Audi is currently testing a so-called 'virtual reality holodeck'. This is a room measuring around 15 by 15 meters in which car prototypes can be displayed realistically and true to scale. For this purpose, Audi planning staff have recreated the room in which the design assessment takes place in the virtual world on a 1:1 scale. Using current design data, they place the virtual models there, which can be experienced intuitively both from the inside and outside. In contrast to previous VR environments, up to six people can now walk around the car at the same time.

Visual assessment

Audi is testing the holodeck at the interface between development and production. Here, employees from both areas jointly assess the overall visual impression and the surfaces of the new car and adjust the position of individual lines and joints. This assessment is the final step before the tools required for the car go into production. Until now, photorealistic 2D computer graphics and hand-made physical models have been used for this purpose, which are costly and take up to six weeks to build.

However, the two-dimensional representation is still used to analyze individual aspects in detail: "This currently offers a higher resolution and better quality than the walk-in VR installation," says Martin Rademacher, head of the VR Holodeck project at Audi.

Technological implementation

To work in the holodeck, each user wears VR goggles and two hand controllers for interaction. On their backs is a rucksack with a powerful PC weighing just three kilograms. This calculates the scene. The users' mobile PCs are connected via WLAN to a central workstation that controls the data exchange. The three-dimensional model can be transferred to various environmental settings. In a further expansion stage, the holodeck allows participants from other Audi sites to be connected, which makes work organization much easier. Once production has started, the system is used to ensure the quality of a model.

Audi developed the overall concept together with the Stuttgart-based media agency Lightshape. The company intends to introduce it into work processes before the end of this year. The aim of the current test phase is also to sound out possibilities for its use in other areas of the company: The production planners at Audi have already virtually displayed entire assembly line sections in the system in order to visualize future processes. The department is also in contact with other brands in the Volkswagen Group.