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VIRTUAL REALITY PROTOTYPING IN DEVELOPMENT AND WEB-BASED MARKETING OF FUTURE ELECTRONICS PRODUCTS
Mikko Kerttula,1 Tuomo Tuikka/ Jouni Similii/,3 and Petri Pulli lA IVTT Electronics & Infotech Research Centre at University ofOulu P,O. Box 1100, FIN-9057I Oulu, Finland tel. +358 8 551 2111, fax. +358 8 551 2320 e-mail:
[email protected] 2University ofOulu & Infotech Research Centre at University ofOulu Department of Information Processing Science Linnanmaa, FIN-90570 Oulu, Finland e-mail:
[email protected] 3CCC Companies Lentokentantie 15, FIN-90460 Oulunsalo, Finland tel. +358 8 520 5111, fax. +358 8 520 5222 e-mail:
[email protected] 4University ofOulu Department of Electrical Engineering Linnanmaa, FIN-90570 Oulu, Finland tel. +358 8 5512111, fax. +358 8 5512320 e-mail:
[email protected]
ABSTRACT Virtual reality prototyping is a novel approach for the development and marketing of future products. In this technology, a designer or a customer and a full-digital product model are combined in a virtual reality world, where the features and properties of the products can be simulated by means of virtual reality techniques. Virtual reality prototyping aims at a realistic simulation by allowing a person to see, touch, hear and operate a future product before creation of any physical design model. A virtual prototype integrates different engineering domains with a product concept, which can be visualized, tested and evaluated in a shorter time with lower cost than earlier. In addition, the combination of virtual reality prototyping, the Internet and WWW technologies offers promising possibilities for distributed product design and for product marketing. Virtual reality prototypSystems Development Methodsfor the Next Centwy
edited by Wojtkowski et al. Plenum Press, New York, 1997
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ing is applicable in many diverse engineering tasks but, at its best, it can be seen as a comprehensive development framework combining all the activities from a product idea to customer support of the final output.
1. INTRODUCTION Globalization and evolving technologies have set new demands on companies and organizations. Especially, enterprises applying high technology solutions or operating in the area of consumer and entertainment electronics must be able to react constantly to changing business circumstances. Tightening global competition, distributed organizations, progressing technology, shortened product life cycles and increasing product complexity require new effective methods and practices to be taken to use in product development, manufacturing and marketing. Industry and research institutes have put a lot of effort to find solutions to these demands. As a result, new approaches and theories have been introduced. Some of promising approaches that have been implemented by companies during the last 10 years include quality engineering practices like TQM[I] and QFD,[2] general process improvement[3 j and concurrent engineering?] Regardless of the theory or the method to be applied, at present, most solutions proposed take advantage of modem information and communication technologies to some extent. An approach adopted to meet these requirements is virtual reality prototyping (VRP). The aim is to enable a full-digital front-end for product development which should increase innovation of product concepts, shorten product development cycles, reduce development costs and improve the accuracy and quality of development to meet the needs of the customer and the market. In this paper, experiences in VRP in the field of electronics and telecommunication products are presented. The ideas and methods given are based on the close cooperation with companies in this domain area. Although the work is very much industry-originated and introduces a novel approach, it has been examined also in the context of existing theories and methodologies, both in the engineering sciences and information system science. However, the main purpose of the paper is not to provide a tenable scientific justification of the work in particular with its current status, but to indicate the enormous potential of VRP and virtual reality related applications and research work. The content of the paper is as follows. First, a general introduction to practices and problems in product design in the multi-engineering business field is given. Subsequently, VRP technology and its advantages in product development and marketing are introduced. In Section 3, an experimental environment for VRP is introduced and its use with a public case is demonstrated-a pen-like wireless cellular phone interface device. A second case introduces the combination of the Internet and VRP in Web-based product marketing and sale. A short presentation of the possibilities of VRP in Internet commerce and the practical implementation of the distributed VRP on the Web is considered. Finally, conclusions of the work executed are presented along with some ideas for future actions.
2. BACKGROUND 2.1. Nature of the Domain The development of modem electronics products is a typical multi-technology process incorporating several engineering technologies. A good overview of product design and de-
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velopment with real-life examples is given in [sJ. Whether the development work is performed internally in a company using mainly its own resources and services, or through a subcontractor network or virtual enterprises, which are becoming even more attractive choices along with modern information technology solutions, it is obvious that a successful organization and management of this team-work relies on effective communication, cooperation and coordination within the team members. In practice, the problems in communication and coordination appear at two different levels - at the human and the technical level. Product development, including joint work with marketing and manufacturing activities,[SJ is a highly interactive process involving individuals with different objectives and capabilities. This human-factor, together with the complexity of the work in general, as given in,[6.7 J uncertainty, dynamism, mutually interdependent actors and many highly interconnected product parts, make it difficult for participants, even in a small sized team to fully understand the objectives of the work and the target product concept. From the company viewpoint, the lack of understanding caused by ineffective communication and cooperation will be suffered as poor product quality, high development and manufacturing costs and extended development time. To avoid or minimize these effects, several approaches have been presented to support effective communication and cooperation in product development, especially under the term of the CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work),[8,9,10,11) on this problem area. At the technical level, the obstacles for effective product development with multitechnology products are often caused by difficulties related to the integration of the diverse engineering disciplines. As most engineering domains have their own modeling conventions and tools, the communication and coordination of the work may be difficult between project participants. For a company, these misunderstandings during the development work can be costly, especially if they are noticed only at the late integration steps. To overcome the barriers and misunderstandings between various design domains, several concepts have been introduced. In general, at least the most critical mistakes can be avoided by adopting, for an organization, a simple product development framework that supports quality management actions from TQM[IJ or ISO 9001.[12J At the engineering level, the possible solutions mostly lean on some intermediate presentation formats in which the domain specific presentations can be adjoined easier to an understandable concept. Visualization and prototyping techniques are good examples of this approach. Visualization of the target product, whether using 2D or 3D-images, or physical models, is a simple but effective way to help the integration of different development functions.[l3] Prototyping is a more advanced approach offering the possibility to approximate the product in one or more dimensions. IS ] In mechanical engineering, proto typing is usually considered equivalent to rapid prototyping producing complex physical prototypes directly from three dimensional Computer Aided Design (CAD) models. Whereas, in software engineering, prototyping is often tied to a software development process in which prototype programs are used in an early definition of customer requirements and in the continuous refinement of the development outpUt.[l4, IS] Although prototyping systems combining different design areas have been introduced, like in [16] the need for a comprehensive approach supporting all participating engineering aspects and covering the whole development process from acquisition of user preferences to product marketing is obvious. Virtual reality prototyping technology is a step towards this goal.
2.2. Virtual Reality Prototyping Virtual reality prototyping is a process in which a product or a product concept, its behavior and usage situation are simulated as realistically as possible using computer
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Figure 1. Simulated features in typical virtual prototypes in the consumer electronics and telecommunication domain.
models and virtual reality techniques. The digital model of the product is referred to as the virtual prototype. A virtual prototype is a computer based simulation of a prototype system or subsystems with a degree of functional realism that is comparable to that of a physical prototype.[17] In VRP, typical simulated features include the product's visual appearance, audio properties, functionality of the user interface, functionality and behavior of the product, and tactile and force feedback present in user-to-product interactions (Fig. 1). Virtual reality prototyping relies on the integrated application of advanced modeling, multiple discipline simulation, interactive user interface and virtual reality techniques. It can be used instead of, or in combination with, physical prototypes. In VRP, an advanced human-computer interface is needed for the realistic simulation of a product. This interface is provided by virtual reality techniques that can provide a strong intuitive sense of reality and the means to change the simulation through meaningful interactions. Virtual reality prototyping may include various levels of 'reality' , thus enabling concentration on any desired aspects of the product. The interaction between the user and the virtual environment can be based on different interaction interfaces, like a keyboard or a mouse, with a conventional window based 2D user interface. A more sophisticated virtual prototyping environment with a 3D user interface may include, e.g., a head mounted display, 3D position/orientation tracking devices and auditory as well as haptic feedback devices.
3. VIRTUAL REALITY PROTOTYPING OF ELECTRONICS PRODUCTS Until recently, VRP has been used mainly in mechanical engineering, where the applications have usually been derived from visualization and modeling tasks in CAD and
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CAM. The most successful applications have been in the field of automobile,/l s. 19] military, space and aerospace industries. The object, in this instance, is to expand the use of VRP to the development of small-sized, usually hand-held, electronics and telecommunications products. Products of interest include, for instance, cellular phones, mobile communicators, PDAs or GPS navigators.
3.1. Architectural Approaches During the work it was found that VRP could be divided into categories on the grounds of its purpose of use and its architectural implementation. With the target products in question, VRP is applicable both for product development and marketing. VRP can also be realized with a centralized or a distributed architecture. The previous classification is illustrated in Figure 2. In centralized VRP, the human-computer interaction of the simulation is centralized to a single host environment. Typically, the environment consists of advanced user interface devices and their controlling computer(s). It should be noted that the centralization concerns only the interaction between the user and the virtual environment. The complete prototyping process can still benefit from external, distributed simulation models . For instance, SW or HW simulation environments modeling the functionality and the behavior of the target product can be connected to a centralized VRP environment through a local network or the Internet. Centralized VRP has its strengths in maximum computational power and advanced interface devices. Therefore, it is applicable in tasks where accurate simulation of the product or some specific product features are needed. As an example, the evaluation of different surfacing materials or 3D audio features of a cellular phone could be mentioned. Furthermore, VRP is preferred in tasks where iterative and fast prototyping of large and accurate models is required and simulation models from different design domains are to be combined. Distributed VRP is based on the distribution of virtual prototypes through local networks, the Internet and intranets. The main objective is to utilize executable, distributed simulation models for the implementation and control of distributed collaborative product
Virtual reality prototyplng In electronics and telecommunlcaUon Induetry
Product Development
Marketing
Figure 2. Application areas and architectural implementations of VRP for consumer electronics and telecommuni· cation products.
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development and in Web-based marketing. In distributed design, a virtual prototype representing an object of the work is updated in real-time to reflect the progress of the work. Thus, the design object itself functions as a means of communication during the process. With this approach, distributed VRP could be used for verification and validation of development work. Another possible application for distributed VRP could be in Web-based product data management systems (PDM) and in marketing activities. Distributed VRP has close connection to research work in the more traditional field of esew[7.8.9.10j and distributed design. To take full advantage of distributed VRP, many development process and organization related issues must be considered. On the other hand, from the technical viewpoint, distributed VRP depends on the progress, in general, of network technology and in virtual reality techniques. If future networks cannot offer the capacity of handling large virtual models with reasonable access speed, or if the security and privacy of the data in networks is not guaranteed, distributed VRP will not succeed in public networks. Finally, the availability of virtual reality devices for standard office and home workstations will affect the degree of realism that can be reached in distributed VRP.
3.2. Applications and Benefits Virtual reality prototyping can be applied to diverse design tasks and in different development phases of the product. From present experiences, the approach to the exploitation of VRP may be considered to vary considerably. Some companies are very interested in the full-digital design process aspects of VRP, while others only want to use it for some specific design tasks. Likewise, some may want to benefit from VRP only in product development, whereas others may see it as a marketing aid. In general, the main benefit of VRP is based on its quality to support communication, cooperation and coordination at the human and the engineering levels. Virtual reality prototyping extends the advantages of traditional 3D visualization with functionality properties of the target model, and, if necessary, also supports Web-based distribution of this 3D, photorealistic virtual prototype. When combined with the more traditional view of esew and groupware, as presented in,[2o.21] the VRP approach offers very promising solutions for distributed engineering and product development. At the engineering level, VRP adjoins different engineering disciplines to a functional product model that reflects either the objectives and the requirements of the design process, or the contemporary state of the work. In contrast with technology-driven product development, VRP supports customer-centered product design by allowing a virtual prototype to be used even when selecting and simulating the possible product features. A virtual prototype created at the very beginning of a development process acts as a mould to which different project participants can fit their contributions. It not only clarifies the target product for its designers and engineers, but offers a full-digital model which simultaneously is of benefit for product marketing, manufacturing and subcontracting. It is obvious that the real contribution of VRP for companies will become evident only in the near future. However, already at this stage of the work, there are advantages and benefits that are clear to companies. Below, based on the cooperation with companies, the most realistic advantages of VRP are listed. The advantages are presented in two categories according to the main application areas-product development and marketing. With some items the classification is unclear as the advantage may be appropriate in both categories. In product development the advantages ofVRP can be summarized as follows:
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• Simulation models of various engineering disciplines can be combined. This improves communication between disciplines in concurrent engineering projects of multi-technology products. The lack of a universal communication mechanism has been a major problem in such projects. A virtual prototype can be also thought to represent a shared information space about the product. l22 ] • Distributed product development can be controlled and verified more efficiently with operational product models on the Internet and intranets. The validation and verification of the results of product design in geographically dispersed regions can be accomplished faster and with less effort, by using virtual prototypes accessible through standard Web browsers, than by using traditional means of communication. • The need for physical prototypes can be significantly reduced, or they can be eliminated totally. Production and modification of physical prototypes are costly and time-consuming. Therefore, time-to-market can be reduced since fewer physical prototypes have to be generated, and since modification of all-digital prototypes can usually be made quicker and with lower costs. In distributed VRP, the term physical prototype can be considered to also include paper sketches. • User observable features of the product that are difficult to specify explicitly can be designed, tested and validated. Simulated features of the product under development can be verified prior to committing to an expensive implementation. • Product concepts that cannot be implemented using contemporary technology but which are expected to be feasible in the future, if technology advances at a predicted rate of progress, can be simulated and evaluated. This improves the capability to rapidly introduce new products utilizing novel technologies as soon as they are available. • Early visibility of a new product in order to demonstrate its capabilities and features can be provided. This is especially helpful to less technically oriented people who have been asked to give feedback about the designs. Using virtual prototypes, it would be possible to receive accurate customer feedback in the early stages of development. In product marketing, VRP provides the following advantages: • User preferences and requirements can be collected efficiently. This can be used to ensure high customer appeal and satisfaction. This can be realized with centralized VRP by offering an advanced simulation for a selected customer group, or more openly through the Internet. • On-line product trials can be offered through the Web. The Web offers a global and cost-effective marketing channel, in that potential customers may experiment with various product features and ultimately also make product purchases. For example, operational 3D prototypes can be placed in virtual salesrooms. • In electronic commerce, customers can customize products interactively through the Internet before ordering them. For instance, the color or shape of products could be selected from a predefined set of alternatives. Likewise, a customer could pick up options from a list of additional features or even propose new product features. • On-line training and product support can be arranged through the Web by using operational product models. Companies could provide a 24 hour service with descriptive and interactive demonstrations of product use.
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4. CENTRALIZED VRP IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT The contemporary work at VTT Electronics focuses on the virtual proto typing of small, hand-held, electronics and telecommunication products. In this field an experimental virtual prototyping system is being built that is to be used to study, develop and demonstrate virtual prototyping technology for the aforementioned products.
4.1. Research Environment A part of the virtual prototyping environment is shown in Figure 3. In the creation of the environment, the emphasis has been on the use of existing software and hardware components. Therefore, the effort could be focused on making an effective integration of the selected components, and filling the gaps with new software only where required. The research environment represents a centralized VRP implementation. The system consists of several controlling computers for human-computer interaction and external workstations for HW and SW simulations. Audio-visual simulation is performed in a SGI Indigo 2 workstation, haptic simulation in a Pentium PC, and hardware and software simulations are executed in a Sun SPARCStation. Kinematic simulation is performed synchronously both in the haptic and visual simulation/rendering environments. The system has an open-architecture and additional external simulation environments can be attached to it through a well-defined communication interface module.
Figure 3. Experimental implementation of part of the virtual prototyping environment for hand-held telecommunication products.
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Model Convenlon
Haptic Model
VIrtu I Prototype
Figure 4. The process of creating virtual prototypes.
The user, either a developer, a customer or a member of any other interest group, interacts with the virtual prototype through various input and output interfaces. In the first phase, a conventional 2-D mouse and Logitech 3-D head tracker as input devices have been used. A conventional monitor display with a CrystalEyes stereoscopic system[23 1 has been used to provide a visual 3D-feedback. For auditory feedback, stereo headphones and loudspeakers have been used. Currently, the haptic interface, PHANToM,[24.25] is being added to this environment. It provides the user the ability to feel the structure and mechanical functionality of the virtual prototype. At the moment, it is limited to a one-finger haptic interface, as the target is simple hand-held products. Also being introduced is Polhemus[26] for tracking the user's hands and rapid physical prototypes kept in the hand. Figure 3 shows the components of the virtual proto typing environment. Technically speaking, the structure of a virtual prototype comprises the following components, which are illustrated in Figure 4:
• Visual rendering model, which is used to produce the stereoscopic images of the virtual prototype and for kinematic simulation. At the moment, the visualization model is based on the SGr OpenInventor,127] but in the near future, it will also be on VRML 2.0J 28] • An object-oriented logical system model that describes a selected part of the behavior and functionality of the product and acts as a model that integrates other simulation models and components. • Haptic simulation model, which is used in haptic simulation and rendering, and in kinematic simulation synchronously with the above mentioned visual rendering model. • External simulation models, which simulate selected parts of the product, such as hardware and software subsystems. The main tasks of the process to create a virtual prototype are shown in Figure 4. Creation and building ofa virtual prototype consists of the following generic steps:
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1. Define the geometry of the virtual prototype, either by converting it from a 3D CAD model, or by modeling it from scratch using an appropriate 3D modeling tool. If necessary, perform optimization of the geometry. 2. Fine tune the surface properties of the geometric model by defining colors, materials and texture. Again, perform optimization, if necessary. 3. Add the Open Inventor nodes needed for kinematic simulations, user interactions and inter-simulator communication to the scene graph representation of the geometric model. Adjust the parameters of the added nodes. 4. Create the simulatable, logical object model specifying the selected parts of the products logical structure, functionality and behavior. 5. Generate the haptic simulation model from the geometric model and define the tactile and force feedback simulation parameters for it. 6. Create auditory simulation/rendering models. 7. Create the other needed simulation models, such as hardware or software simulation models. 8. Connect all the above mentioned component models to the logical object model.
4.2. Case - Wireless Interface Device for Cellular Phone VTT Electronics is participating in a national research project, Virtual Prototyping Services for Electronics and Telecommunication Products (VIRPI).· The main purpose of the project is to transfer VRP related knowledge to industry and to develop further VRPbased solutions and technology in accordance with industrial needs. Besides confidential industrial tasks, a public pilot case of a virtual prototype of a pen-like wireless interface device for a cellular phone will be developed in the project. The work with this example started by combining a NOKIA 2110 GSM t phone to the VRP environment. Remote control of the GSM phone via its controlling computer was implemented using TCP/IP messages. The communication protocol was designed according to the specification of the VRP environment, and the client was attached to the VRP environment as an external simulation system. With these arrangements all the functions of a GSM phone available through the network were accessible in the VRP environment. The pen-like design (Fig. 5) was selected as the first user interface of the future cellular phone. The choice was made based on a rapid QFD analysis within a selected group of potential customers. Some evaluation of the future progress in the cellular phone technologies was also carried out. Currently, the first design models of the pen phone have been transferred to the virtual environment and the functionality of the GSM phone has been joined to them. The pen phone has access to all the menus and menu items of the phone used in the external simulation (i.e., the NOKIA 2110) and calls to the GSM network can be made through it. The phone can be viewed through stereoscopic glasses and controlled with a mouse and a keyboard. The haptic interface for the phone simulation is under development. The main objective of this pen phone example is to demonstrate and evaluate the VRP environment and its use in virtual reality prototyping of hand-held electronics products. To fulfill this goal the work is being continued on the following subjects:
• VIRPI project at VTT Electronics, http://www.ele.vtt.fi/projects/virpilvirpi.html
t Nokia 2110 GSM phone htlp:llwww.nokia.com/products/phones/phone_2110.html
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Figure 5. A pen-like wireless interface device for a cellular phone.
• Pen phone modeling. The functionality of the pen phone, i.e ., pen phone specific functionality, will be defined and attached to an operational prototype. The key issue in the modeling of the operations is the ease of use, and so the selection of available functions will be kept small by concentrating only on the most essential features. New design models will be created with varied user interfaces. Combinations of different display segments and input elements, such as slide buttons and rocker switches, will be tested. • Human-computer interface. The PHANToM haptic interface device will be attached to the simulation. A CyberGlove data glove[29] has been acquired that will be used to control interaction with the pen phone. • SW and HW simulation. The functionality of the pen phone will be modeled by the ROOM method lJO ] and the general architectural structure of the device will be decided. Most of the HW components will be implemented by lAVA[31] simulation, but in some cases the VHDU 32 ] simulation will be used. • Pen phone in marketing . The customer segmentation of the pen phone concept will continue. First, a collection of customer needs will be obtained using traditional design forms, i.e., sketches and mock-ups. Based on the results of this study, the most promising concepts will be developed as virtual prototypes. Finally, virtual prototypes will be demonstrated to collect customer preferences and evaluate the product features within a group of real customer candidates. • Virtual prototypes in manufacturing. Along with the other tasks, virtual reality prototyping from the viewpoint of the manufacturing industry is also being studied. A mechanical prototype of the pen phone will be produced in conjunction with an engineering office and the possibilities and problems of employing VRP in this kind of process will be clarified.
5. DISTRIBUTED VRP IN PRODUCT MARKETING The research environment introduced in Section 4.1 is a typical example of centralized VRP. This means that in order to utilize virtual prototyping results in product development, it is necessary to have all the persons in the same physical place. In the future, in order to account for distributed concurrent product development and to really open up the possibilities of fully utilizing virtual prototyping technology, the experimentation will continue on communication solutions based on the distributed VRP approach on the Internet.
5.1. Internet Commerce and VRP The Internet is rapidly expanding from a communication medium to a new market. This development is due to the popularity of the World Wide Web that has added totally
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new dimensions to the Internet by allowing users to experiment, regardless of the computer platform or the operating system from a globally distributed multimedia information using hypermedia techniques. The tremendous growth of the Internet and WWW[33J has increased the interest of companies towards the possibilities of the Web, not only for distribution of company information and advertising, but also for direct sales and distribution of 'softgoods' and information services. When considering the latest research in the field of electronic commerce, e.g., in,[34 J it seems that 3D functional product models, i.e., virtual reality prototypes, will have a considerable role in commercial Web use, either as stand-alone presentations or as a part of larger virtual environments. Using the classification of the Web sites given in,[35 J the most promising sites for virtual prototypes are in on-line storefronts and in Internet presence sites. At these locations, the customers could benefit from virtual prototypes mainly by conducting on-line product trials. This, according to,[35 J is considered to be one of the main customer benefits of commercial Web use. For companies the benefits of the distribution of the functional product models in the Web are not necessarily clear. If a firm does not a have any existing activities to support the creation of virtual prototypes, i.e., product development using full-digital virtual prototypes or at least design in 3D, the effort to build the models for the Web may be too expensive. On the other hand, in some enterprises, the use of virtual prototypes may not be limited only to product advertising or on-line trials, but there may be totally new systems and activities built behind these models. For example, virtual prototypes could be used to collect information about their users on the Web or in a virtual salesroom, or userconfigurable virtual prototypes could be connected directly to the ordering, production and delivery system of the product. In these cases, the advantages of virtual prototypes are evident. It should be noted that not all products are suitable for VRP in Web marketing. In order to get the best results, the target products should represent a certain degree of technological complexity, i.e., functionality that offers the user a simulation experience comparable to a close-to-real-life experimentation. From a company viewpoint, VRP in Web marketing could be successful especially with products that offer new technological innovations to be tested by potential customers and that are competing in the markets on the basis of the ease of use and general usability. In general, it seems that small-sized electronics and telecommunication products are well suited for Web marketing. This is not only because of their applicability for VRP, but also because the assumption that leading-edge early adopter Web users would be a very potential market segment for new electronics and telecommunication products and services. Currently, about half of the Web users belong to this upstream Web audience.[36]
5.2. Implementation and Tools Technically, loading and executing of virtual prototypes on the Internet is quite straightforward. The models can be run as such with the most common Web browsers and plug-ins, when they are based on VRML and Java technologies. Assuming that the problems related to general Internet technology[35] can be avoided, there should be no technical obstacles for the feasible execution of the virtual prototypes on the Internet. However, when Web-based virtual prototyping is considered as a complete process, the critical prerequisite for the acceptance in companies will be the ease of creation and building of the virtual prototype.
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How can the firms produce high-quality virtual prototypes quickly and without high costs? Companies usually have CAD models for their products and these models could be utilized in the same way, as was done with the virtual reality environment described in Section 4.1. However, the process of creating virtual prototypes as given there relies mainly on special-purpose equipment and SW tools, and as such is not applicable commonly. To ensure the wider acceptance of virtual prototypes in the Web, it is obvious that some user-friendly tools, supporting the most common computer systems are needed for the automatization of the process of providing functionality to existing CAD models. CCC Companies, Finland, are currently developing their solution for production of functional, 3D, portable and photorealistic virtual product models from existing 3D CAD models. The graphical tool will provide a library of functional elements that can be connected to simulate the behavior of the target product. The tool is targeted mainly for design and engineering offices offering Web-based advertising services and for marketing departments in companies. Although the tool will facilitate the task of creating new virtual prototypes, it is worth remembering that the process of adding functionality to a model always requires the exact understanding of the logical behavior of the product. Another interesting issue in Web-based virtual prototyping is the degree of realism achieved during the simulation. At present, compared to centralized virtual reality prototyping, the distributed simulation through the Web cannot offer such an advanced sense of reality as the selection of interface devices for the average PC-workstation for the home and office is still restricted. However, if information and computer technology advance with predicted steps, it is sure that the devices, such as data gloves and head-mounted displays with stereoscopic viewers, will be available for the PC environment at an affordable price in the near future.
6. CONCLUSIONS Shortened product life cycles, increasing product complexity and global competition are the main characteristics which describe future business, especially in the electronics and telecommunication industries. In order to take advantage of rapidly changing markets and advancing technology, companies must be able to increase innovation of product concepts, shorten concept-to-market periods, reduce development costs and improve the accuracy and quality of development. Virtual reality prototyping technology can be applied successfully in development and marketing of these future product. The technology enables products and product concepts to be designed, tested and evaluated in advance before creating any physical design models. A virtual prototype integrates the modeling and simulation conventions from various engineering disciplines, and thus provides a full-digital means of communication which is of benefit through the whole design process, from initial product innovation to marketing and sales activities. The integration of VRP to the Internet and WWW technologies extends the possibilities of the presented technology considerably. The advantages of the distributed approach are not restricted only to the technical or engineering level, but it also supports the overall communication and cooperation at the individual and organizational level by providing a common workspace with shared information, reflecting the contemporary status of the work for the members of distributed product design. Likewise, distributed virtual prototypes can be beneficial in Web-based marketing and sales.
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7. FUTURE WORK The contemporary work will continue mainly in the VIRPI and VRP! research projects in which the concentration will be on the development of the technology and on applications and services based on virtual reality prototyping techniques. The immediate goal, technically, will be to demonstrate the VRP environment as a whole using the public pilot case. The other topics that will receive further attention will be the distributed VRP on the Internet and SW/HW co-simulation in the VRP environment. Besides the research projects, companies are being supported by sharing the VRP knowledge and by accomplishing application specific development work. As implied in this paper, VRP can be combined to many different applications and methodologies in the engineering and information system sciences. The main objective is to support the development of electronics and telecommunication products. To proceed in this field, new research projects originating from the current experience in VRP are being planned and started. The topics that are of great interest include the human-computer interface that rely on virtual reality techniques, wireless virtual reality environments, virtual prototypes in electronic commerce, virtual enterprises and in concurrent engineering. The authors are open to discuss commercial, industrial and academic cooperation in the context of these projects and the framework presented in this paper.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to thank all the industrial partners participating in the VIRPI project, namely, 3C Suunnittelu Oy, CCC Companies, Metsavainio Design Oy and Nokia Mobile Phones, for their contribution to the presented work. The work would not have been possible without the funding and the coordination of TEKES (Technology Development Centre Finland) and FlMET (Federation of Finnish Metal, Engineering and Electrotechnical Industries), to which organizations the authors also wish to express their gratitude. Finally, we want to thank Mr. Marko Salmela at VTT Electronics for the close cooperation between the VRP and VIRPI projects, and his personal support for our work.
REFERENCES I. Bounds, G., et aI., "Beyond Total Quality Management". 1994, Sydney: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 2. Akao, Y, "Quality Function Deployment - Integrating Customer Requirements into Product Design". Productivity Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Originally published as Hinshitukenai katuyou no jissai by the Japan Standards Association, 1990, 361 p. 3. "Framework For Managing Process Improvement". 000, 12/15/94. 4. Linton, L., Hall, D., Hutchinson, K., Hoffman, D., Evanczuk, S. and Sullivan. P., "First Principles of Concurrent Engineering - A Competitive Strategy for Product Development". Technical rep :. CALS/Concurrent Engineering Working Group - Electronic Systems. Litt0n Amecom, 5115 Calvat Road, College Park, MD 20740.1992.182 p. 5. Ulrich, Karl T. and Eppinger, Steven D., "Product Design ~1 Development". New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995, 289 p.
t VRP project at VTT Electronics, http://www.ele.vtt.fi/projects/vrp/vrp.html
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