A virtual environment for manufacturing simulation

This paper reports an approach for the rapid construction of virtual environments. The benefits of using this approach such as usability and re-usability of the virtual environment are described. As an example, a virtual workshop is constructed to include a lathe, a milling machine and robots to simulate a physical workshop for machining. To do so, the simulation data and design data are dynamically linked and stored in a database through the so-called ‘database access objects’. The paper also shows how to implement the approach for planning manufacturing operations.