MS, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Engineering and Applied Science: Mechanical Engineering

The assessment and representation of intricate design and simulation results for organic geometries through traditional devices (tablets, computers, phones) possess a set of significant limitations. Consequently, identifying potential manufacturability, design issues, and opportunities for design enhancements remains challenging in the early design stage. The inability to identify these possible areas often leads to time-consuming and costly design revisions and iterations. In contrast, Virtual Reality (VR) offers many benefits over the conventional 3D computer-aided design (CAD) environment, particularly regarding visualization and analysis of complex organic geometries. The advantages of VR may be more visible as designs become more organic or complex. This thesis aims to investigate and develop an immersive environment that enables designers and engineers to explore complex organic geometries. This thesis focuses on generating an Immersive Virtual Reality (ImVR) environment that could allow designers to evaluate and identify critical design areas of a part model based on the design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) parameters. Custom Python scripts and Visualization Toolkit (VTK) algorithms perform surface and volume rendering across the CAD model in the virtual environment. Two case studies of different organic designs with tools and an immersive visualization environment are presented to analyze the effect of immersive design analysis of a CAD model. The ImVR toolset also includes a collaborative multiplayer feature and an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot powered by ChatGPT. The chatbot can provide real-time guidance to users within the immersive environment, while the collaborative feature enables multi-user interaction and visualization in the immersive environment.

Committee: Sam Anand Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Manish Kumar Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jillian Aurisano Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Mechanical Engineering