Object behavior specification and simulation in virtual assembly

Virtual assembly is widely used to increase productivity. However, performing all the operations manually is time consuming, because there will inevitably have much rework to do. On the other hand, automating the whole process is an unbelievable task, because there is a lack of professional knowledge. Therefore, we present an object trace method to depict assembly manipulation, and use this specification to simulate human's direct manipulation. We propose a 3-layered structure to specify object trace, namely, temporal behavior segment, short behavior sequence and object trace. The behavior specification owns adaptability in changed virtual environment. The authors have implemented the approach in virtual assembly system Interaction3D. The experiments show that, this method makes an improvement on time saving with a ratio of 59.23%, and sharply reduces the cognitive load in complicated operation process to the least level.