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Inside the factory we move down the production line towards the chassis of the truck. We’re there between the wheels as operatives lower the truck’s engine into place. Above us, the cab is being prepared to be fitted. Smoothly it is lowered from the ceiling. We’re at the heart of the action as the final parts of the truck are fitted.
Except this is no truck factory. We’re in the University of Northampton’s Nvision Centre. The “factory” is being projected on a big screen, and the glasses we are wearing are allowing us to see it in three dimensions. Take them off, and you have a none-too-special computer-generated animation of the production of a truck. Put them on, and it feels like you’re inside the truck itself as it is built. The effect, it has to be said, is quite spectacular.
The technology for 3D visualisation has developed considerably in the past 10 years. Consumers now ponder whether to go to see the 3D version of the latest Hollywood blockbuster, and the technology will soon be in our living rooms. Manufacturers are also benefiting from the opportunity to visualise designs in 3D.
The cost of 3D systems has gone down, and their power has increased. Andrew Connell, technical director at Virtalis, which provided the technology behind the Northampton demo, says: “Virtual reality has come a long way; and it’s got a long way to go.”
Connell says engineering firms are now using virtual reality at an early stage, from the design review process for products to training workers in production skills. Companies in the West Midlands now have the chance to do so at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), which has just unveiled a suite of cutting-edge technologies, including a 3D visualisation wall, at its base at Warwick University.
The technologies, for visualisation and also metrology, are part of a £5 million investment in WMG’s Premium Vehicle Customer Interface Technologies Centre (PVCIT) by Advantage West Midlands and industry partners including Jaguar Land Rover and Corus. They are aimed at the region’s automotive industry, although other sectors and areas of the country should also benefit.
PVCIT’s facilities include twin-column coordinate measuring machines – large enough to scan an entire vehicle – X-ray computer tomography kit and laser scanners. The 3D visualisation wall was built at a cost of £500,000. It has a resolution four times that of a high-definition TV set. Along with the metrology gear and scanners, it means small firms visiting the centre have access to equipment that might be outside their budgets to buy.
John Pendleton is managing director of interior trim supplier Cab Automotive which works for customers including Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and Bentley. He has been using PVCIT’s X-ray computer tomography system, which can analyse internal and external aspects of components, to assess the quality of welds on a frame for seats for the Land Rover Defender 6. He says computerised tomography scanning of weld patterns revealed air holes in the weld, allowing Cab to improve weld quality and integrity, and saving the company £50,000 in process improvements. Pendleton has also been using the 3D wall to demonstrate designs to customers without having to build physical prototypes.
Cab Automotive’s turnover is £17 million. Pendleton says: “We can’t afford to carry this sort of R&D structure, so working with universities like Warwick to use these facilities will help us to protect jobs.”
Another small company to have benefited from the facilities at PVCIT is Warwick’s Stable Solution, which has developed and built a super bike that finished second in the first ever MotoGP2 race in Qatar. The engineer behind the bike, Mark Butler, Stable Solution’s director, says that using laser scanning had saved the company time and allowed it to reverse engineer a model of the bike’s engine when there was no CAD data available from its manufacturer. “As a small company, the chance of getting the engine, plus scanner or coordinate measuring machine, in the right place at the right time is difficult,” says Butler.
Pendleton says PVCIT’s high-tech facilities are helping Cab Automotive to develop its business as the market picks up.