Integration of Cables in the Virtual Product Development Process

In car- and aircraft industry virtual environments became an important technology in the product development process. The goal is to replace the physical mock-ups step by step with digital mock-ups. Using digital mock-ups the development time and the mock-up production costs can be reduced. The assumption is that digital mock-ups should have the same functionality as the physical mock-ups. Today bendable elements like cables, pipes or rubber plugs are not integrated in the virtual prototype development process. In this paper we analyse the integration of virtual cables in the digital mock-up development process. We also present a prototypical application in a virtual environment (VE), which one can use for the installation of a wiring harness and for assembly.