Virtual reality in transportation design

Virtual Reality techniques are relatively new, having endured a strong development only during the last few years, in correspondence of the progress reached by the computer science and the hardware and software technologies. Therefore, there have not been yet a great diffusion and application in industrial field, in spite of the constant decrease of the costs, and that can be found especially in the Italian situation, object of observation. The study of such advanced design systems have brought to the realization of an immersive environment in which new procedures for the evaluation of product prototypes, ergonomics, maintenance operations have been simulated. The positive and enthusiastic reply received from the industrial world has confirmed how these methodologies can be greatly useful in the phase of design, influencing the developing times and the quality of the industrial products. The application of the realized environment to usability, ergonomics, concept design, maintainability verifications, design review, allowed to highlight the advantages offered by a design methodology: acting on the industrial product in the first phase of conception and thanks to the possibility to place the designer in front of the virtual reproduction of the product in a realistic way and to interact with the same concept, it allows the modification and the improvement of the product characteristics in real time with a remarkable saving of time and costs. Moreover, during the application to the industrial case study, the designers of a new railway vehicle could take advantage of the developed methodology in the design phase, in particular in the planning of the new service systems, having the possibility to visualize and to interact with the model in real dimensions of the whole carriage.