Virtual design - a generic virtual reality system for industrial applications

IGD's general purpose virtual reality system "Virtual Design" permits the processing of highly diverse applications. A number of modeling data formats can be imported into and processed by the system. In a preprocessing step the incoming data is adjusted to the requirements of virtual reality and radiosity lighting is precalculated. Configuration files specify the behaviour of the model and possible interactions during the execution phase. Virtual Design is based on the VR toolkit of IGD which provides a variety of libraries covering graphics, acoustics, simulation, display, navigation and interaction. This paper introduces the various components of the system and presents an integrated audiovisual solution tailored for virtual reality. A couple of different applications demonstrate the usability and flexibility of the system.