Pipe layout technology in virtual environment

Aiming at the importance of pipe system and the disadvantages of manual pipe layout in mechatronics, pipe layout design in Virtual Environment (VE) with flexible pipe model was put forward. Flexible pipe modeling technology based on position and orientation control points was presented to locate pipe accurately. And position as well as orientation or shape of pipe could be adjusted through position and orientation control points in real time. Fast pipe layout was realized by either automatic generation or interactive adjustment. Characteristic-based automatic assembly of pipe accessory was developed to improve the efficiency of pipe accessory assembly. Knowledge and rules on pipe were used during the pipe layout to ensure the rationality of the pipe layout results in engineering. Pipe charts and statistics were obtained by processing the results of pipe layout to support the field production.