Exploring aerospace design in virtual reality with dimension reduction

Abstract

One of the today’s most propitious immersive technologies is virtual reality (VR). This term is colloquially associated with head-sets that transport users to a bespoke, built-forpurpose immersive 3D virtual environment. It has given rise to the field of immersive visual analytics—a new field of research that aims to use immersive technologies for enhancing and empowering data analytics. In this paper we present a VR aerospace design environment with the objective of aiding the component aerodynamic design process by interactively visualizing performance and geometry. This virtual environment uses ideas from parameter-space dimension reduction to enhance the exploration and exploitation of the design space. We decompose the design of such an environment into function structures, present an implementation of the system, and verify the interface in terms of usability and expressiveness.