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Rob Mehall, left, the manager of EDS' virtual reality center, explains a visualization machine while senior staffer Mark Sokolik mans the controls. The system can help in a range of situations, from training emergency workers to reconfiguring a factory.;Troy firm's virtual efforts deliver real-life efficiency
EDS systems put all types of building plans to the test before money, time is spent.
Special glasses allow Rob Mehall to watch a virtual display. EDS has one of the few such facilities other companies can use.
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TROY -- In minutes, Mark Sokolik deftly moves one wall of a 7-Eleven store to make more room for shelves, hangs a widescreen plasma monitor from the ceiling and shifts an aisle filled with cookies and crackers to the other side of the coffee machines.
He takes a quick stroll through the store to get a feel for the changes. Then he checks the view from a security camera in the back corner and finds a major flaw: the new TV is blocking the cash register.
Normally, it's a costly mistake. But at this store, which exists only on a giant projection wall at EDS Corp.'s Virtual Reality Center in Troy, there's room for error.
Sokolik, a senior virtual reality specialist, can manipulate the layout of the store and walk through a three-dimensional rendering using two handheld, motion-capturing controls.
By testing designs in a virtual world before building them, EDS clients save huge amounts of money and time.
"It's not just whiz-bang stuff. People are really solving business problems with this," said Robert Mehall, the virtual reality center's manager.
"They're saving on prototypes and avoiding mistakes that they wouldn't have found until later on."
EDS clients are using virtual reality in a myriad ways, from tinkering with the design of new cars and buildings to more efficiently organizing the movement of workers and products on a factory floor.
It allowed officials from a German manufacturing plant being rehabbed to discover a design problem that wasn't apparent on blueprints, Mehall said. The virtual simulation revealed that automated carts running along an aisle would interfere with the flow of workers, an issue that could have been nearly impossible to fix later on.
The city of Sterling Heights, before renovating its civic center campus a few years ago, used virtual fly-throughs created by EDS to get members of the City Council and residents behind the project, showing them what the complex would look like long before construction began.
Companies often bring consumers into the virtual reality center to gauge reaction to new and redesigned products. Changes can be made immediately, instead of having to build another physical model and ask the focus group to come back in a few weeks.
EDS had the country's first commercial virtual reality center when it opened in 1995 and it's still one of the few such facilities available for other companies. Many big corporations, including Detroit automakers, have private virtual reality studios.
Technology has come a long way. Simulations originally were powered by huge, multimillion-dollar mainframes; today they use clusters of personal computers costing only a few thousand dollars with graphics cards similar to those used for video games.
Even with the expensive projection systems that are required, EDS has helped many of its clients set up their own virtual reality system for under $1 million in recent years.
Even as costs drop, performance and speed improve. Images are now very realistic and smooth, with computers able to display dozens of frames every second instead of several seconds per frame.
The 8-foot by 24-foot "powerwall" EDS uses for its Virtual Store Configurator and many other simulations is only one of the systems. The center also has a virtual reality "cave," which surrounds a user with projections in front, on both sides and on the floor. EDS has one of two publicly accessible virtual reality centers in Michigan. The University of Michigan's College of Engineering has a powerwall and cave it uses primarily for research and makes available to affiliates.
The school's football team has been testing for several years a simulator that puts users in the middle of a game. Klaus-Peter Beier, director of U-M's Virtual Reality Laboratory and 3D Laboratory, hopes to commercialize the simulator, which is useful to train quarterbacks and players in visual perception.
Since the terrorist attacks in 2001, U-M has been using its virtual reality systems to train paramedics, firefighters and police in disaster response. In a virtual world, emergency personnel can practice handling dangerous situations without putting themselves in harm's way.
"It is so realistic that you can see them get into this excited mode where the adrenaline flies," Beier said. "You always know it's only virtual reality, but the situation and all the little details bring you into that mood."
You can reach Nick Bunkley at (313) 222-2293 or nbunkley@detnews.com.
Virtual systems can also help tweak the designs of vehicles, by offering assessments that go beyond the blueprint stage.
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