Product customization in a virtual environment

In today's competitive market place, product designers need not only to elaborate their design with respect to forms and functions but also physical properties that make product safer and more comfortable to use. Current computer aided (CAD) systems mainly support product geometric properties and visualization. Physical properties such as stiffness are difficult or even impossible to be perceived in existing CAD systems. In this paper, a haptic system is developed to customize product physical properties such as product surface textures and stiffness. In the proposed system, a designer can perceive, for example, the surface roughness of a handle, the stiffness of a toothbrush, and exam the trigger force of a pushbutton, or even feel the vibration while an electrical razor is powered on as if the designer is operating a real product. If any of the above physical properties is not desirable by the designer (or customer), the designer can easily make change in terms of geometries, materials, or combinations until customized properties are perceived. Since these physical properties of a product, traditionally evaluated based on physical prototypes, can now be perceived in a virtual environment, the product development cycle can be shortened and the cost in making prototypes can be reduced. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group.