The integration of immersive Virtual Reality applications into Catia V5

Abstract

During the last few years a wide range of stand-alone virtual reality (VR) applications have been developed. The typical data source for most of these applications are 3D styling tools or 3D-CAD systems from which data has to be converted into a representation useful in VR software systems. The drawbacks of the stand-alone approach are well known: data conversion, loss of semantics and the problems of establishing a feedback path for updating data in the underlying CAD model from within the VR software. In this paper we will introduce our solution to this problem by proposing an integrated VR/CAD system approach based on the CATIA 3D-CAD software, more precisely the CATIA V5 application architecture [1]. We will discuss the requirements and implications from the CAD data perspective and show how the VR integration inside the CAD system can be realized. Derived from a specific end user scenario we introduce a sample application for virtual prototype reviews.