School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University

The Virtual Reality System (VRS) allows an engineer to perform ergonomic evaluations of truck cab interiors and exterior.  It maintains a two way link with a parametric CAD system (e.g., Pro/Engineer).  A human model has been created for use with this system.  This human model represents the truck driver and is manipulated using tracking devices (Flock of Birds) attached to the user's body.  Recent advances of this research have resulted in a collaborative, distributed architecture which fully integrates dissimilar engineering software systems for customized analysis during design evaluations.  This architecture has been demonstrated using Transom JACK (human modeling software), Division's dV/Reality (visualization software), VRS (virtual prototyping software), and Pro/Engineer (CAD software).

The human model for the virtual reality system uses a full inverse kinematics human model.  Six tracking devices are used to track the head, hands, torso, and lower legs of the user and inverse kinematics routines are used to track the connecting linkages (upper arms, upper legs, neck).  In addition, the human model is completely parametric and therefore completely scalable.