Goodbye foam core mockups, hello VR environments.
A few years ago when my colleagues were designing an aging-in-place walk-in shower for Jacuzzi, they rented a nearby virtual reality facility to evaluate a simulated version of an early prototype.
The VR facility staffer donned a suit packed with sensors, and the designers on Bresslergroup’s project team were able to ask him in real time to interact with different elements of the prototype. Observing how some of the controls were in a hard-to-reach area, the design team immediately saw the value of changing these and other design elements.
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Once in VR, different variants and configurations of this model can be evaluated side by side in full scale. Watch the video, above, to see how we can manipulate and move the shower seat and reach for shelves and grab bars while in VR, adding to the immersive experience. When designing products such as these, not only is access important but so is the ability to reach critical areas.
Have VR, Will Travel: Our Portable Setup
The ability to quickly try things out in full scale is an extremely important tool in our design toolbox. But when we want to share the model with our clients, the ability to pack it up and take it on the road is key. Below is a GIF of me unpacking the kit and setting it up – as you can see, it’s a lot more efficient than building, deconstructing, transporting, and reassembling a foam core model.
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Our setup consists of an HTC Vive and a VR capable workstation and of course, a case to carry everything. We have developed a workflow to quickly bring in Solidworks models with textures and shading.
We expect our setup to evolve as quickly as VR evolves (which is to say, quickly). The new Oculus Rift is $199. In a few years you’ll be able to get an HTC Vive for that price. Google Chrome now supports web-based VR for the Oculus Rift; and more apps are being introduced to enable us to upload a CAD model, create a scene, and send it to a client. With one click, the client will be able to open the VR scene and interact with our latest prototype.
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Today VR is usable and affordable for ergonomics testing and to test our own and our clients’ assumptions. This lets us iterate and improve a design before we build a prototype. Before VR, if designers and engineers didn’t have the time or budget to build foam core models, they would end up with very expensive prototypes that would then require changes. Now we can make sure the first prototype we build is optimized for ergonomics.
In the future, we expect to be able to use VR for user testing. (Check out this report from the recent HFES Symposium by my colleague, Aditi Singh’s – she writes about the trend of Using AR/VR Technology for Human Factors Research.) This future is close—and it’s exciting.
Source: Core 77