The University of Michigan Virtual Reality Laboratory (VRL) at the College of Engineering concentrates on industrial applications of virtual environments. Research is focused on virtual prototyping of engineering designs - especially in the automotive and marine industry - the simulation of manufacturing processes, and related engineering applications. Additional activities include the use of virtual reality in accident simulations, medicine, architecture, archeology, education, and other areas. As an inter

This course teaches the fundamentals of Virtual Reality (VR) and provides laboratory experiences in the VR facility of the Media Union. The course is being offered to students from all schools and colleges at the University of Michigan and emphasizes cross-discipline collaboration and teamwork in group projects.

Even though virtual environment technologies are still difficult and expensive to use, people are doing real work. The following series of case studies represent examples of recent state of the art work that exemplifies the application of virtual environments in one or several aspects of manufacturing. Manufacturing, in this case, is taken to encompass issues relating to maintenance and training as well as the actual creation of parts and the assembly of systems. These example actual real world systems, not

Integrity Engineering Inc. (IEI) uses the capabilities and resources of several businesses and individuals working together to offer a wide range of engineering and technical services from proposal, concept development, design, production, integration, test, installation, and support. "Virtual IS Reality" and Integrity Engineering can help provide a "win-win" approach to ensuring quality while maintaining cost, schedule, and risk control.