Distributed VR-based simulation for manufacturing

VR-based simulation has been applied to a wide range of industrial applications. The rapid development of networking and Internetworked 3D graphics techniques has already begun to foster the distributed VR-based simulation system. The WWW as the delivery mechanism has made the VR-based simulator widely available and affordable. In this paper, we propose a cost-effective approach to create distributed VR-based simulation systems for manufacturing applications. Using this approach, three VRML manufacturing simulators machining, process flow, factory layout, are described in detail. The current challenges of a distributed VR-based simulator are also discussed