The current way of designing industrial plants relies on the communication
among experts in the field, and on tools that allow the
simulation of the site. Virtual reality (VR) tools are used to visualize
and interact with complex 3D environments in real time, and
several engineering simulations employ VR to foresee the results
of complex industrial operations. The research project described
here presents a collaborative engineering environment (CEE) that
integrates VR techniques into a system where the execution of
different sequences of engineering simulations is modeled as
scientific workflows. The focus of this research is on the oil & gas
industry, particularly offshore engineering, where the project of a
new production unit is a lengthy and expensive process and usually
is conducted by different specialists who are geographically
distributed. Among the integrated engineering simulations are
those involving structural calculus, hydrodynamics, naval engineering
with mooring systems, meteo-oceanography, and others.
The main objective is to improve the users’ interpretation capacity
and skills while providing visualization tools for a better understanding
of the results.
CR Categories: I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional
Graphics; Realism– Virtual reality; Graphics systems; Distributed
network graphics;
Keywords: three-dimensional graphics; virtual reality; collaborative
virtual environments; offshore engineering.