Just Simple like Minecraft

For Benjamin Rüth's Master's thesis at the Technical University of Munich, the computer scientist performed realistic tests to determine in which type of environment a design problem could be solved the fastest–and the clear winner was the virtual room. The test results from Benjamin Rüth further show that new products are most likely to be created mainly in virtual space in the future. Testers that used conventional design programs took a lot longer.

The Rüth test was based on a Siemens Corporate Engineering design tool that blends computer-aided design (CAD) with virtual reality (VR). Although traditional design tools are capable of having up to 1,000 features, this method has only 20. According to Theo Papadopoulos, who of course, heads the development project at Siemens, the initial designs are a bit rough and this range of functions is always sufficient to test an idea quickly during pre-development. But the tool includes an ultra-fast, interactive design optimizer they developed a couple of years ago. In an instant, the rough design becomes a legitimate design proposal that can be discussed by a panel of experts. "However, the faster design process is not only reduced complexity but also the optimization assistant.

Rüth's tests reveal that the testers ' attitude also has a great deal to do with how quickly they achieve their goal. Virtual reality is viewed by many as a game. In the case of Rüth's testers-none of whom experienced design experts-this was the reason, their movements in the virtual space were more frequent and spontaneous than they would have been on a flat-screen. The sober presence of conventional instruments makes people afraid of making mistakes. As per Papadopoulos “Here everything is as simple as Minecraft” in contrast, the gamification of design in the virtual space feels exciting.

Papadopoulos explains "Only a handful of designs require that much effort," once the new tool opens the door to the immediate transformation of design ideas into optimized design proposals, it will not be necessary to calculate hundreds of initial designs using conventional simulation and optimization tools before making a final choice. VR goggles with natural visual resolution such as this Varjo model–a Finnish startup backed by Siemens venture company Next47–are tremendous drivers of virtual space product development. The amount of time saved for production is apparent not only from Rüth's experiments but also from experience with specific design tasks. Papadopoulos added recently that they needed to find a weight-optimized bracket design that attaches a sensor to a motor and that would have taken us half a day using conventional means; these were done in five minutes with the new tool.