PC-Based Virtual Reality for CAD Model Viewing 32 Abhishek Seth and Shana S-F Smith s e di Product design is a critical activity because most PC workstations have stereoscopic graphic u St it has been estimated that 70% to 80% of the display capability built into their graphics card y g cost of product development and manufacture is chip sets. PC-based VR techniques, also called o ol determined by the decisions made in the initial low-cost VR, bring VR to a usable level for n h c design stages (Kalpakjian & Schmid, 2001). people with basic technical computer skills and e T of During the design process, 92% of communica- limited resources. Low-cost VR takes advantage al tions are graphically based (Bertoline, Wiebe, of recent advances in low-end graphics systems n ur Miller, & Mohler, 1997). Graphics is a visual and other inexpensive VR commodities. Thus, o J e communication language, which helps designers VR solutions are becoming more accessible. h T understand their developing designs and to con- About This Article vey their ideas to others. Thus, efficient graph- ics communication tools can improve design This article introduces the current status and decision-making processes. of VR applications in industry and the technolo- gies involved in the low-cost VR systems. The Most designers currently use traditional number of companies producing low-cost VR- CAD tools to help communicate their designs to related hardware and software is continuously others. However, CAD tools only allow users to increasing. New hardware and software techni- examine 3D models from outsideflat computer cal terms are confusing or meaningless to peo- monitors. In other words, the models and the ple without any prior background in VR. Thus, viewers are in different realms. Using traditional choosing the right VR tool for a particular CAD tools, the designers cannot view models application is challenging for potential users. with natural stereoscopic vision. This article introduces different available stereo image rendering techniques, such as anaglyphic, Recently, virtual reality (VR), as an emerg- page flipping, and sync doubling, and major ing visualization technology, has introduced an low-cost VR hardware and software tools avail- unprecedented communication method for col- able for CAD model viewing. The purpose of laborative design. VR refers to an immersive, this article is to help CAD users and product interactive, multisensory, viewer-centered, 3D designers have a better understanding about VR computer-generated environment and the combi- technology so that they can develop their own nation of technologies required to build such an VR systems to increase the efficiency of design environment (Aukstakalnis & Blatner, 1992; communication. Cruz-Neira, 1998). VR technology breaks down Status in Industry barriers between humans and computers by In industry, VR has proven to be an effec- immersing viewers in a computer-generated tive tool for helping workers evaluate product stereoscopic environment. VR allows users to designs (Kelsick, 1998). Using VR enables experience a strong sense of presence in a virtu- everyone on a design team to understand al scene and enhances user interactivity. Using designs better, leading to more informed and VR technology, depth cues provided by a stereo meaningful communications. Such rapid and image help convey spatial relationships in 3D less-ambiguous communication greatly models, which enhances users’understanding enhances the speed and accuracy with which of a design. Viewers can perceive distance and decisions can be made and designs can be spatial relationships between different object completed. components more realistically and accurately than with conventional visualization tools. Several major companies have incorporated VR technology into their design or production Usually, however, implementation of VR processes. In 1999, BMW explored the capabili- technology is not easy. It requires skilled techni- ty of VR for verifying product design (Gomes cal people and highly specialized, sometimes de Sa & Zachmann, 1999). They concluded that costly, equipment. These requirements prevent VR has the potential to reduce the number of the widespread use of VR in research and indus- physical mockups needed, to improve overall trial communities (Olson, 2002). However, now, product quality, and to obtain quick answers, in an intuitive way, during the concept phase of Passive Stereo Systems a product. In addition, Motorola developed a Passive stereo systems are the most com- 33 VR system for training workers to run a pager mon and basic type of stereo systems. They are assembly line (Wittenberg, 1995). They found popular because they are very inexpensive, and Th e that VR can be used to successfully train manu- cost is often a critical factor in public environ- J o facturing personnel and that participants trained ments. To the naked eye, passive stereo images ur n a in VR environments perform better on the job appear to overlap and are doubled and blurry. l o than those trained for the same time in real envi- However, when the stereo images are viewed f T e ronments. In 1998, GE Corporate Research with glasses made from colored or polarized c h n developed two VR software applications, filters, the images become stereoscopic. o lo Product Vision and Galileo, which allowed engi- gy neers to interactively fly through a virtual jet Passive anaglyphic systems create a St u engine (Abshire & Barron, 1998). They reported dif- ferent colored image for the right and die s that the two applications were used successfully left eye. Users then view the colored images to enhance design communication and to solve using anaglyphic glasses made from colored maintenance problems early, with minimal cost, filters (e.g., blue for the right eye and red for delays, and effort. They also reported that using the left eye). Anaglyphic glasses used for the VR applications helped make maintenance passive stereo cost about 80¢ per pair (VRex, an integral part of their product design process. http://www.vrex .com). However, image quality in passive anaglyphic systems is relatively poor, Passive and Active Stereo Systems and colored views are not possible. The lack of Because a person’s two eyes are some dis- colored viewing capability is one of the major tance apart, upon viewing the same object the drawbacks of anaglyphic passive stereo systems. right eye sees a slightly different image from the left eye. Therefore, to see a stereo image Another method for passive stereo viewing on a PC screen, one needs to generate different is based on the principle of light polarization. With oppositely polarized filters attached to two images for the right eye and the left eye, respec- projectors and matching filters in a pair of tively, and arrange the two images such that the glasses, right- and left-eye images can be sepa- right eye sees only the right view and the left rated and multiple colors can also be viewed. eye sees only the left view. The theory behind polarized viewing systems is PC-based VR systems typically use one based upon the vibration characteristics of light of several types of special viewing glasses to (Barco, n.d.). Nonpolarized light waves can selectively send the right- and the left-eye vibrate in any direction. A light wave vibrating images to the correct eyes. Depending upon in a single direction is called polarized light. The polarization of a light wave at any given the type of glasses used, stereo systems can be moment is determined by the specific orienta- classified into passive or active stereo systems. tion of the wave at that moment. Nonpolarized “Passive” systems use glasses without electronic light can be transformed to polarized light by components; “active” systems use glasses with passing the light wave through a polarizer (see electronic components. Figure 1). The depth perception required for stereo images can be created by directing Figure 1. Polarizing light using a polarizing filter. Figure 2. Double projector system One of the important advantages of polar- with opposite polarizers. ized stereo viewing systems is that they can be 34 driven by non-stereo-capable hardware. In addi- es tion, the polarizing method can provide colored di u and high-quality stereo images. t S y og Active Stereo Systems ol n In active stereo systems, the viewing glass- h ec es used contain electronic components. Stereo T of images are presented by rapidly alternating the al display of right-eye and left-eye images while n r u alternately masking the right and left eye using o J e synchronous shutter eyewear, such as LCD h T shutter glasses. Available LCD shutter glasses use various image switching techniques. The different visual information, using different following three modes are most popular polarization directions, to the right and left eye. (Lipton, 1997): Thus, such a stereo system uses two projectors, • Interlacing as shown in Figure 2. Polarizing light waves • Page flipping does not significantly degrade image quality • Sync doubling because human eyes are largely insensitive to Interlacing polarization. The cost for a polarized projector Interlacing is used in existing television system is around $20,000 (VRex, systems, such as NTSC, PAL etc., to transmit http://www.vrex.com; 3-D ImageTeck, and broadcast signals. In interlace mode, a sin- http://www.3dimagetek.com). gle frame is divided into two fields: the odd If light is polarized in a single direction scan-line field and the even scan-line field. (north/south, east/west, or even diagonally), the When the interlace mode is used for stereo light is linearly polarized. If a viewer changes imaging, the right-eye image and the left-eye the orientation of linearly polarized glasses by image are divided into odd and even scan-line tilting his or her head, the resulting polarization fields, or vice versa. First the odd scan-lines (1, orientation of the viewer’s glasses will not 3, 5, 7, etc.) are presented, followed by the even match that of the polarization filters mounted on scan-lines (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.; see Figure 3). When the projectors, and there will be a loss of stereo the right-eye frame is displayed on the screen, information, as perceived by the viewer (Barco, the left eye is covered by the glasses, and when n.d.). Nevertheless, linear polarization is a cost- the left-eye frame is shown on the screen, the effective technology that can produce excellent right eye is covered by the shutter glasses. right-eye and left-eye image separation for stereoscopic applications for which head tilting is limited. Figure 3. Interlacing. Using circularly, rather than linearly, polar- ized light is an effective solution to the head- tilting problem. For circularly polarized light, head tilting does not result in a loss of stereo information, since the light is not polarized in a single direction. StereoGraphics Corporation’s Monitor ZScreen series provides a stereoscopic panel, which mounts on a regular PC computer monitor, for circularly polarizing right-eye and left-eye images (Stereographics Corporation, http://www.stereographics.com). The cost of a Monitor ZScreen system is $2,345. Polarized glasses range in cost from $3.95 to $50 per pair (Stereographics Corporation, http://www.stereo- graphics.com; VRex, http://www.vrex.com). Figure 4. Page-flipping. Figure 5. Sync-doubling. 35 T h e J o u r n a l o f T e c h n o lo g y S t u d ie s Page-Flipping ping because the monitor’s vertical frequency In page-flipping mode, the right- and the needs to be doubled to stretch the frames to full left-eye frames are shown alternately on the screen. Overall image resolution is therefore screen (see Figure 4). When the right-eye frame reduced by one half. However, the advantage is shown on the screen, the left eye is covered of sync-doubling is that it is not limited by by the shutter glasses, and when the left-eye computer hardware capabilities. frame is shown on the screen, the right eye is Available Software covered by the shutter glasses. In this mode, Presently, there are a number of VR soft- both the horizontal and vertical resolutions are ware tools available for stereoscopically viewing kept the same, since the frames are displayed CAD models. For example, 3Space Assistant by one by one on the entire screen. Template Graphics Software (http://www.tgs.com) For page-flipping, high-end PC hardware and Quadro View by Nvidia Corporation is typically required. A monitor that supports a (http://www.nvidia.com) are well developed 120 Hz or higher vertical scan frequency and and very user-friendly. specially designed hardware are often required. For the available software tools, the com- As mentioned earlier, page-flipping provides puter system must have an OpenGL driver full resolution picture quality and, thus, provides installed to activate stereo modes. OpenGL is a the best visual effect among the display modes cross-platform, high-performance standard for shutter glasses. However, software and hard- library for 3D graphics applications. If an ware dependence is a major drawback. OpenGL driver for the graphics card being used Sync-Doubling is unavailable or if the driver is not installed With sync-doubling, the right-eye and left- when the active stereo mode is used, the com- eye frames of the image are scaled down in the puter will display the message “No OpenGL vertical direction and arranged on the upper and driver installed on the computer,” and the lower half of the screen (see Figure 5). Sync- stereo image will not be shown on the screen. doubling differs from interlacing and page-flip- GL Direct, by SciTech Software Inc. ping modes in that no specialized computer (www.scitechsoft.com), provides a solution to peripherals are required. the above problem. After the software is installed, whenever any stereo application (e.g., To create a stereo view, software designers TGS 3Space Assistant or Quadro View) starts, only need to arrange the right- and left-eye SciTech GL Direct will automatically start. images properly on the screen, as shown in Figure 5. An external circuit (called a sync TGS 3Space Assistant doubler) is then used, which allows the right- 3Space Assistant from Template Graphics and left-eye images to stretch to normal size Software, Inc., is a stand-alone CAD model and appear in an interlaced pattern on screen. viewer. The advantage of 3Space Assistant is The image quality is not as good as page flip- that it allows stereo viewing in a number of Figure 6. Stereo settings in the view menu of 3Space Assistant. 36 s e di u t S y g o ol n h c e T of al n r u o J e h T stereo modes such as Raw OpenGL, Horizontal Future Directions Interlaced, Vertical Interlaced, Red-Cyan PC-based VR, in the future, will incorpo- Anaglyphic, and Blue-Yellow Anaglyphic (see rate haptic and audio devices to give a better Figure 6). If the active stereo mode is used, sense of immersion in the computer-generated LCD shutter glasses are required. If the environment and to provide a more intuitive anaglyphic stereo mode is enabled, passive col- interaction with design models. Haptic devices ored filter glasses (red/cyan, blue/yellow, or could provide realistic force feedback so users green/magenta) are required. could feel objects that they touch or move. Audio devices could provide realistic sound Nvidia Quadro View effects for collisions between objects. In addi- To use Nvidia’s Quadro View, users need tion, because of the restrictions associated with to purchase a quad-buffered graphics card or manipulating 3D virtual objects with a keyboard a computer system that already has a quad- and mouse, data gloves will be used to increase buffered graphics card installed (Nvidia manipulation efficiency in low-cost VR sys- Corporation, http://www.nvidia.com; Redmond, tems. Handling computational workloads while n.d.). The stereo quality provided by Quadro providing real-time response is also a critical View is very good, but the part handling fea- issue for realizing future low-cost VR systems. tures are not very user-friendly. Using Quadro View, 3D CAD models can be viewed using Dr. Shana Smith is an associate professor passive as well as active stereo modes. One of in the Industrial Technology Program within the unique features in Quadro View is its com- the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems patibility with other CAD design packages (e.g., Engineering at Iowa State University. AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architectural Desktop, Mr. Abhishek Seth is pursuing his PhD and Mechanical Desktop), which makes it dif- in Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State ferent from all other stereo viewers. University. References Abshire, K. J., & Barron, M. K. (1998). Virtual maintenance: Real-world applications within 37 virtual environments. In IEEE Proceedings Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium T h (pp. 132-137). Anaheim, CA: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. e J o Aukstakalnis, S., & Blatner, D. (1992). Silicon mirage: The art and science of virtual reality. u r n Berkley, CA: Peachpit Press. a l o Barco. (n.d.). Stereoscopic projection. 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