Monday 7th April 2003

Ford SGI

Top quality graphics visualisation installed at Ford UK

---

[MEMSDesign]

Ford are also funding a major program of research to deliver holographic displays. True 3D visualisation. See here

[agent006]

The new Reality Centre will help Ford engineers to improve the timing, accuracy and quality of vehicle exterior and interior design," said Chris Bird, Ford of Europe's design director.

Call me ignorant, but how can one improve the timing of a design?

[Bodo]

agent006 said:
Call me ignorant, but how can one improve the timing of a design?

This helps deciding, if a model of a sketch (digital mockup) needs to be built or not. Could spare some wasted clay models, and hence allows discussing more different designs.

It's a step in the chain of shorter product development cycles.
More output = more consume = more cash flow.

[Bodo]

If you want to read more about that technology: www.sgi.com/realitycenter/

[CraigAlsop]

I used to work at SGI, & amongst other things worked on Reality Centres.
Being able to play Quake on a 30 foot wide screen with proper stereo visuals & surround sound with subsonics is just awesome

Oh and it speeds up the development process as well - imagine being able to look & interact with a larger than life car, with every detail correct, down to the last nut & bolt, and then be able to make design changes instantly to see how it looks/works. That's possible with these beasties - it's a little bit like an IMAX cinema, but interactive & immersive, and better resolution - to get the full immersive feeling, you need to completely fill the human field of vision, which you can never do with a computer screen, unless you sit too close

[Bodo]

Must talk to my boss then to get us one of these toys; DVD nights in CAD presentation room without virtual reality are getting slowly boring now

[GingerNinja]

Having Viz centres speeds up the design process by allowing multiple users around the screen. Trouble with a regular workstation is that only 2 - people can effectively sit round the screen. With a Viz centre you can get all the necessary parties in one place (designers, engineers, project managers etc) who can all make decisions at the same time....

At least, that's how it speeds the process up in the oil & gas world....