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Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

cnet.com

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Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#21

Post by syntaxing »

I design mechanical stuff for a living and I can't imagine that designing cars in VR is more efficient than CAD. There isn't any barrier right now from idea to CAD. If an engineer (or a scientist) can imagine it, an engineer will be able to design and create it digitally with current technology. I would say the current limitation is the manufacturing tools rather than the designing tools.

Side note, I think the work process for designing the exterior of cars is to create a sculptures with clay, transfer to clay to CAD, and rinse and repeat. I wonder if VR will ever beat manual sculpting.

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#22

Post by d-sc »

syntaxing wrote: post #21

I design mechanical stuff for a living and I can't imagine that designing cars in VR is more efficient than CAD. There isn't any barrier right now from idea to CAD. If an engineer (or a scientist) can imagine it, an engineer will be able to design and create it digitally with current technology. I would say the current limitation is the manufacturing tools rather than the designing tools. Side note, I think the work…

Also design mechanical stuff for a living. I’ve spent multiple days over the course of the past six months creating drawings to demonstrate how a design will ‘feel’ once made. A 1:1 3d model that other stakeholders could walk into would be so much more effective.

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#23

Post by andybak »

aphextron wrote: post #6
aetherspawn wrote: post #2

They obviously showed a lot of meticulously mated actual 3D components but those were all prepared in a CAD program. Sure, the VR sketch might be useful, but the visual part of the video is quite a lot of marketing spin when it’s not showing the abstract lines. And I’m not sure that VR is the best way to “feel” a car in this way either. A car is an extension of your body, so it’s just as important where/what your sho…

Basically any usage of VR outside of gaming right now is guaranteed to just be marketing nonsense. The hardware simply isn’t there for real world professional usage as a productivity enhancing device. Some day we’ll be there, but the current state of even the most advanced HMDs is little beyond toy prototypes at this point.

The hardware is fine. (What's more arguably lacking is software)

Yeah resolution could be better but it's far from being a deal breaker for viz, modelling etc.

Curious to hear what you thought the blockers were?

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#24

Post by Scene_Cast2 »

d-sc wrote: post #22
syntaxing wrote: post #21

I design mechanical stuff for a living and I can't imagine that designing cars in VR is more efficient than CAD. There isn't any barrier right now from idea to CAD. If an engineer (or a scientist) can imagine it, an engineer will be able to design and create it digitally with current technology. I would say the current limitation is the manufacturing tools rather than the designing tools. Side note, I think the work…

Also design mechanical stuff for a living. I’ve spent multiple days over the course of the past six months creating drawings to demonstrate how a design will ‘feel’ once made. A 1:1 3d model that other stakeholders could walk into would be so much more effective.

As a hobbyist - the CAD tools I've used (Fusion360 and Inventor) - are clunky with arbitrary 3D shapes (e.g. a Porsche door panel). How do people in the "real world" do it? Iterate in Maya / similar and then export? Think in parametric curves? Something else entirely?

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#25

Post by storrgie »

kettlecorn wrote: post #7

I’m working on something similar (not announced yet). Tools like Gravity Sketch, and the tool I’m making, are great for conceptualization and communication. In seconds to minutes you can take an idea from your head and show it to someone else. You can have an idea for a product ready to show your peers and in moments they can offer feedback and make changes. Tools like this aren’t replacing the final engineering yet,…

we're using VR for some progressive design stuff, do you have a contact you can provide. It might be that we're a good opportunity to test out something as it nears announcement.

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#26

Post by makx »

aetherspawn wrote: post #2

They obviously showed a lot of meticulously mated actual 3D components but those were all prepared in a CAD program. Sure, the VR sketch might be useful, but the visual part of the video is quite a lot of marketing spin when it’s not showing the abstract lines. And I’m not sure that VR is the best way to “feel” a car in this way either. A car is an extension of your body, so it’s just as important where/what your sho…

> They obviously showed a lot of meticulously mated actual 3D components but those were all prepared in a CAD program.

Do you have any reference for that?

If so, they wouldn't need gravity sketch at all. The most popular CAD programs already have VR support:

Rhino -> https://www.mindeskvr.com/

Maya -> https://www.marui-plugin.com

3dsMax -> 3dsMax Interactive (Autodesk)

Blender -> https://github.com/MARUI-PlugIn/BlenderXR

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#27

Post by vjeux »

aphextron wrote: post #6
aetherspawn wrote: post #2

They obviously showed a lot of meticulously mated actual 3D components but those were all prepared in a CAD program. Sure, the VR sketch might be useful, but the visual part of the video is quite a lot of marketing spin when it’s not showing the abstract lines. And I’m not sure that VR is the best way to “feel” a car in this way either. A car is an extension of your body, so it’s just as important where/what your sho…

Basically any usage of VR outside of gaming right now is guaranteed to just be marketing nonsense. The hardware simply isn’t there for real world professional usage as a productivity enhancing device. Some day we’ll be there, but the current state of even the most advanced HMDs is little beyond toy prototypes at this point.

Lots of people are doing some really cool art using VR headsets. Those two Facebook groups are really nice to join if you’re interested.

Animations: https://www.facebook.com/groups/virtual.animation/

Paintings: https://www.facebook.com/groups/virtual.paintings/

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#28

Post by Guest10928391 »

aetherspawn wrote: post #2

They obviously showed a lot of meticulously mated actual 3D components but those were all prepared in a CAD program. Sure, the VR sketch might be useful, but the visual part of the video is quite a lot of marketing spin when it’s not showing the abstract lines. And I’m not sure that VR is the best way to “feel” a car in this way either. A car is an extension of your body, so it’s just as important where/what your sho…

I can't imagine it being the most efficient development tool, but I think for overall "feel", VR could have a legitimate use case.

For example, you're designing the car on the computer. You put on the VR headset, and suddenly your computer chair becomes the driver's seat. You can look around at your surroundings. Do the dash controls and buttons feel like they're in a good location? Does reaching for the handbrake feel natural or is it too far forward or back? If you look in the rear view mirror do you have a good view, or is the back window causing it to be limited?

Then you can quickly jump out of VR, make a few adjustments, and jump back in. Or get in VR and quickly A/B test different multiple saved versions of the interior.

It would also be good for general feedback. Get some people off the street and toss them in VR to walk around your car. I could see it being more effective and accurate than looking at photos, or 3D renders.

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#29

Post by 2dollars27cents »

Cool. I'm more of a mechanical designer so it is hard for me to understand why this is an improvement because I'm used to requiring a lot of precision in my modeling. That said when he mentioned the ability to get line-of-sight on different curves I could appreciate it a bit more.

I still don't think that the hand controllers they're using are the best input device. I can imagine a hybrid approach where design teams are using standard surface modeling like Alias/3Ds Max/Blender for the bulk of the design work and then VR systems like this for review.

Re: Ford's designers are learning to create 3D cars in VR

#30

Post by GuiA »

aetherspawn wrote: post #2

They obviously showed a lot of meticulously mated actual 3D components but those were all prepared in a CAD program. Sure, the VR sketch might be useful, but the visual part of the video is quite a lot of marketing spin when it’s not showing the abstract lines. And I’m not sure that VR is the best way to “feel” a car in this way either. A car is an extension of your body, so it’s just as important where/what your sho…

It's unclear from the article what Gravity Sketch offers that absolutely requires VR to get the several orders of magnitude improvement that is claimed:

> "If you wanted to make an interior and an exterior, you're still talking months," versus approximately 20 hours in the VR tool, he says.

If Gravity Sketch were on a traditional 2D screen instead of in VR, would the designers still accomplish in hours what used to take months? Conversely, if the VR visualization were to be added to the tools and processes that currently take months to prototype a model, would a similar boost in productivity be observed?

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