GIOVE Virtual Factory: A new viewer for a more immersive role of the user during factory design

The need to solve a wide range of complex tasks urged companies to adopt new software tools, including Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), in their production chains. Major software houses released a lot of tools to help experts to manage different complex tasks, included the design or the modification of the layout of a production plant. Unfortunately, such tools are far from being integrated in a unique tool. Furthermore, the small-to-medium enterprises prefer a more customized and less expensive solution (Consoni et al. J Intell Manuf 17(6):725-735, 2006). In this context, GIOVE virtual factory (GIOVE VF), a tool for the collaborative design and review of a factory layout, was developed by ITIA-CNR (Istituto di Tecnologie Industriali e Automazione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy) and integrated with the other DiFac components of the Factory Constructor (Sacco et al. Human computer interaction conference, Beijing (PRC), 25-27 July 2007; Mottura et al. 57th CIRP general assembly, Dresden, Germany, 19-25 August 2007; Smparounis et al. 14th international conference on concurrent enterprising, Lisbon, Portugal, 23-25 June 2008; Dürr et al. 14th international conference on concurrent enterprising, Lisbon, Portugal, 23-25 June 2008; Constantinescu et al. 14th international conference on concurrent enterprising, Lisbon, Portugal, 23-25 June 2008).