Games software used to visualise engineering processes

A hardware board and software that were developed to make gaming more realistic are being used to visualise processes such as metal forming, behaviour of parts during manufacturing and the behaviour of fluids. The software, developed by Amtri (formerly the Advanced Machine Tool Research Institute) has combined the power of the AGEIA PhysX accelerator board with the machine, production line and robot modelling capabilities of Visual Components. It has been applied to modelling variations in pressure die casting. Rather than generate graphs or numbers, it quickly produces realistic 3D simulations, so that engineers can instantly see what might happen under certain circumstances. Bob Lloyd, software manager at Amtri, said that Visual Components is a Finnish suite of software that is completely object oriented, and is a factory, robot and machine modelling package that is made up of “modules that are suited to what you commonly want to do”. He said that it fills the gap left vacant by the acquisition of most of the other factory modelling suites by CAD majors, which have incorporated them into expensive CAD and PLM software packages, that contain CAD modelling facilities that most SMEs neither need nor can afford. Full details will be described in the October 2006 edition of Eureka