MILPITAS, CA and TOKYO, JAPAN —SGI Japan, Ltd. part of SGI, a high-performance solutions company for computers, data analytics and data management, has announced the installation of an SGI virtual reality (VR) system at the Komatsu, Ltd., Oyama plant at Tochigi, Japan.
The system is expected to streamline the design and development of construction equipment and support testing for machine operators and service engineers with realistic simulations.
The new VR system provides a stereoscopically-projected, interactive life-sized, immersive image of a construction machine's cockpit on five screens – the front, back, left, right and ceiling – with the operator sitting inside. The system helps equipment designers collect information on things like verifying upward visibility from a forklift cabin and viewing 3D CAD updates in real-time. Service engineers can practice virtual inspections and service work for parts such as pumps and engines. With a focus on operability, visibility and safety, the simulations are expected to improve vehicle development and increase the effective evaluation of serviceability and minor repairs. Additional staff can observe the operator's performance from remote monitors to increase accuracy and safety.
Komatsu installed its first SGI VR system in Osaka, in May 2011, to aide in the development of large and medium "tracked" or crawler-type construction machines. The next two installations occurred in December 2012 at the Ibaraki plant for large wheel-type machines, and in March 2013 at the Awazu plant to support development for medium and small crawler- and wheel-type machines. Benefits observed at the first three sites served as an impetus for installing the new system at the Oyama Technical Center. The Oyama installation was completed end of June and started operation on July 1, 2015.
This new system is Komatsu's first large-scale VR system with five screens and is 3.8 meters wide, 2.4 meters high and 2.4 meters deep for stereoscopic images. Components of the system include:
- Projectors by Christie Digital Systems
- Optical motion capture cameras provided by ART (Advanced Realtime Tracking GmbH)
- Five "Asterism" graphic workstations provided by SGI Japan with NVIDIA® Quadro® K6000 GPUs for VR image processing
- TechViz XL automatic stereoscopic visualization software from TechViz to support the display CAD models in a VR space.