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1:1 Scale VR brings Automotive Design to Life at Coventry University

Coventry University students understanding and interacting with Stereo 3D models from Virtalis

COVENTRY University has long been recognised as a Centre of Excellence for automotive design. Now its undergraduate and postgraduate students are to get a bit more help in the shape of a Virtalis StereoWorks passive 3D stereo visualisation system. The massive flat panel screen is mounted on the floor, so virtual vehicles can drive right out, enabling tutors and students to see the design at its intended size.

John Owen, head of Industrial Design at Coventry, explained: “We have been fortunate to be in receipt of a £2.5 million grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. We were chosen as a Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Transport and Product Design. This grant has enabled us to fit out a Digital Interaction Studio. Our Virtalis stereo system will help our students to see where they need to make adjustments to their CAD models of cars, which are acknowledged to be among the most complex shapes to design. As an illustration, the VR system shows detailed reflections allowing analysis of the quality of surface, and ultimately design achieved.”

The opening of the new Digital Interaction Studio coincides with a push to focus the curriculum at Coventry more internationally. Already, 50% of students on the masters level courses are from overseas and so much attention is already paid to the exploration of cultural differences in automotive design. With the Virtalis StereoWorks system linked to a high-end video conferencing facility, Coventry aims to link its students up with leading global proponents of automotive design. The University hopes that its students will experience unique opportunities, being able to talk live with design and engineering gurus, being able to examine the resultant models in real-time and even explore virtual, 3D models simultaneously with other groups around the world.

Students discussing the 3D stereo model Coventry is so pleased with its StereoWorks system that it is poised to place another order for a second, larger scale version intended for a lecture theatre. John Owen reports: “The Virtalis hardware and software work well with our Alias and BunkSpeed software and their team helped us spec our systems. Their technology is mature and easy to use. In fact, I couldn’t believe it when my first set of renderings were immediately seen to be displayed correctly – you could say it worked straight out of the box!”