WMG’s 3D technology helps Envisage wow customers

TECHNOLOGY facilities at Warwick Manufacturing Group have helped to create growth opportunities for a Coventry firm out to impress aircraft manufacturers.

Envisage Group has designed a hi-tech business class seat set for the next generation of airliners.

The company exhibited its first prototype model at the 2010 International Interior expo show in Hamburg.

The project is now attracting interest from aircraft companies after virtual reality simulations created at WMG allowed potential customers to see how the seats would look on their planes.

The simulations were created at the new £5m Premium Vehicle Customer Interface Technologies (PVCIT) Centre, which offers high resolution laser scanners, x-ray technology and the UK’s  highest resolution 3D  virtual reality Power Wall – driven by visualisation software supplied by Autodesk.

The centre was created primarily to provide these technologies to Midland manufacturers to help them improve their design capabilities.

Utilising the technology, Envisage could even allow potential customers to walk on board a plane and walk around the seating.

Ronan Farrell, head of Design and Marketing at Envisage, said: “Without the high resolution digital displays and 3D interactivity we would never have been able to fully communicate the design to our potential customers.

“To actually be able to put ourselves inside the design is something we have never experienced before and we are very pleased to be able to have access to this technology.”

Dr Mark Williams, University of Warwick WMG researcher and PVCIT Principal Investigator, said: “We were delighted to be able to model for Envisage exactly what these advanced concept seats would look like that within an Airbus A380 airframe.

“Envisage are just one of a number of West Midlands companies that have leapt on the free access to this technology. We can test product design or even laser scan existing whole products as big as a car or van to create 3D models accurate to five thousands of a millimetre which they can then display and manipulate on the centre’s 3D Power Wall.”