Development of A Collaborative Virtual Environment for Finite Element Simulation

Transcription

1 Development of A Collaborative Virtual Environment for Finite Element Simulation M. Kasim Abdul-Jalil Advisor : Dr. Christina L. Bloebaum Co-advisor : Dr. Abani Patra Committee : Dr. T. Keshavadas Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering University at Buffalo

2 Overview Introduction Objectives & Research Issues Literature Review Research Framework o Virtual Room for Collaborative Design o Virtual Finite Element Analysis Progress & Future Work

3 The process of design has become increasingly more complex Multidisciplinary Material Aerodynamics Propulsion Control Systems Structures Geographically Distributed

4 Common issues o lack of interactivity and visualization capability in traditional methods (fax, phones, video conferencing) o large engineering data -computationally expensive, hard to visualize

5 Information Technology Internet age global village concept Chat room Internet phones Internet games Powerful hardware and software High performance computing (HPC) & workstations Parallel processing (MPI, PVM) Fast internet link (DSL, ATM) High end graphic technology Virtual reality Common exchange file format VRML, DXF, 3DS, NFF

6 Nature of Engineering Design Analysis Finite Element Analysis is a common tool Preprocessing Analysis Post processing/visualization Large-scale data requires High computational time Expensive graphics

7 Research Issues Question 1 : How can virtual reality be used to assist geographically dispersed designers in making decisions pertaining to a complex engineering problem Question 2 : Given a huge or large scale of engineering data (e.g. FEA) how can engineering communication across distributed environment be made meaningful and effective - fast & real time?

8 Research Issues Answer 1 : Virtual Reality technology together with fast internet connectivity can be used to develop a virtual meeting venue for geographically distributed designers to communicate with each other in a real life like setup Answer 2 : Several methods will be explored to enable large scale engineering design data (e.g. FEA) to be executed in real-time Parallel Processing/Distributed Computing Domain Decomposition Method Sensitivity Analysis/Optimization/Pollution Error Hierarchical Feature Extraction

9 Literature Review Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) Virtual Community o Cybertown ( o SONY Virtual Society - SONY Computer Science Lab Community Place - 3D virtual space on Internet o Game 3DO - interactive entertainment Worlds.com TheRealm Sierra

10 Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) Literature Review (cont d) ACADEMIA o Tele-immersion group at U of Illinois at Chicago CAVE Research Network (CAVERN) Collaborative Image Based rendering (CIBR) Tele-immersive Data Explorer (TIDE) Collaborative Architectural Layout Via Immersive Navigation (CALVIN) o Collaborative Virtual Environment (COVEN) o Distributed Interactive Virtual Environment (DIVE) o Model, Architecture and System for Spatial Interaction in Virtual Environment (MASSIVE) o Virtual Life NETwork (VLNET), U of Geneva - virtual tennis, virtual actors o Interactive Remote Instruction (IRI), ODU - virtual classroom using hispeed networks and multimedia workstations

11 Literature Review (cont d) FEA in Virtual Environment Interactive FEA in CAVE environment - Argonne National Lab Virtual Environment Investigation of Finite Element data (VEIFEL) Haase PreB - Virtual Reality for Finite Element Analysis Yeh and Vance - NURBS-based free-form deformation & Sensitivity Analysis Yagawa, Kawai, Yushimura - mesh-invisible finite element analysis in a VE

12 Virtual Room (VRoom) Research Framework Participant window Manager window Developed using WorldToolKit 4 sided wall, floor and ceiling (collision detection) Geometries created using Neutral File Format (NFF) Normal or Stereographic modes Multiple Participants (Manager and Participants) Audio capability

13 Research Framework (cont d) Collaborative Environment Developed using WorldToolKit (WTK) networking capability Each participant is represented by an avatar Up to 16 users can log in at the same time Audio capability using Speak Freely Synchronous Collaboration o User position in VRoom space o Real time model upload from URL site (VRML format)

14 Research Framework (cont d) Collaborative Environment Setup Manager Server & database Participant A Participant B Participant C

15 Research Framework (cont d) Collaborative environment - Data exchange/transmission issue Server & database Manager Participants Graphics (VRML, DXF, NFF) Audio Viewpoint position

16 Some collaborative issues (cont d) REAL-TIME graphical update 1. When visualization part requires an engineering analysis (e.g FEM, Optimization) 2. Manipulation of model geometry 3. Adding graphical entities to model geometry (e.g. constraints & force locations) Issue : How can the VRoom be updated in real time?

17 Solutions Better computational method to handle massive FE or engineering data Direct model uploading from web server/url site (VRML) Predefined geometry in user local directory - e.g. constaraints, force in FE Analysis

18 Research Framework (cont d) FE Simulation in virtual Environment FE Solver e.g. AFEAPI V R o o m FE Module Graphical Module Database System Architecture

19 Research Framework (cont d) FE Simulation in virtual Environment Graphical Module Load Design Model (DXF,SLP,VRML, NFF formats) FE Module Translate graphical representation to FE preprocessor Convert to VRML FE Solver (AFEAPI) Specify constraints and forces Convert to VRML Vis5D

20 The development of VRoom Research Progress The Collaborative infrastructure Avatar design Audio capability using SpeakFreely Model uploading to VRoom from URL site Graphical Module Converting model to VRML Reading VRML file from URL location Model manipulation stretching geometry, placing and specifying force and constraints FE Module Translating graphical representation to HyperMesh TM input file

21 Future Work The Collaborative infrastructure - Improvement of avatar design Object picking Avatar labeling or identification Graphical Module Improvement of Model manipulation Mark an area for FE assessment/computation Improvement on geometry stretching algorithm VRML 2.0 capability using WTK 9.4 FE Module Direct and automatic linking between Graphical Module, FE Module, FE Solver and Vis5D Fast FE computational methods (DDM, Hierarchical Feature Extraction, HPC) Test Problems 2D and 3D FE analysis

22 Virtual FEM CAD model FEM post processing in VR