Digital Factory and Virtual Reality: Teaching Virtual Reality Principles with Game Engines

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is widely used in various industrial applications. All leading industrial manufacturing companies today have a strategy called the ‘concept of a digital factory’ where all aspects of manufacturing are digitally veriied on digital mockups prior to physical manufacturing. Other than that, it is a rapidly developing new medium and further development of VR and IT will open up new possibilities. The new concept of Industry 4.0 is based on using approaches like the Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Cyber-Physical Systems and Virtual Reality. With the decreasing cost of VR devices, even smaller businesses are able to implement such technologies. It is therefore crucial that mechanical engineering graduates are familiar with these new technologies and trends. We had to use unconventional methods to educate mechanical engineering students in the latest trends in IT and VR. Back in 2010, there were almost no tools available for teaching how to create industry-themed VR environments, which did not require complicated coding, so we decided to make our own. To simplify the development, we used Source Engine as the core and enhanced it with a library of textures, models and scripts we called DigiTov. Although Source Engine is a game engine, the master logic of VR development is the same as for professional SW products. In autumn 2015, a group of 10 students modiied the DigiTov for Unity3D, forming a team made up of diferent roles.