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Observations of design review sequences by means of Virtual Reality (VR) and participant interviews have demonstrated that improvements may be made through providing selected user functions to participants who would otherwise just be observers. These functions are found from a survey of more or less experienced VR users in design reviews. The basic idea is that the participants are given access to special review data via App and smart device and are thus capable of immediately controlling the view of the product under review. Thus, for instance, the participants are able to download the structure tree including the components of the product to be tested onto their devices, navigate inside the structure tree, and get information about component parameters independently of the other participants. Participants can also configure the representation of the VR model displayed for all participants via smart device (highlighting, visibility, colour, ...) and set up the view. This makes communication easier, since otherwise the respective settings have to be administered by a VR operator. Special user interaction functions may improve the control of design reviews by changing the participants’ role from passive to active. A special requirement is the spatial selection of model components in the stereoscopic VR view. To meet this demand a Leap Motion controller transmits position data from the users hand to the pointer of the VR System via the protocol Virtual Reality Peripheral Network (VRPN).

Virtual Reality (VR) visualization of product data in engineering applications requires a largely manual process of translating various product data into a 3D representation. Modern game engines allow low-cost, high-end visualization using latest stereoscopic Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) and input controllers. Thus, using them for VR tasks in the engineering industry is especially appealing. As standardized formats for 3D product representations do not currently meet the requirements that arise from engineering applications, the presented paper suggests an Enhanced Scene Graph (ESG) that carries arbitrary product data derived from various engineering tools. The ESG contains formal descriptions of geometric and non-geometric data that are functionally structured. A VR visualization may be derived from the formal description in the ESG immediately. The generic elements of the ESG offer flexibility in the choice of both engineering tools and renderers that create the virtual scene. Furthermore, the ESG allows storing user annotations, thereby sending feedback from the visualization directly to the engineers involved in the product development process. Individual user interfaces for VR controllers can be assigned and their controls mapped, guaranteeing intuitive scene interaction. The use of the ESG promises significant value to the visualization process as particular tasks are being automated and greatly simplified.

Abstract. In this paper we present a design concept, architecture and implementation of a microservice to process and integrate rain information into a car navigation system in the form of rain map features. Two different input data sources are considered: QuadTile JSON format and GeoTIFF images. Our system converts this input data into an ouput GeoJSON format with only the most relevant information for the map overlay system in the navigation system of the car. We discuss different options for the cloud appearance, like color, shape and transparency. We present our microservices architecture together with data pipelines and implementation. Our approach allows for low latency and spare computing resources, which are especially needed in embedded systems. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our approach as well as further work.

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