The Future of Virtual Product Creation
Dr. Uwe v. Lukas, Dr. Ralph Schultz
German Abstract
Zur Vorhersage und Gestaltung zukünftiger Entwicklungen hat sich das Roadmapping als flexible Methode in der Praxis bewährt. Es kann nicht allein auf Ebene eines Unternehmens zur Identifikation relevanter Technologien oder marktrelevanter Produkte verwendet werden, sondern dient auch als Instrument zur Ausrichtung der Forschung auf nationaler und internationaler Ebene. Der Artikel gibt einen Überblick über das Projekt ViP-RoaM. Dort ist das ZGDV Rostock in die Erarbeitung einer Roadmap für den Bereich der Virtuellen Produktentstehung im Auftrag der Europäischen Kommission eingebunden. Unter Einbeziehung verschiedener Quellen und zahlreicher Fachexperten aus Industrie und Forschung sind relevante Forschungsbereiche identifiziert worden. Für jeden Forschungsbereich (z.B. Wissensbasierte Konstruktion oder Virtual Prototyping) wurden anschließend in Zusammenarbeit mit den Experten die zugehörigen Einzelthemen benannt und zeitlich eingeordnet.
Roadmapping is an important tool for supporting strategic planning. Not only can it be used on a company level to define future products, but it can also be used by industry consortia or other communities to identify relevant trends and agree on future research and development efforts. This article presents ViPRoaM, a project funded in the 5th framework program of the European Community. It aims for a roadmap in the area of Virtual Product Creation with a focus on the automotive and aeronautical industry. Using the process illustrated in figure 1, it was possible to integrate the input of existing technology roadmaps as well as statements of European experts from industry and academia. The resulting roadmap identifies seven important research areas: – Enhanced Virtual Prototyping – Knowledge-based Engineering – Networked Collaboration – Requirement Handling – Change Management in Mechatronics – Impact Prediction and Visualization – Meta Model for Product Creation
Computer Graphics has been identified as a major enabling technology for Virtual Product Creation serving various research areas. It provides the basic means to generate and visualize product models and also offers sophisticated approaches to interacting with virtual prototypes, such as using Virtual or Augmented Reality. These novel approaches to human computer action are crucial to handle the complexity that comes with future engineering methodologies such as Product Morphing or Front-loading, where many aspects of manufacturing and product life cycle have to be considered as early as in the design stage.
Points of contact Dr.-Ing. Uwe v. Lukas ZGDV Rostock, Germany Email: uvl@rostock.zgdv.de Dr.-Ing. Ralph Schultz Fraunhofer IPK Berlin, Germany Email: ralph.schultz@ipk.fraunhofer.de
Existing Products RM Projects
Roles & Validation
Comments
Interested Parties Expert Group Core Team
Screening Preparation Pack Workshop
Questionnaire
Review
Workshop
Workshop
Vision
Roadmap
Implem. Path
0 Project Start
6 Milestone 1
12 Milestone 2
Figure 1: Roadmap generation Process
CG
topics 2/2003 21