New VR Capabilities for CAD Users

Virtalis has launched Visionary Render, a 3D virtual reality solution.

"Visionary Render delivers VR capabilities to CAD users and benefits throughout the product lifecycle, and you don't have to be a VR expert to use it," said David Cockburn-Price of Virtalis. "Consequently, Visionary Render allows users to easily interact with and immerse themselves in their data on a human scale, to collaborate with others in a single VR environment and to tap into the benefits that flow from those activities."

According to the company, the solution renders large and complex VR models in real-time stereoscopic 3D with high update rates and negligible latency.  It allows users to create interactive VR environments and simulations that can be deployed in a number of immersive visualization systems or be published and distributed to third parties.

"We've put all our VR know-how into Visionary Render. It's a system that can cope with the most complex data and render it in 3D stereo, then adds tracking for human-in-the-loop immersion and networking for interactive, multi-disciplinary design reviews or training exercises," said Andrew Connell, technical director at Virtalis.

The solution's 3D user interface (GUI) allows users to access the full tree structure of the imported data along with associated and valuable metadata. Two views are provided: the Directory Tree shows all the properties of the model and the Developer View allows the manipulation of all the parts comprising the model.

To navigate, users can swap between a hand-held VR controller, an ordinary mouse or a 3D Spacemouse, all supported natively. As the user moves the 3D cursor, it intelligently follows the surface vectors of the model. Any menus that pop up are 3D and transparent, maintaining the perception of depth within the model.

Interactive applications and simulations are created in Visionary Render using a simplified object-based variant of LUA, a flexible scripting language, which allows behaviors to be added to 3D data imported from other environments.

For more information, visit Virtalis.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.