Technical development has eased the work of humans and reduced their intervention within the industrial process. However, creative processes like conceptual styling do not follow predefined paths, and no machine so far has succeeded in replacing human inventiveness.
The capability to design innovative products is a key factor in fostering the competitiveness of industrial products. In particular, the conceptual design phase plays a strategic role since the creativity and synthesis that characterize it are of great importance for the design of an industrial product. Therefore, it is clear that, in order to boost efficiency and enhance creativity, innovative and adequate tools must be developed.
GraphiTech's recent years of R&D activities have promoted improvements to the design process through the development of innovative interactive design tools within Virtual and Augmented Reality scenarios. The goal is to foster a new generation of systems capable of dynamically adapting to designers’ needs, in opposition to current systems that require designers to adjust to the technology adopted.
Several projects have led to the development of a number of different technologies in the field of:
GraphiTech is aware that the international context has been, and in a more complex and unpredictable way still is, characterized by worldwide competition and a rapidly evolving global economy. Improved communication and transportation means have helped provide consumers with an enormous choice of goods and services. If, from a customer perspective, competition and the global economy have brought a wider choice of cheaper and better products, from the company’s standpoint these factors cause pricing pressure, force the shortening of production times, and necessitate continuous innovation.
- Augmented Engineering
- IT Support for the Virtual PDP
- Mixed, Augmented & Virtual Reality
- Realtime Solutions for Simulation and Visual Analytics
- Interactive Graphics Systems, HCI
- CSCW - Computer-Supported Collaborative Work
As a result, to cope with increasing competition and achieve success, the company must improve quality, increase the product’s added value, reduce time-to-market, and foster innovation at all levels.
GraphiTech has promoted R&D to sustain and maintain innovative product design, which is essential to ensure constant success and competitiveness. This is especially true for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which still dominate the market in Europe. The fast development of IT and communication technologies, as well as their wide adoption within several companies, creates an opportunity for companies to (inevitably) introduce sometimes radical improvements within their organizational structures. IT tools developed by GraphiTech support several phases of design and production. Managers can benefit from innovative IT tools that contribute, with relevant improvements, to activities related to the innovation of products and processes within their companies.
Within this context, since its early days, GraphiTech’s research has been focused on the application of Virtual Reality technologies to Computer-Aided Design, the development of advanced 3D interaction techniques, and applications of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) within various engineering scenarios. The research has been carried out with the aim of assisting the product development process and the product lifecycle with modern information and communication technologies such as Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality, and CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work).
