FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS IN PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL REALITY (VR) ENVIRONMENTS - A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

Product development is time-consuming and cost-intensive. Part of the costs can be attributed to physical tests. Therefore, new methods are being researched to save resources. One upcoming area that becomes important for the industry is Virtual Reality (VR) technology. In the state of research studies have already compared VR with methods such as CAD visualizations. However, there is a need for research regarding the comparison to physical models. Therefore, a comparative study between a physical system and a VR system is evaluated in terms of functional analysis. The study task was to analyze the mechanism of a lawn sprinkler. For evaluation, a function explanation in a final interview was used. Although more different representations were possible with VR, there was no general improvement. This could be because movements were more difficult to visualize and recognize. The VR application is very suitable if you mainly have to look at systems that are difficult to view in reality. For example, some physical systems may be challenging to see in operation or may not allow a physical cut, so VR can be a solution. The advantages of physical systems can be in using other impressions, such as a feeling of certain forces.