Using visual cues of contact to improve interactive manipulation of virtual objects in industrial assembly/maintenance simulations

This paper describes a set of visual cues of contact designed to improve the interactive manipulation of virtual objects in industrial assembly/maintenance simulations. These visual cues display information of proximity, contact and effort between virtual objects when the user manipulates a part inside a digital mock-up. The set of visual cues encloses the apparition of glyphs (arrow, disk, or sphere) when the manipulated object is close or in contact with another part of the virtual environment. Light sources can also be added at the level of contact points. A filtering technique is proposed to decrease the number of glyphs displayed at the same time. Various effects--such as change in color, change in size, and deformation of shape- can be applied to the glyphs as a function of proximity with other objects or amplitude of the contact forces. A preliminary evaluation was conducted to gather the subjective preference of a group of participants during the simulation of an automotive assembly operation. The collected questionnaires showed that participants globally appreciated our visual cues of contact. The changes in color appeared to be preferred concerning the display of distances and proximity information. Size changes and deformation effects appeared to be preferred in terms of perception of contact forces between the parts. Last, light sources were selected to focus the attention of the user on the contact areas.     

A semidynamic construction of higher-order voronoi diagrams and its randomized analysis

Thek-Delaunay tree extends the Delaunay tree introduced in [1], and [2]. It is a hierarchical data structure that allows the semidynamic construction of the higher-order Voronoi diagrams of a finite set ofn points in any dimension. In this paper we prove that a randomized construction of thek-Delaunay tree, and thus of all the orderk Voronoi diagrams, can be done inO(n logn+k ³n) expected time and O(k²n) expected storage in the plane, which is asymptotically optimal for fixedk. Our algorithm extends tod-dimensional space with expected time complexityO(k ^(d+1)/2+1 n ^(d+1)/2) and space complexityO(k ^(d+1)/2 n ^(d+1)/2). The algorithm is simple and experimental results are given.This work has been supported in part by the ESPRIT Basic Research Action No. 3075 (ALCOM).     

Software assessment using metrics: A comparison across large C++ and Java systems

This paper presents an assessment method to evaluate the quality of object oriented software systems. The assessment method is based on source code abstraction, object–oriented metrics and graphical representation. The metrics used and the underlying model representing the software are presented. The assessment method experiment is part of an industrial research effort with the Bell Canada Quality Engineering and Research Group. It helps evaluators assess the quality and risks associated with software by identifying code fragments presenting unusual characteristics. The assessment method evaluates object–oriented software systems at three levels of granularity: system level, class level and method level. One large C++ and eight Java software systems, for a total of over one million lines of code, are presented as case studies. A critical analysis of the results is presented comparing the systems and the two languages.     

Rayonnement en ondes métriques et décimétriques des orages

This article presents the result of the current knowledge on the very high frequency electromagnetic radiation of lightning. A phenomenology analysis of the new results obtained from the study of triggered lightning in New Mexico (TRIP 82) and at Saint-Privat-d’ Allier in Haute-Loire, France (1983) is first described. The authors then present the spectral and temporal characteristics of the VHF/UHF radiation which can be applied to the electromagnetic compatibility of systems. From a synthesis of the experimental and theoretical contributions, they propose a reflection on the lightning initiation process and on the mechanisms generating lightning radiation.     

Power system transient stability analysis: Formulation as nearly Hamiltonian systems

In this paper we formulate power systems as nonlinear nearly Hamiltonian systems. Using the invariance principle for ordinary differential equations, necessary and sufficient conditions for asymptotic stability are established and a new method of estimating the domain of attraction of the stable equilibrium point is developed. The present results constitute a novel approach to stability analysis and involve the following three steps:

1. Given a system with dissipation, the stability of its equilibrium is ascertained by determining the stability of the associated conservative system.
2. Attractivity of the stable equilibrium of the entire system (with dissipation) is determined from the system topology.
3. An estimate of the domain of attraction of the asymptotically stable equilibrium is obtained by making use of results obtained in (a) and (b).

The stability criterion developed in this paper sheds new light on the mechanism of instability in power systems and it provides analytical verification to the concept of the potential-energy boundary surface (PEBS). The PEBS is a hypersurface which makes up a part of the boundary of the domain of attraction of the stable equilibrium in a power system. The existence and properties of the PEBS have thus far been deduced primarily via simulations and heuristic methods.     

Synthèse optimale d’un réseau de télécommunication avec contraintes de sécurité

A commonly used method for achieving a prescribed security level in a telecommunication network is to manage extra capacities all over the network. This paper describes a number of computational methods, both exact and approximate, for determining a minimum cost network of extra capacities needed to achieve security under any given trunk dimensioning, routing and grouping policy. From a mathematical point of view, it is shown that the problem reduces to the determination of a minimum cost network subject to a number of non simultaneous multicommodity flow requirements. Since real life instances of such problems commonly result in very large linear programs of many thousands of variables and constraints, the techniques of linear programming would be unacceptably time and space-consuming. Instead, it is shown how the use of Lagrangean relaxation in conjunction with sub-gradient optimization schemes can lead to efficient and easy-to-implement solution methods. The various procedures described in this paper form the heart of a general software product for long and medium term planning applications (Supersec program) which has already been used to investigate the economical implications of security requirements in telecommunication networks.     

Microstructural study of ε-iron-carbonitrides formed by a glow discharge technique

The microstructure and phase transformations occurring in-iron-carbonitrides have been studied by means of X-ray and electron diffraction, electron microscopy and Mössbauer spectrometry. Ordering of the interstitial atoms, N or C, results in a hexagonal unit cell for Fe₃(C, N) with parametersa=a3 andc=c wherea andc are the lattice parameters of the hexagonal close-packed (h c p) iron unit cell. Stacking faults on (0001) planes and partial dislocations with Burgers vector b=1/31 0 ¯1 0 are observed in quenched-Fe₄ (C, N). After quench-aging, the carbonitrides show a structural hardening due to the precipitation of a metastable phase. Slow cooling of-carbonitrides with less than 25 at% interstitials leads to the precipitation of-carbonitride and ferrite in-phase grains which allows the orientation relationships between the-,- and-phases to be defined and a model of the-phase--phase transformation to be proposed.     

GPU Shape Grammars

GPU Shape Grammars provide a solution for interactive procedural generation, tuning and visualization of massive environment elements for both video games and production rendering. Our technique generates detailed models without explicit geometry storage. To this end we reformulate the grammar expansion for generation of detailed models at the tesselation control and geometry shader stages. Using the geometry generation capabilities of modern graphics hardware, our technique generated massive, highly detailed models. GPU Shape Grammars integrate within a scalable framework by introducing automatic generation of levels of detail at reduced cost. We apply our solution for interactive generation and rendering of scenes containing thousands of buildings and trees.     

How to take into account general and contextual knowledge for interactive aiding design: Towards the coupling of CSP and CBR approaches

The goal of this paper is to show how it is possible to support design decisions with two different tools relying on two kinds of knowledge: case-based reasoning operating with contextual knowledge embodied in past cases and constraint filtering that operates with general knowledge formalized using constraints. Our goals are, firstly to make an overview of existing works that analyses the various ways to associate these two kinds of aiding tools essentially in a sequential way. Secondly, we propose an approach that allows us to use them simultaneously in order to assist design decisions with these two kinds of knowledge. The paper is organized as follows. In the first section, we define the goal of the paper and recall the background of case-based reasoning and constraint filtering. In the second section, the industrial problem which led us to consider these two kinds of knowledge is presented. In the third section, an overview of the various possibilities of using these two aiding decision tools in a sequential way is drawn up. In the fourth section, we propose an approach that allows us to use both aiding decision tools in a simultaneous and iterative way according to the availability of knowledge. An example dealing with helicopter maintenance illustrates our proposals.