Virtalis’ Latest Visionary Render Release Introduces 1:1 Scale Virtual Manikins for Ergonomic Design Reviews
The latest release of Virtalis’ flagship Visionary Render software now includes the addition of 1:1 scale virtual manikins, offering users powerful new tools to integrate human factors into design reviews. This exciting functionality enables organisations to conduct ergonomic analysis early in the design process, ensuring both employee safety and process efficiency. By carrying out these evaluations virtually, teams can adapt and iterate designs quickly, significantly reducing the need for costly changes once the physical build process begins.
Improving human factor considerations with virtual manikins
The integration of virtual manikins in Visionary Render offers a more dynamic way to address human factors during design reviews. These considerations are crucial when designing for environments where people will interact with machinery, tools, or systems. The inclusion of 1:1 scale manikins enables designers to test, adapt, and optimise designs before moving into physical production, helping to avoid delays and ensuring that all ergonomic requirements are met.
Ergonomic analysis conducted during the early stages of design focuses on three key areas:
- Human factors: Evaluating seat sizes, reach to controls, access panels, buttons, interfaces, and overall motion.
- Task design: Addressing task order, ease of use, and information overload to improve workflow efficiency.
- Machine design: Ensuring optimal mechanical arrangements for access, serviceability, and safety.
The ability to conduct these evaluations in a virtual environment means that teams can make iterative adjustments to the design in real time, allowing for more accurate decision-making.
How virtual manikins streamline design evaluations
The manikins in Visionary Render can be easily manipulated into representative poses using Inverse Kinematics (IK) and Forward Kinematics (FK) to assess factors such as reach, fit, and access. These capabilities allow engineers and Human Factors specialists to carry out thorough evaluations that ensure the design meets real-world human limitations and requirements.
Manikins can be adjusted to reflect different anthropometric data, offering precise, point-to-point measurements. This allows teams to refer back to standard ergonomic data to ensure that the design matches the intended specifications for a variety of body types.
Key functionalities of Virtalis’ virtual manikins
The latest features in Visionary Render make it easier than ever to incorporate human factors into immersive design reviews. Here are some of the key functionalities of the new virtual manikins:
1. Easily manipulate manikins into representative poses
Manikins respond naturally to manipulation, meaning that they can be quickly adjusted to reflect a variety of scenarios. This rapid pose adjustment allows teams to better understand how different designs impact ergonomics and human interaction.
2. Apply detailed scaling for comprehensive coverage
The ability to adjust the height and limb lengths of manikins ensures that designs can be tailored to accommodate a wide range of body types. Users can scale the entire manikin or adjust individual limbs to reflect the anthropometric data of the people who will be using the product.
3. Gain insights into access, visibility, and reach constraints
Immersive design reviews provide invaluable insights into human factors by allowing users to visualise designs at scale. Virtual manikins can help identify potential access issues, visibility challenges, or reach constraints that would be difficult to spot using traditional 2D methods.
4. Obtain precise measurements for ergonomic analysis
Virtual manikins offer precise point-to-point measurements, allowing designers to easily reference back to anthropometric data. Users can take quick measurements between the manikin and its surrounding environment to ensure the design is optimised for human interaction.
5. Ensure human limits are respected with realistic ranges of motion
By working within realistic ranges of motion for each joint, virtual manikins ensure that human limitations are respected throughout the design process. This allows teams to make sure that any tasks or movements required by the design are physically feasible for real-world users.
Visionary Render: Enabling immersive collaboration and design review
Visionary Render is an enterprise-ready software solution that allows users to import engineering data assets, build custom virtual scenes, and interact with their models in an immersive visualisation environment. This powerful tool enables teams to collaborate either locally or remotely, helping to streamline processes such as:
- Design reviews
- Factory layout planning
- Training
- Operations and maintenance
By engaging teams at every stage of a product’s lifecycle, Visionary Render helps organisations reduce costs, mitigate risks, and deliver more ambitious projects with greater success.
Why virtual manikins and immersive design reviews are the perfect fit for ergonomic analysis
By integrating virtual manikins into the design review process, organisations can improve their ergonomic evaluations and ensure that human factors are considered from the start. This not only reduces the risk of costly changes later in the development cycle but also enhances overall product safety and usability.
Read the latest Virtalis blog post on why virtual manikins and immersive design reviews are the perfect fit for ergonomic analysis:
Virtual Manikins and Immersive Design Reviews Are the Perfect Fit for Ergonomic Analysis