For several years, Caterpillar has been using VR at NCSA to design backhoe loaders and wheel loaders [see access, Fall 1993]. Their work has used a combination of a helmet and specially built platforms as the interface, with the goal of increasing operator visibility. Plans call for exploring the CAVE environment as well.
"The CAVE allows the operator of a vehicle simulation to have a large field of view and still maintain fairly good graphics resolution," says Richard Ingram, academic liaison at Caterpillar. The company will display some of their efforts at VROOM.
FMC has explored several VR interfaces for analysis in design work and will be working on a major project in the CAVE this year, says John Luranc, director of Manufacturing and Engineering Computing at FMC.See FMC receives NCSA Grand Challenge Award.
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