Experience the CFD Velocity Contours With Virtual Reality

Have you dreamt of walking through the hot sands of ancient Egypt, living with the pharaohs, and feeling the cold winds from the river Nile; but were disheartened because this dream was far from reality? Virtual reality can help live any fictional scenario with immersive computer-generated images and an all-sensory experience. Healthcare, education, travel and tourism, and entertainment are already taking advantage of this technology, and a few new domains are taking their baby steps towards implementing the technology for better user interaction. And CFD is one among them!

History of Virtual Reality

Virtual reality that we know today is built from photography ideas or concepts that date back to the 1800s. The beginning of practical photography started with the invention of a stereoscope, which used twin mirrors to reflect an image. This eventually led to the View-Master, a special format stereoscope with colorful reels. These stereoscopes are produced even today. Morton Heilig, a cinematographer and a virtual reality pioneer, was determined to provide an all-sensory movie experience and hence build the Sensorama in the 1950s. The Sensorama is a mechanical device patented by Heilig in 1962, which gave the user the real-like experience of the reel. It was an impressive invention for the 1960s and was referred to as the ‘Future of Cinema.’ Heilig also invented a head-mount device called the Telesphere Mask, which was like a window to the virtual world. His idea was adopted and worked on by many other inventors in the field of cinematography.

During the 1970s and 1980s, there were immense advances in haptic devices (a device that connects the user and the computer) and optics. At the NASA Ames Research Center, to enable the haptic interaction, they developed a Virtual Interface Environment Workstation (VIEW) system that comprised of a head mount and a pair of gloves. But it was Jaron Lanier, the founder of VPL Research, who coined the term virtual reality, addressing the gear (consisting of goggles and hand gloves) that he developed that would help users experience what they watch in a reel.

Differences Between VR and AR

Although VR and AR might sound like siblings from the same parent, there are significant differences between the two in terms of the experience they provide and the devices required. Virtual reality offers users immersive experiences in computer-generated surroundings or virtual environments, while augmented reality provides an enhanced experience in a real environment using technology for sensory stimuli or using digital visuals.

Users have the liberty to control their presence while using AR, but that’s not the case for VR, where the users are controlled by the system. Unlike AR, where the user can access the technology using a smartphone, in VR, to enjoy the virtual environment, one requires a headset. Moreover, AR technology can enhance both virtual and real-world scenarios or appearances, while VR can only improvise a fictional world.

CFD With Virtual Reality

Post-processing CFD solutions for accurate prediction of the physics behind a particular problem can be a dreary task. The hours spent on panning or zooming the simulation results to study the recirculation behind the vehicle or to get a better view of the design problem can be time-consuming and is never satisfying enough for a CFD analyst. But with virtual reality being implemented into post-processing, users can now interact with the models to study physics and can provide insights on how to improvise the model. A team of researchers at the IOWA state university has been successful in developing an application named VR-CFD that helps in visualizing the results of CFD simulation using features such as surfaces, mixing of two-particle streams, streamlines, vector fields, etc. The vision of the application is to facilitate greater interaction, enhance intelligent exploration and help in understanding the data.

The team is putting efforts to extend the functionality of the application beyond post-processing and looking into developing it as a design tool. For this purpose, CFD approximation techniques have been explored, and this functionality has been added to the VR-CFD tool. Users can choose the method of approximation, the parameters to be generated for the response surface, and the method for result comparison. For a better interactive solution, the team has implemented parallel computing, but maintaining interactive features while the calculation is ongoing can be detrimental to the experience offered by the application.

Virtual Reality in CFD hasn’t been experimented with to a great extent because the undisturbed display of images while the calculation is ongoing is only possible at the expense of vast computational resources, and the available network efficiency is not sufficient to alleviate customer experience. With technology companies striding towards developing wireless VR headsets for 8K experience and with the latest 5G standard, a revolution in VR technology is expected.

We at Cadence haven’t yet invested in VR technology for CFD or our traditional EDA design. So far, InspectAR is the best available in-house AR technology for PCBs that can help teams efficiently interact with their designs to view the overlay of the design data on the PCB. It helps locate the rights pins for measurement, and the data can be accessed at the same time by multiple users from the project. The user can also leave necessary comments for perusal. It is possible for AR to be applied to the CFD simulation and post-processing, for user-friendly visualization and data-interaction.

Inspect, debug, rework and assemble PCBs in less time with minimal error using InspectAR. Learn more from this CadenceLIVE video

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Virtual reality is here to stay, and today we can envision ourselves dancing with our favorite stars or performing an extreme sport such as paragliding, which in real life would be close to impossible for an acrophobic. VR is no longer just a science fiction technology; it could be our future!