In short, there is much to suggest that immersive engineering will become an increasingly important element of daily design and manufacturing work, not least as metaverse concepts gain ground. But also as a general design phenomenon, the solutions are gaining terrain. Often at the OEM level where companies such as Volvo Group, Mercedes-Benz and BMW already today have begun to exploit the technology.
High Resolution in Real Time
In the case of Siemens and Sony, the latter’s XR HMD (SRH-S1) with high-resolution 1.3-type OLED microdisplays with 4K resolution and Sony’s proprietary rendering technology has enabled real-time, high-resolution and realistic rendering of 3D objects. It also has a pair of controls optimized for intuitive interaction with 3D objects and precise pointing. The head-mounted display is also optimized for extended creative use, designed with comfort and stability in mind.
“We embarked on this collaborative project with Sony to deliver the power of the industrial metaverse to our community of designers, engineers and manufacturers directly into our flagship product development program,” said Siemens CAD leader Bob Haubrock, adding: “After previewing the HMD (Head Mounted Display) at CES last year, our collective team has built and deployed tools that revolutionize how mixed reality is used in the tech space – to not only support global collaboration based on high-fidelity 3D models, but to co-create directly on vital 3D CAD data in a managed, secure environment. Today, we are making this next-generation set of technologies available to our customers.”
Seiya Amatatsu, Incubation Center, XR Technology Development Division at Sony, adds:
“Since announcing our partnership with Siemens at CES 2024, we have had the opportunity to get direct feedback from Siemens customers about the technology, and as Siemens NX users ourselves, we were pleased to see that many of them share our enthusiasm for the potential of Immersive Engineering,” he says.
More on the NX Immersive Tool Set Up
So, what are the tools that Siemens provides in the NX CAD environment? Here’s what the Immersive Engineering solution suite looks like:
• NX Immersive Explorer: A headset-agnostic solution that designers and engineers use to perform informal design reviews and collaborate using 3D CAD data originating from Siemens NX product development software.
• NX Immersive Designer: Designed from the ground up to take advantage of the capabilities of Sony’s HMD and creative controls, NX Immersive Designer enables designers and engineers to interact, manipulate and collaborate on graphically rich 3D product models built into NX, without the need for additional preparation or software. Using Sony’s Ring and Pointer controls for object interaction and precise 3D geometry manipulation, designers and engineers can interact directly with product prototypes, NX commands and menus.
NX Immersive Designer supports augmented, mixed reality environments to place virtual objects in the real world, conduct design sessions in a high-quality virtual design review space and/or through large-scale, high-resolution virtual monitors to extend and complement the virtual design session. For even more efficient interaction, users can take advantage of the NX Voice Command Assistant in the immersive environment to navigate multiple levels of menus and click with simple, easy-to-use spoken keywords.
• NX Immersive Collaborator: NX Immersive Collaborator builds on the capabilities of NX Immersive Explorer and Designer to enable organizations of all sizes to take advantage of both co-located and remote multi-participant design reviews. NX Immersive Collaborator requires Siemens cloud-enabled NX X to host design collaboration and review sessions – participants can join using local VR or desktop view for broad collaboration options. Value-based licensing tokens are used only for hosting sessions, with participants able to join remotely for free.
Available in January
On the user side, Ian Briggs, founder and design director, Briggs Automotive Company (BAC), is very positive about the new capabilities:
“Siemens Immersive Engineering technology helps our designers and engineers view, design and edit parts more easily with the unique controls, enabling our customers to experience their car at a human scale in the build and helping manufacturing stakeholders easily collaborate with designers and engineers to validate parts before manufacturing,” he says.
NX Immersive Designer is available to all NX customers with the latest updates and through Siemens value-based licensing. NX Immersive Collaborator will be available later this month with the NX X update and also through value-based licensing. The NX Immersive Engineering tools have been developed to work exclusively with Sony’s HMD offering, which includes 4K OLED micro displays and dedicated controls. The HMD with controllers is required for both NX Immersive Designer and Collaborator and is priced at $4,750 and is available to order now, with shipping expected to begin in February 2025.
