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The future of car design?
gingerprince - 12/5/16 at 06:22 AM

Just seen this

http://cnn.it/1TyKt2O

And it made me think.

Could VR become the future of CAD e.g. for car design? Stick on your headset and draw/carve your new car virtually? More intuitive than a mouse and cheaper /less messy than shaping a polystyrene blob!

Sam_68 - 12/5/16 at 07:55 AM

Yes VR will certainly transform CAD, I'm certain.

I think it will mainly be an issue of the technololgy settling down and standardising to the point where the big players - people like Autodesk, Dassault Systemes and Trimble - are able to launch products based on it. I'm sure they're working on it already.

We've already got 'augmented reality' where you can point the camera on your tablet at an empty building site and see a finished building superimposed on the tablet's screen, and laser surveying systems that can record an environment in fine detail, in 3D and in colour, so add the two to VR and you've pretty much got a virtual world you can design in!

Slimy38 - 12/5/16 at 08:01 AM

I'm not convinced. There is still an inherent lack of accuracy in VR, to make fine adjustments (or even to 'draw' a car from scratch) would need details that are far beyond even the most expensive VR. I'm not convinced it's actually accurate enough to manipulate a Minecraft world, and that's made up of big blocks!!

It would certainly be good to demo the 'finished' product before it gets created, but not much else.

SJ - 12/5/16 at 08:15 AM

If the VR is good enough why do you need the car at all?

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Sam_68 - 12/5/16 at 08:23 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
I'm not convinced. There is still an inherent lack of accuracy in VR, to make fine adjustments (or even to 'draw' a car from scratch) would need details that are far beyond even the most expensive VR.


That's more about the user interface, though: no reason you couldn't have a 'floating' version of something like a traditional CAD interface, that allows you to enter precise numbers and geometry.

You could argue that a mouse is far too inaccurate to produce accurate technical drawings - try designing freehand with a mouse in something like Photoshop and see how far you get - but supported by the correct interface, it's fine.

Neville Jones - 12/5/16 at 09:29 AM

My son works for a defense contractor, and they have have had the VR type design stuff that's being talked about, for a couple of years. It's constantly being developed. Headset and mouse apparently, is all he tells me.

Race teams use the LIDAR to map tracks for the simulators, and are continually updating to keep pace with track changes.

Brook_lands - 12/5/16 at 02:23 PM

Being philosophical on a sunny Thursday afternoon, I agree that VR design and realisation is probably not that far off. However, does car design have a future?

I'm sure the members of this board will probably be among the last ones holding out but where is the car heading?

Imagine a world where we are all using Google calendar and personal transport is provided by Google driverless cars. Indeed, we don't even need to organised the arrival of the car because it will be automatically sent in response to what is in our Google calendar.

No need for personal car ownership, no expensive assets sitting around being used 5 - 10% of the time clogging up road sides and car parks. At this point our emotional relationship with the car will be removed. It will become a functional means of getting from A to B and as long as it is reliable and comfortable that's it. OK, as we know human nature is such that we don't all want to be seen as equal so you will be able to contract for bronze, silver, gold or platinum level Google cars just as you can book a mini cab or a limo now. However, in the same way, I don't feel the need to pimp my bus/ train/ taxi or whatever for the short time I'm in it, I doubt I will be that bothered about the design over function of a Google car.

Generations to come will be further separated from the car because they won't need to learn to drive.

It might take 10, 20, 50 or more years but society will become decoupled from the car.

However, just to bring it back to the topic, we will be able to sit in a Google car with our VR headset on, so perhaps that's it; the vehicle won't be individual or ours but the VR world we take everywhere with us could be!

Frightening or what?

Slimy38 - 12/5/16 at 02:29 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Brook_lands

However, just to bring it back to the topic, we will be able to sit in a Google car with our VR headset on, so perhaps that's it; the vehicle won't be individual or ours but the VR world we take everywhere with us could be!

Frightening or what?


We may not even need the car, we'd just stay at home in our VR worlds...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates

Sam_68 - 12/5/16 at 07:35 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Brook_lands

However, just to bring it back to the topic, we will be able to sit in a Google car with our VR headset on, so perhaps that's it; the vehicle won't be individual or ours but the VR world we take everywhere with us could be!

Frightening or what?


This was discussed at the last Niche Vehicle Network symposium; possibly triggered by the fact that Jez Coates (head of engineering & design at Caterham for donkey's years) is now working on driverless cars.

His view was that in 25 years time, every car on the road would be driverless, but that there would still be a niche market for 'traditional' cars for trackdays only.

Because of VR, I'm not so sure... will there be enough people wealthy enough to buy cars exclusively for track use, and to use them frequently enough to sustain the huge costs of running race circuits for trackdays, when VR will allow you to strap yourself into whatever historic exotica you like in the comfort of your own home, for negligible cost?

MikeR - 12/5/16 at 10:43 PM

VR is already used for car design in validation. Worked on the JLR rig a few years ago. It's easy to imagine actual design being done except for the cost. VR headsets and more powerful computers is all that stops it. They currently have the option of switching to 3d glasses like you use on your tv / cinema but very few people liked them as I recall.