From the report from Futuresource Consulting, we can infer that the future of virtual reality is bright, with significant investment in the coming years. The application of virtual reality in the shipbuilding industry will also be deepened, and it is expected that the shipbuilding industry will attract more than $30 billion in investment for the digital transformation of the industry in the next 30 years. Of course, virtual reality has now played a huge role in the digital transformation of shipbuilding, helping the shipbuilding industry fundamentally change the heavy engineering processes and make the industry more efficient and profitable. In this article, we will show you how virtual reality is changing the rules of the game in shipbuilding industry processes.
More efficient design processes
One of the main challenges facing the shipbuilding industry is saving time and money when designing ships. In this regard, the first solution that virtual reality brings in the shipbuilding industry is to optimize the project review process, so that ship design can correct design errors at an early stage and reduce the use of physical prototypes, helping companies to effectively control costs.
Groupe Beneteau is one of the industry leaders in large custom yachts. For them, the interior layout was a key challenge, and by using the TechViz virtual reality software Beneto Group not only developed its competitive advantage, but the application of virtual reality technology also helped the Group to test and optimize various yacht interior configuration solutions.
The integration of VR technology frees up the physical prototypes used to represent different parts of the hull in the shipbuilding design process. If you want to modify the design of a specific space, it may take days or even weeks to modify the foam prototype before validating it. By using TechViz, shipbuilders can now make modifications to virtual models in Catia CAD software and visualize them in a VR head-mounted display without delay. This not only saves a lot of time and costly rework during design development, but also helps the company optimize the overall layout through an iterative process.
Since introducing VR into its processes, the Beneto Group has diversified its use cases: by providing complete virtual prototypes at an early stage, they have been able to involve sales and marketing teams in the early stages of a project. Engineers can then use Fly&Viz, TechViz transportable AR/VR immersive room, to bring this virtual reality suitcase to offices around the world to enhance their mobile design process. This approach is appreciated by all downstream teams, and TechViz can even be combined with Rhino 5 or VRED to share attractive design options to customers who need customization.
Maintainability and pre-production check operability
Whether maritime or military, large vessels are often unique. Ensuring that they can be properly operated and maintained is a key issue.
Mazagon Dockyard Shipyard Limited (MDL), one of India's leading shipyards providing warship and submarine assembly and manufacturing services to the Indian Navy and international customers, has invested in virtual reality in shipbuilding.
Almost every ship leaving the Mazagon shipyard has specific technical requirements (such as carrying heavy missiles or even helicopters on deck) while providing ergonomic standards that meet safety in a very limited space.
Parag M Deshpande, MDL's Chief IT Design Manager, said: "At MDL, we manufacture high-performance warships while also ensuring the safety and ergonomics of the vessels and achieving a high level of space utilization. ”
To meet these requirements, MDL relies on its Virtual Reality Lab for ship design, which contains the following equipment: a VR headset, a large multi-channel high-resolution Powerwall combined with an optical tracking system, a full-body kit for tracking the user's body and movements in virtual space, and TechViz virtual reality engineering software, Techviz enables real-time display of CAD models in virtual reality and offers a wide range of features suitable for MDL use cases.
To check and validate maintenance operations, the technical team also uses virtual reality during the shipbuilding process to help them simulate real operations in manufacturing and verify that they are correct. Using full-body tracking, TechViz displays a 3D avatar of the user's body in the virtual space, helping users perform ergonomic reviews, accessibility studies, maintenance operations, and check collisions between virtual humans and 3D virtual models in real time. Engineers can check the ergonomic posture of technicians performing maintenance operations, test changed structural designs in real time, view collisions between mannequins and 3D objects for space availability, and perform accessibility tests in different poses.
Deshpande added, "The construction of warships and submarines is very complex and there are strict quality standards. Virtual reality helps us innovate and anticipate errors and risks at an early stage of concept. This helps our customers get a pre-experience of the ship construction design in an immersive environment and allows them to suggest any design modifications before releasing them for production."
Thanks to the use of virtual reality technology, many stakeholders from different departments of MDL can verify the ship design through the design review process. This helps them identify issues and make changes in real time in the early stages of project review. At the same time, this also greatly contributes to faster decision-making.
Virtual reality collaboration for smoother shared vision
Like many other industries, shipbuilding is increasingly incorporating common visions between different R&D centers and the integration of modules and components developed by third parties. Smooth communication between the different teams working on these sub-projects is key to on-time delivery and achieving the desired level of quality.
To address this challenge, using virtual reality seems like an obvious choice. It's no coincidence that many players in the shipbuilding industry choose TechViz to help them solve this problem. TechViz virtual reality collaboration software brings each team closer together, helps different teams remotely review the same project in virtual reality, and has military-grade data security. Each user can see the 3D avatars of other users in a virtual environment and can point out changes, advantages or shortcomings in real time directly on the same 3D model. Implement only the coordinates and actions of the user and not the model, so the entire collaboration session is not hacked or monitored.