Development of an industrial line parametric editor in virtual reality via Autodesk Vred

This thesis describes the development of a parametric virtual reality editor for an industrial line for quality inspection, packaging and palletizing of ceramic tiles. This project has been developed entirely within the R&D laboratory of Sacmi S.C., and includes a complete study of the implementation of an application of this kind, from the initial software and hardware selection phase, through the design of algorithms and code programming - in Python language - to the creation of interactive tools and widgets specifically designed for the exploration of the environment, interaction with the scene and automatic production of outputs, with the aim of framing this editor within the production process of automatic lines for the realization of ceramic materials. The editor is defined as "parametric" due to the fact that it requires the user to provide as input a series of values necessary for the configuration of the lines - up to a maximum of three, each with a set of independent parameters - and then it automatically proceeds to compute the geometries and animate the scene, allowing the user to enter in an immersive and realistic context, in order to make a choice among the proposed lines. Communication protocols have also been developed between different scenes for the transfer of data from one to the other, and for the transfer of the user between the different environments through commands given directly in virtual reality. Subsequently, a phase aimed at optimizing the simulation was addressed, in order to increase its stability and decrease the possible stress induced during the presence in VR. Finally, an early study was carried out on multi-user experience – i.e. the presence of several users in the same scene - with the aim of testing possible developments in the field of trade fairs and employee training.