sessions use both active tracked and passive stereo visualization to interact, communicate and share ideas.
In this collaborative virtual environment, IS-900 tracking systems play a key roll to give engineers at different sites head-tracked perspectives of a new vehicle design from all angles. Virtual crash testing is also being explored allowing designers to place themselves visually close to parts under crash conditions. During remote collaborations, tracked wands are used to point and highlight areas of interest across the shared virtual space.
Read the GM "Making Vehicles" story for additional information.
WAVE Welding Simulator
In welding schools, most of the training time is spent for gesture control. This costs a lot of raw material to the training organization and is a painful step for the trainee. InterSense partner Immersion SA has developed a virtual welding workbench for the WAVE project. This project is supported in the Fifth Framework program by the European Commission in the IST initiative and is included in the cluster of projects EUTIST-AMI regarding Agents and Middleware Technologies applied in real industrial environments. WAVE is developed in partnership by CS and AFPA WAVE for use in all AFPA welding centers in FRANCE .
The primary goal of WAVE is to train students in mastering welding gesture. The main advantage is the reduction of raw material cost. WAVE is designed to introduce and familiarize students learning welding. It does not replace the real training, but will make up about a third of the overall training process.
The WAVE welding simulator is the first commercial application of the IS-900 PCTracker. The WAVE virtual workbench runs on a standard PC platform with an adjustable flat panel monitor, which is positioned to simulate different welding procedures. The MiniTrax components are integrated into the torch and the SoniDiscs are embedded into the bezel of the virtual workbench. Since the workbench is required to track the torch at any angle, an encoder reports angle of the workbench and the proper normal vectors for the SoniDiscs are sent to the IS-900 PCTracker software for dynamic configuration of the Constellation array each time the workbench tilt is changed.
The WAVE architecture is designed for use in other networked training scenarios. Each workbench is monitored in real-time by a supervisor workstation. The supervisor workstation also acts as a central database and control manager to handle trainee information and results.
Visit the WAVE web site for additional information