Enhancing the effectiveness of design tools in synthetic environments

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) tools during product development processes is already widely accepted in many industries for over multiple decades. Especially in large enterprises, these VR tools are incorporated in custom-made Synthetic Environments (SE), to provide support in dedicated product development phases. Often these SEs are rigid and expensive and operate in a narrow bandwidth of use. For companies unfamiliar with a SE, e.g. a SME, it is often unclear what the use of a SE can mean for them. Not only the result of use is hard to predict, also the consequences of implementation are vague. More predictable, future-proof, robust, affordable and acceptable SEs are desired. More footing on the effectiveness of a SE during product development process is needed to improve the results of use.

This research describes the development and use of a supporting architecture, which facilitates the collection of requirements and preconditions for a SE, from the perspective of each involved stakeholder. The architecture provides multiple views with different levels of aggregation on the same future targeted SE. To architecture gives insight to make a prediction on the effectiveness of a (new) SE in a specific product development phase. The relations and interdependencies between different elements of the SE are in this more imperative than the description of individual tools. The use of the architecture will provide a better understanding of the consequences of changes and use of a SE, resulting in a more robust SE with a managed flexibility. The likelihood for use will increase, while the threshold for use will lower, and the appreciation of the SE will improve.