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simulation environment can be changed. engines to inform its maintenance and

Sessions can operate in training and test modifcations design and operations, modes, offering more or less guidance for says Geir Endresen, manager of Aker the user in order to test their capabilities. Solution’s Visioneering, which recently

It is all about combing data and gaming took control of Aker Solution’s new, pur- engines, says Jeremy Jones, marketing pose-built iPort center, near Stavanger. manager, Enterprise Solutions, AVEVA. Visioneering is based on technology “It is about creating a full and detailed developed by Norway’s First Interactive, integration between the gaming world which Aker Solutions has been using and the 3D design and construction since the early 2000s. This has been world.” primarily through its drilling unit, in

Along with Santa Clara, California’s order to plan, test and train on drilling

Nvidia Corp., companies behind the operations in a simulated environment, physics engines include Montreal-based complete with a staircase to the drill foor

CM Lab Simulations Inc., with its Vortex and walkie talkies to communicate to software, and Ede, Netherlands-based other team members on the simulation.

Tree C Technology, with its VR4MAX After buying First Interactive in 2010, software combining physics and Endresen says Aker Solutions now sees rendering. potential for its use in maintenance and modifcation operations. Using physics

Reservations?

engines to test operations has improved

The push towards virtual (VR) or immer- operational engineering, increased sive reality systems could repeat the vir- effciency, reduced risk and improved tual reality boom and bust of the 1990s. HSE—all of which are demanded by

Professor Bob Stone, director of the operators. human interface technologies team in “One of the main drivers of this the Human Factors Integration Defence technology is the possibility to add the

Technology Centre at the University of physics into the design,” says Endresen.

Birmingham, says issues with VR in the “In a normal engineering development, 1990s were the cost of graphics comput- ers, display, and input technologies.

AVEVA Activity “The use of stereo displays, or 3D

Visualisation Platform projection, is not all it is hyped up to be,” says Stone. He quoted some research that suggests 53% of the population have some form of visual defect that prevents them from seeing stereo over a sustained period. Stone says there is little evidence

Aker Solutions’ recently opened iPort at Forus, that such environments deliver any per- near Stavanger. formance benefts

Photo: Aker Solutions.

The difference now is that VR is being replaced by gaming technologies more facilities to create 3D virtual reality (VR) advanced than their VR predecessors, environments. and they are operable on standard PCs.

The rendering engines include Nvidia’s Research also suggests that single-point

Physx, commonly used in graphics simulators, such as drilling or crane sim- processing units to perform physics ulators, are less affected and that users calculations in computer games such are more likely to engage with a system as Borderlands 2 and Metro: Last Light, with greater realistic properties. creating “dynamic destruction, particle- This was recently emphasized by based fuids, and life-like animation”. the International Marine Contractors

For AVP, the result is a training Association (IMCA) in its latest guide- environment in which objects display lines on simulator usage.

the physical characteristics they would It emphasizes that a simulator’s level of in the real world: wheels on machinery realism impacts the learning experiences’ or vehicles rotate as they would in real effectiveness on commonly-used simula- life; you cannot run through walls; plant tors for equipment familiarization.

reacts to “player” inputs.

Physics

In AVP, each application is built from a library of elements of plant and the built Gaming engines are being used for environment in the AVP Studio part of more than just training and simulation,

Inside Aveva’s AVP system. Images: Aveva.

the system. Almost everything about the however. Aker Solutions is using physics oedigital.com November 2013 | OE 23 022_OE1113_Vis1.indd 23 10/28/13 3:30 AM