country_code

The Visual Elements Of A Production Facility#

Visual elements of VFI

The Building and the Infrastructure#

The structure and the content of the stage depends on whether:

  • it is a completely new factory design.

  • an existing building that has been reconfigured.

  • or a new assembly line that has been created.

Greenfield#

If the building itself is part of the planning, the translation process should be flexible so changes in the originating software can be adapted easily by reimporting geometry.

Brownfield#

Building information is mainly static, and changes are made in the originating software. It is highly unlikely that pillars, stairways or doors are moved; therefore, the whole building can be merged and combined into one node.

The Work Cell#

The Work Cell may contain the following objects:

Assets#

These are things like boxes, fences, rails, etc. They might need to be moved around, so the USD structure needs to support the use case as far as what parts need to be translated and/or rotated, and what parts are completely static.

Robots#

A robot is represented by its geometry and kinematics, and is fully rigged. The robot’s geometry and kinematics must be defined in the USD file of the robot in order to perform a dynamic simulation. Robots handle parts of the product and need access to USD files from the product, including fully-defined kinematics, or time-sampled data.

The product in an assembly stage#

The product has to be manufactured, and its assembly changed in a cell, since one or more working steps are applied. The representation of the product is different before it enters the cell, and after it leaves the cell. This may be controlled by variants and Instancing. This may also involve some kinematics if you need elements of the product to reproduce motion in a realistic manner.

The workers#

Workers are fully-rigged characters moving freely in one cell. They can perform a task and handle either parts of the product or the geometry representation of the AMR or conveyor is mostly static.

The AMRs / conveyors#

AMRs /conveyors are the connection between cells, and move among multiple cells or the whole factory. The geometry representation is mostly static, but has a fully-defined skeleton.