Welcome to CAVS
CAVS

Mission

CAVS is an interdisciplinary center. It provides engineering, research, development, and technology transfer teams focused on complex problems, such as those encountered in technologies designed to improve human mobility. The development efforts provide short-term solutions relevant to regional manufacturers while the core research builds longer-term knowledge needed for sustained economic development. At the same time students gain valuable project experience that compliments their formal classroom learning.

Spotlight on Technology

Digital prototypes are invaluable within the design and engineering of products. However, many people within industrial environments are intimidated by complex Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, or it is difficult for them to visualize the products being displayed three-dimensionally. The solution in the past has been to create a physical prototype for these individuals to allow them to experience the product physically for the evaluation. However, these physical prototypes are expensive in terms of labor and money. While physical prototypes will always have a place within manufacturing, the practice of making prototypes should be minimized wherever possible. One intermediary to facilitate the minimization of physical prototypes could be through the effective adaptation of augmented reality applications to allow novice CAD users to visualize a digital prototype within the context of the actual environment.

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CAVS employees Neil Littell and Dennon McMillan will be presenting software that they have been developing during the recent semester at the CATIA Operator's Exchange (COE) conference in Orlando, FL this year. This software is designed around the ARToolkit library. It extends the capabilities and provides an easy method to load and view 3D models from CATIA exported as VRML 2.0 (.wrl). This free software can be downloaded here. Feedback on this software may be sent to the webmaster.

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Past Spotlights