Virtual reality and the application in virtual experiment for agricultural equipment

Abstract

The meaning and characteristics of the virtual experiment and the significance of applying virtual prototype into agricultural equipment were analyzed in this paper. Then a kind of virtual experiments system platform on agricultural equipments was founded by using MultiGen Creator, Vega Prime software and VC++ programming language. According to the functions of the virtual experiment system, the structure and all components of the system were introduced. Furthermore, the methods of network design, synchronous driving, image edge-blending and geometric calibration, and the key technologies such as tractors dynamics modeling, experiment reappearance and real-time test of virtual experiment were discussed. Finally, based on three-dimension geometry model and Vega Prime, the digitalization of tractor testing ground and real-time performance simulation were realized, which provides a new research means and technical method for the tractor performance testing. The test results show that the platform could make the observers immersed among the virtual environment to experience testing process directly and intuitively, and could achieve the real-time interaction between users and environment. This study proves stable operation of the system with reliability and validity, its velocity can reach 30 frames/s and the delay time is 0.025s. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.