DESIGN S O FTWA R E
“We need to spend less time imagining
how designs work, decoding plans
and reviewing renders”
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
MARCH 2020 117
V irtual reality (VR) offers many
cost and time-saving benefits to
the design process, partly due
to its ability to immerse designers into
intricate and realistic spaces, viewable and
editable in real-time from any location
around the world. However, some within
the VR industry don’t think that aircraft
designers are getting the most out of the technology.
Indeed, according to Stefan Arendt, senior 3D artist at
Advanced Computer Art (ACA), the aircraft design world
is perhaps only utilising 5-10% of VR’s capabilities.
A solution identified by Joaquín Alviz Martín, COO
of Renacen, is that greater photorealism could be key to
enabling more of the cabin design process to be carried
out in VR in the first place.
“There is no point in creating revolutionary interiors,
materials that combine quality and beauty, and newgeneration
ergonomic seats, if at the end what we show
the stakeholder is a poor model with few polygons and
low-quality texture,” he says.
“In addition, I believe the use of web technology is
a competitive advantage when it comes to representing
interiors in VR, because it allows us to reach any possible
client without the need for expensive equipment, and to
be as agile as possible in the face of changes and updates,”
adds Martín. “On the other hand, I believe all the above
will go hand-in-hand with collaborative experiences,
which will allow us to give real-time feedback to designers
so they can make changes, and those interested can see
the changes instantly, in terms of materials, lighting, types
of seats and seating layout.”
Such immersive technology is only set to improve
the manufacturing process as “they offer new ways of
integrating data to the scale of an embodied person,”
begins London-based Hyper’s chief technical officer,
Yates Buckley. “This means we need to spend less time
imagining how a design works, decoding plans and
reviewing wide-angle view renders of cabins, and we
can now actually ‘wear the interior’ directly in whatever
prototype form, shape our decisions, experiment, and
even test with customers before we build.”
LEFT AND OPENING IMAGE: ACA
CREATED THESE RENDERINGS TO
HELP BRUSSELS AIRLINES VISUALISE
AND PROMOTE ITS NEW A330 CABIN
LAYOUTS AND DESIGNS
AUSTRIAN AIRLINES IS USING 3D
SEATMAPS CREATED BY RENACEN
IN ITS CUSTOMER INTERFACE
/aircraftinteriorsinternational.com