The SGI Power Wall is a 20’ x 8’ rear-projected
screen designed for the real-time visualization of virtual prototypes and
engineering animations. Using EnSight software from Computational
Engineering International (CEI) and CrystalEyes 3D eyewear from StereoGraphics,
the SGI Power Wall has evolved from its role as a sales tool to include
service as a valuable analysis and visualization resource for nearly every
major automaker.
Overview:
At Silicon Graphics Inc.’s Automotive Solutions Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., a new manufacturing visualization theater has been established that allows auto manufacturers to visualize and evaluate designs. The SGI Power Wall is a 20’ x 8’ rear-projected screen designed for the real-time visualization of virtual prototypes and engineering animations. Using EnSight software from Computational Engineering International (CEI) and CrystalEyes 3D eyewear from StereoGraphics, the SGI Power Wall has evolved from its role as a sales tool to include service as a valuable analysis and visualization resource for nearly every major automaker.
"We consider it invaluable," said Steve Fine, manager of SGI’s automotive marketing and research group. "CrystalEyes adds an extra level of realism to the prototyping process. In fact, the images look so real, that we’ve had people walk right into the wall while looking at a model."
Physical Fitness:
In the automotive industry—as in most manufacturing industries—competitiveness is measured in time-to-market , which translates to dollars and net profit. As a result, little is spared in acquiring the computing resources necessary to efficiently manage the design, development and manufacturing processes.
Perhaps the most time-consuming and costly element of this process is prototyping and testing designs. Using traditional development processes, once a design is created in digital format, it must be physically prototyped in order to fully evaluate the design’s viability. In the automotive world, this includes looking at a car’s aesthetics, its package design, testing it for noise, vibration and harshness, and performing crash tests to ensure safety.
Despite major auto makers’ considerable resources to perform these evaluations, the costs and time requirements are staggering. With each physical prototype costing more than a million dollars and months of time spent testing, physical prototyping has become a much less desireable option in the highly-competitive automotive world.
Prototyping and testing in a digital environment is much faster and less costly than building physical prototypes at each stage. And while faster computers, better software and higher-resolution graphics systems have gone a long way toward allowing designers to visualize their work, virtual prototyping can’t be truly accomplished without a realistic 3D view of each image. This requires devices that can deliver a stereoscopic 3D view of computer-based images to designers the same way they perceive the real world.
Going Digital:
For those using stereoscopic 3D to visualize design elements, like those at GM, Ford and Boeing, the benefits are crystal clear. When you can see a product design in natural 3D—just the way it will appear as a physical object—the ability to evaluate and enhance the design is significantly greater. It’s also less costly because there is no need to create a physical prototype at each stage of the design process. As a result, products are delivered to the marketplace much more quickly and on smaller budgets than ever before.
The effect of three-dimensionality is a combination of what the eyes see and the brain processes. The distance between human eyes results in each eye seeing the world from a slightly different perspective. The brain combines information from the two views into a single image that has depth and perspective—an effect known as stereopsis.
The most common way this is delivered in a computer environment is via the use of glasses with liquid-crystal shutter lenses. In conjunction with compatible software, these glasses make sure that the left and right eyes are seeing left and right eye-specific images on a workstation monitor. With each eye seeing a different perspective, on-screen objects appear to have depth and presence in the user’s physical environment.
This visualization technique helps designers understand the true function and aesthetics of their work before prototypes are ever created. This eliminates the repetitive back-and-forth, trial-and-error process of design, prototype and re-design. The end result is superior design and a much shorter time between the first computer model and final production.
"We view data files with anywhere from 50-thousand to 500-thousand visual elements," said Brian Kachnowski, software engineer for Ford Motor Company. "The models are very complex, and when they exceed 100-thousand elements, they become too complex for a 2D view. Stereo viewing helps untangle these elements."
Manufacturing a Solution:
Stereoscopic visualization, high-performance computing and advanced software tools come together to give automakers the virtual prototyping capabilities they need at SGI’s Automotive Solutions Center near Detroit. Many functions, including full-scale crash analysis, airflow analysis, metallurgical stress testing, package design testing and aesthetics review are all carried out using the center’s Power Wall.
Though the center serves as a sales and technical support resource for SGI customers, automakers are using the Power Wall with increasing frequency to do the real work that cuts design costs and time-to-market.
"In the manufacturing space, especially in digital prototyping, stereo imaging is essential," said Fine. "For simulation and product design, the 3D aspect is very important."
In addition to its large projection screen and three-pipe Onyx2 IR rack, the Power Wall features StereoGraphics’ CrystalEyes as its 3D visualization tool. CrystalEyes is directly supported by all SGI workstations and has been the standard for computer-based stereoscopic 3D visualization for nearly two decades. The software used in the engineering analysis process is EnSight from CEI.
CEI’s EnSight product is an advanced visualization and animation tool for computational analysis and engineering postprocessing, including computational fluid dynamics, structural and thermodynamic analysis, combustion modeling, and injection molding. It assists manufacturers in the visualization and analysis of mechanical designs.
"We see stereo viewing as a significant enhancement of EnSight's advanced features," said Hugh Patrick, president and CEO of CEI. "Stereo viewing brings highly effective and inexpensive 3D depth perception, normally associated with high-end full immersion virtual reality systems, to the engineer's desktop."
To date, nearly every auto manufacturer in the world has visited the SGI Power Wall to perform some sort of analysis, including major European, Japanese and Korean manufacturers. In fact, international interests represent approximately 50-percent of those using the Power Wall.
"Stereo viewing in EnSight enables the viewer to experience vivid, true-color depth effects by presenting separate perspective images to each eye in the same way one customarily views the visual world." Said Dr. Anders Grimsrud, vice president of product development at CEI. "It is particularly useful in dealing with complex problems such as crash simulation".
The Result:
For large manufacturers, the cost of development as well as the time it takes to bring a product to market can be greatly reduced using virtual pro0totyping methods. For smaller manufacturers, a rapid design process can be the difference between market leadership and being shut-out by the competition. By enabling true virtual prototyping wherever visual data is viewed and analyzed, stereoscopic viewing not only reduces cost, but also gives manufacturers a critical time-to-market edge.
For example, Chrysler has reported that virtual prototyping has reduced time-to-market on its products by as much as one year. This represents savings of many millions of dollars in the development process, not to mention the advantage of delivering new products to market ahead of the competition.
Manufacturers are now beginning to recognize what the scientific community has known for years. Stereoscopic 3D viewing is an integral and necessary component of any design process, weather the design is a life-saving drug molecule or the air bags for next year’s passenger cars.