Ismael H. F. dos Santos

Towards the use of cad models in VR applications

One of the main objectives of the engineering departments of large industries is the construction of integrated information systems to control their projects, offering resources for the 3D visualization of their models with enough realism to be used for virtual prototyping, design review, change management systems, and training, among other activities. This work analyzes the main problems related to the production of Virtual Reality (VR) models derived from CAD (Computer-Aided Design) models, which allows the user to interact with them in real-time and have an immersive sensation. The paper presents ENVIRON (ENvironment for VIRtual Objects Navigation), an application that was developed motivated by the necessity of using VR in large industrial engineering models coming from CAD tools.

A multimedia workflow-based collaborative engineering environment for oil & gas industry

In this paper we discuss the scenario of Petroleum Engineering projects of Petrobras, a large Brazilian governmental oil & gas company. Based on this scenario, we propose a set of application requirements and system architecture to guide the construction of a Collaborative Engineering Environment (CEE) for assisting the control and execution of large and complex industrial projects in oil and gas industry. The environment is composed by the integration of three different technologies of distributed group work: Workflow Management System (WfMS), Multimedia Collaborative System (MMCS) and Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE).

A tablet-based 3D interaction tool for virtual engineering environments

Three-dimensional computer-aided design (3D CAD) modeling and reviewing is one of the most common engineering project tools. Interaction in these environments is characterized by the need for a high precision level to execute specific tasks. Generally this kind of task uses specific interaction devices with 4 or more degrees of freedom, such as 3D mice. Currently applications involving 3D interaction use interaction devices for object modeling or for the implementation of navigation, selection and manipulation techniques in a virtual environment. A related problem is the need to control naturally non-immersive tasks, such as symbolic input (e.g., text, photos). In addition, the steep learning curve to handle such non-conventional devices is a recurring problem. The addition of sensors and the popularization of smart-phones and tablets, allowed the use of such devices in virtual engineering environments. These devices, differs to other devices by the possibility of including additional information and performing naturally non-immersive tasks. This work presents a 3D interaction tablet-based tool, which allows the aggregation of all major 3D interaction topics, such as navigation, selection, manipulation, system control and symbolic input. To validate the proposed tool, the SimUEP-Ambsim application was chosen, an oil and gas simulator that has the complexity needed and which allows the use of all techniques implemented. Then, the tool was tested in another application, a photo-voltaic solar plant simulator, in order to evaluate the generality of this work concept.

A VR Framework for Desktop Applications

The emergence of cheaper technologies for immersive environments has increased considerably the interest on applications of Virtual Reality (VR). However, currently available VR frameworks force user applications to be developed specifically for them. This increases the cost of converting an existing graphical application to virtual reality environments. This paper proposes a new framework, the LVRL (Lightweight Virtual Reality Libraries), which allows both creation and conversion of existing applications to VR without changing the structure of the application. The LVRL main objective is to provide a minimalist programming interface and non intrusive allowing the development of VR applications by non VR developers. This article describes the architecture of LVRL, its features, usage and the benefits obtained by the applications that use it.

Virtual reality techniques for planning the offshore robotizing

Remote locations such as ultra-deep water reservoirs (400 m or deeper) have been increasing the production complexity and logistic costs for Oil & Gas industry. In such conditions, oil exploration feasibility depends on new technologies to optimize production efficiency. One possible solution to this challenge is to increase the degree of automation in production units. New design concepts consider the use of robotic devices in such scenarios. In this paper we present the use of virtual reality techniques in a robotics framework, SimUEP- Robotics (Robotics Simulator for Stationary Production Units), aimed to enable planning the offshore platform robotizing. SimUEP-Robotics has an integrated Virtual Reality Engine specially tailored to provide realistic visualization of large offshore scene models in an immersive environment. Through the use of those visualization tools it is possible, for example, to better understand the quality of the planned robot trajectory and propose new algorithms that can be further evaluated in the virtual environment. We argue that the validation process in an immersive virtual environment reduces risks and costs of real operation tests scenarios.

Beyond post-it: structured multimedia annotations for collaborative VEs

Globalization has transformed engineering design into a world-wide endeavor pursued by geographically distributed specialist teams. Widespread adoption of VR for design and the need to act and place marks directly on the objects of discussion in design reviewing tasks led to research on annotations in virtual collaborative environments. However, conventional approaches have yet to progress beyond the yellow postit + text metaphor. Indeed, multimedia such as audio, sketches, video and animations afford greater expressiveness which could be put to good use in collaborative environments. Furthermore, individual annotations fail to capture both the rationale and flow of discussion which are key to understanding project design decisions. One exemplar instance is offshore engineering projects that normally engage geographically distributed highly-specialized engineering teams and require both improved productivity, due to project costs and the need to reducing risks when reviewing designs of deep-water oil & gas platforms. In this paper, we present an approach to rich, structured multimedia annotations to support the discussion and decision making in design reviewing tasks. Furthermore, our approach supports issue-based argumentation to reveal provenance of design decisions to better support the workflow in engineering projects. While this is an initial exploration of the solution space, examples show greater support of collaborative design review over traditional approaches.

Dynamic Adjustment of Stereo Parameters for Virtual Reality Tools

Due to emerging new technologies in thedevelopment of interactive 3D applications (eg games andvirtual reality), stereoscopic visualization is becoming acommon feature. However, this fact does not solve someproblems (nausea and headaches - cybersickness) related withthe generation of this type of visualization. Some parametershave to be carefully chosen to create a comfortable stereo view,for example, eye distance, zero parallax plane distance, and thetreatment of partially clipped objects in negative parallax. Thispaper presents a technique based on a CubeMap structure todynamically adjust stereo parameters during the usage of twovirtual reality tools in multi-scale 3D scenarios.

AppRC: a framework for integrating mobile communication to virtual reality applications

The popularity of smartphones and tablets has grown immensely in the last years and many different kinds of applications can take advantage of mobile functionalities. In special, applications that run on engineering virtual environments stand to benefit the most of a second screen for input and output. Such applications can use tablets or smartphones to help navigate the virtual world or even to access and easily view lots of data in the form of tables or graphs without disturbing the virtual world representation on the main screen. Another big advantage that mobile devices bring to the engineering applications is the capability of accessing the data on remote locations, like on oil platforms or refineries, and so allowing the field engineer to check the data or even change it on the fly. The problem is that most engineering applications are very complex and there is no easy way to implement the communication without a lot of programing effort on the application side. We propose a framework that is easily integrated with any application and adds external communication channels, adding functionalities like: collaboration with many devices, concurrency checks and handling of multiple instances of the application. As a first use of the framework, we discuss the implementation of EnvironRC, a communication channel for the 3D engineering visualization tool Environ.

An Interaction Tool for Immersive Environments Using Mobile Devices

Interaction in engineering virtual environments differs by the necessity of the high precision level needed for the execution of specifics tasks for this kind of environment. Generally this kind of task uses specific interaction devices with 4 or more DOF. Current applications involving 3D interaction use interaction devices for object modelling or for the implementation of navigation, selection and manipulation tecniques in a virtual environment. A related problem is the necessity of controlling tasks that are naturally non-immersive, such as symbolic input (e.g., text, photos). Another problem is the large learning curve to handle such non-conventional devices. The addition of sensors and the popularization of smartphones and tablets, allowed the use of such devices in virtual engineering environments. Thes devices, besides their popularity and sensors, differs by the possibility of including additional information and performing naturally non-immersive tasks. This work presents a 3D interaction tablet-based tool, which allows the aggregation of all major 3D interaction topics, such as navigation, selection, manipulation, system control and symbolic input.

A collaborative environment for offshore engineering simulations

The main objective of this article is to find effective solutions for collaboration of team workers during the execution of Large Scale Engineering Projects (LSEP). The research is based on actual operational needs of Petrobras, a large Brazilian governmental oil & gas company. For this article we have focused on Offshore Engineering Projects as our case study. We have implemented a Service Oriented Architecture aimed to create a collaborative environment, called CEE (Collaborative Engineering Environment), for visualizing engineering simulations considering important requirements identified for LSEPs, such as collaboration, workflow coordination, and immersive visualization. CEE allows team workers to concentrate in the task of solving a problem using seamlessly the computational resources available, from the execution of engineering simulations on a Grid to the collaborative visualization of results in an immersive or desktop environment.