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The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the gamification of virtual assembly planning on the user performance, user experience and engagement.

A multi-touch table was used to manipulate virtual parts and gamification features were integrated into the virtual assembly environment. An experiment was conducted in two conditions: a gamified and a non-gamified virtual environment. Subjects had to assemble a virtual pump. The user performance was evaluated in terms of the number of errors, the feasibility of the generated assembly sequence and the user feedback.

The gamification reduced the number of errors and increased the score representing the number of right decisions. The results of the subjective and objective analysis showed that the number of errors decreased with engagement in the gamified assembly. The increase in the overall user experience reduced the number of errors. The subjective evaluation showed a significant difference between the gamified and the non-gamified assembly in terms of the level of engagement, the learning usability and the overall experience.

The effective learning retention after training has not been tested, and longitudinal studies are necessary. The effect of the used gamification elements has been evaluated as a whole; further work could isolate the most beneficial features and add other elements that might be more beneficial for learning.

The research reported in this paper provides valuable insights into the gamification of virtual assembly using a low-cost multi-touch interface. The results are promising for training operators to assemble a product at the design stage.

Virtual reality (VR) for product assembly has been studied for more than 20 years but its practical application in industry is still very much in its infancy. Haptics is a new and important interaction method for VR and a strong and growing research area, however, it still remains a virtually unknown concept for industrial application.

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of VR and haptics for product assembly, from rigid parts to soft cables.

Some new ideas and research progresses in recent years are especially investigated. First the concepts and classifications of virtual assembly are introduced and the different virtual environment systems for product assembly are discussed. Then the major research groups, typical systems and major research issues are explored in detail, treating rigid parts and soft cables separately. Lastly, the barriers preventing successful application of virtual assembly are discussed and future research directions are also summarized.

The paper provides an overview and analysis of VR and haptics for product assembly, including both rigid parts and soft cables.

This paper aims to report the development and key features of a novel virtual reality system for assembly planning and evaluation called Haptic Assembly and Manufacturing System (HAMS). The system is intended to be used as a tool for training, design analysis and path planning.

The proposed system uses the physics-based modelling (PBM) to perform assemblies in virtual environments. Moreover, dynamic assembly constrains have been considered to reduce the degrees of freedom of virtual objects and enhance the virtual assembly performance.

To evaluate the effectiveness and performance of HAMS, the assembly of various mechanical components has been carried out, and the results have shown that it can be effectively used to simulate, evaluate, plan and automatically formalise the assembly of complex models in a more natural and intuitive way.

The collision detection performance is the bottleneck in any virtual assembly system. New methods of collision shape representation and collision detection algorithms must be considered.

HAMS introduces the use of dynamic assembly constraints to enhance the virtual assembly performance. HAMS also uses features not yet reported by similar systems in the literature. These features include: automatic or manual definition of assembly constraints within the virtual assembly system; the implementation of control panels and widgets to modify simulation parameters during running time to evaluate its influence on simulation performance; assembly data logging such as trajectories, forces and update rates for post-processing, further analysis or its presentation in the form of chronocyclegraphs to graphically analyse the assembly process.

Hand gesture-based interaction can provide far more intuitive, natural and immersive feelings for users to manipulate 3D objects for virtual assembly (VA). A mechanical assembly consists of mostly general-purpose machine elements or mechanical parts that can be defined into four types based on their geometric features and functionalities. For different types of machine elements, engineers formulate corresponding grasping gestures based on their domain knowledge or customs for ease of assembly. Therefore, this paper aims to support a virtual hand to assemble mechanical parts.

It proposes a novel glove-based virtual hand grasping approach for virtual mechanical assembly. The kinematic model of virtual hand is set up first by analyzing the hand structure and possible movements, and then four types of grasping gestures are defined with joint angles of fingers for connectors and three types of parts, respectively. The recognition of virtual hand grasping is developed based on collision detection and gesture matching. Moreover, stable grasping conditions are discussed.

A prototype system is designed and developed to implement the proposed approach. The case study on VA of a two-stage gear reducer demonstrates the functionality of the system. From the users’ feedback, it is found that more natural and stable hand grasping interaction for VA of mechanical parts can be achieved.

It proposes a novel glove-based virtual hand grasping approach for virtual mechanical assembly.

Haptics can significantly enhance the user's sense of immersion and interactivity. Especially in an assembly task, haptic feedback can help designers to have a better understanding of virtual objects and to increase task efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the design and implementation of a haptic‐based virtual assembly system (HVAS).

A multi‐thread system structure was designed, an automatic data integration interface was developed to transfer geometry, topology, assembly and physics information from a computer‐aided design system to virtual reality application, and a hierarchical constraint‐based data model and scene graph structure was designed to construct the virtual assembly environment. Unlike traditional virtual assembly systems based on collision detection or geometry constraint only, a physics‐based modeling approach combining with haptic feedback and geometry constraint was undertaken to realize and guide the realistic assembly process. When two parts collide into each other, the force and torque can be computed and provide feedback, and a spring‐mass model is used to prevent penetration and simulate dynamic behaviour. When two parts are close enough to each other and the assembly simulation state is activated, a geometry constraint can be captured, an attractive force can be generated to guide the user to assemble the part along the correct position, and the repulsive force can also be generated to realize the mating process as natural and realistic as in real life.

The implementation details and application examples demonstrate that haptic‐based virtual assembly is a valuable tool for assembly design and process planning.

The paper presents an HVAS.

The use of virtual reality for product assembly has been studied for more than 20 years; however its practical application in industry is still very much in its infancy. Haptics is a new and important interaction method for virtual reality, and currently constitutes a strong and growing research area; however despite this, its application in industry still remains virtually unknown. This paper seeks to address this issue.

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the topics of virtual reality and haptics for product assembly, from rigid parts to soft cables, and investigates some new ideas and recent advances in the area. The survey work has been divided into two parts: addressing rigid parts and soft cables. The main focus of part two, the present work, concentrates on virtual reality and haptics for soft cable design and assembly.

In the first instance, the main research groups and typical systems are investigated, followed by extensive exploration of the major research issues. The latter can be reviewed from three perspectives: geometry modelling, physical modelling and haptics interaction. Finally, the barriers that prevent successful application of virtual assembly are also discussed, and the future research directions are summarized.

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the topics of virtual reality and haptics for product assembly, from rigid parts to soft cables, and investigates some new ideas and recent advances in the area.

This paper aims to propose and implement an integrated augmented-reality (AR)-aided assembly environment to incorporate the interaction between real and virtual components, so that users can obtain a more immersive experience of the assembly simulation in real time and achieve better assembly design.

A component contact handling strategy is proposed to model all the possible movements of virtual components when they interact with real components. A novel assembly information management approach is proposed to access and modify the information instances dynamically corresponding to user manipulation. To support the interaction between real and virtual components, a hybrid marker-less tracking method is implemented.

A prototype system has been developed, and a case study of an automobile alternator assembly is presented. A set of tests is implemented to validate the feasibility, efficiency, accuracy and intuitiveness of the system.

The prototype system allows the users to manipulate and assemble the designed virtual components to the real components, so that the users can check for possible design errors and modify the original design in the context of their final use and in the real-world scale.

This paper proposes an integrated AR simulation and planning platform based on hybrid-tracking and ontology-based assembly information management. Component contact handling strategy based on collision detection and assembly feature surfaces mating reasoning is proposed to solve component degree of freedom.

In this study, a new methodology to evaluate the performance of physics simulation engines (PSEs) when used in haptic virtual assembly applications is proposed. This methodology can be used to assess the performance of any physics engine. To prove the feasibility of the proposed methodology, two-third party PSEs – Bullet and PhysXtm – were evaluated. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Eight assembly tests comprising variable geometric and dynamic complexity were conducted. The strengths and weaknesses of each simulation engine for haptic virtual assembly were identified by measuring different parameters such as task completion time, influence of weight perception and force feedback.

The proposed tests have led to the development of a standard methodology by which physics engines can be compared and evaluated. The results have shown that when the assembly comprises complex shapes, Bullet has better performance than PhysX. It was also observed that the assembly time is directly affected by the weight of virtual objects.

A more comprehensive study must be carried out in order to evaluate and compare the performance of more PSEs. The influence of collision shape representation algorithms on the performance of haptic assembly must be considered in future analysis.

The performance of PSEs in haptic-enabled VR applications had been remained as an unknown issue. The main parameters of physics engines that affect the haptic virtual assembly process have been identified. All the tests performed in this study were carried out with the haptic rendering loop active and the objects manipulated through the haptic device.

This study aims to present a new haptic-enabled virtual assembly system for the automatic generation and objective assessment of assembly plans. The system is intended to be used as an assembly planning tool along the product development process.

The generation of product assembly plans is based on the analysis of the assembly movements and operations performed by the user during the virtual assembly execution, and the objective assessment of product assembly is based on the definition and computation of new proposed assembly metrics.

To evaluate the system, a case study corresponding to the assembly of a mechanical component is presented and analyzed. The results demonstrate that the proposed system is an effective tool to plan and evaluate different product assembly strategies in a more practical and objective approach than existing assembly planning methods.

Although the virtual assembly execution time is larger than the real assembly execution time, the assembly planning and evaluation results provided by the system are valid. However, the development of higher performance collision detection algorithms is needed to reduce the simulation time.

The proposed virtual assembly system is able to not only simulate and automatically generate assembly plans but also objectively assess them from the virtual assembly task execution. The introduction and use of several assembly performance metrics to objectively evaluate assembly strategies in virtual assembly also represents a novel contribution.

Owing to the numerous part models and massive datasets used in automobile assembly design, virtual assembly software cannot simulate a whole vehicle smoothly in real time. For this reason, implementing a new virtual assembly environment for massive complex datasets would be a significant achievement. The paper aims to focus on this problem.

A new system named “Grid‐enabled collaborative virtual assembly environment” (GCVAE) is proposed in the paper, and it comprises three parts: a private grid‐based support platform running on an inner network of enterprise; a service‐based parallel rendering framework with a sort‐last structure; and a multi‐user collaborative virtual assembly environment. These components would aggregate the idle resources in an enterprise to support assembly simulation with a large complex scene of whole vehicle.

The system prototype proposed in the paper has been implemented. The following simulations show that it can support a complex scene in a real‐time mode by using existing hardware and software, and can promote the efficient usage of enterprise resources.

Using the GCVAE, it is possible to aggregate the idle resources in an enterprise to run assembly simulations of a whole automobile with massively complex scenes, thus observably reducing fault occurrence rates in future manufacturing.

The paper introduces a new grid‐enabled methodology into research on collaborative virtual assembly system which can make the best use of idle resources in the enterprise to support assembly simulations with massively complex product models. A video‐stream‐based method was used to implement the system; this enables designers to participate ubiquitously in the simulation to evaluate the assembly of the whole automobile without hardware limitations.