VirtualErgonomicsCentre-Aresearcharenafordigitalhumansimulationandergonomicsevaluation.docVIP

Virtual Ergonomics Centre - A research arena for digital human simulation and ergonomics evaluation ?rtengren, Roland( Department of Product and Production Development, Chalmers University of Technology G?teborg, Sweden Abstract Virtual Ergonomics Centre is network of people, affiliated to several academic,?industrial and governmental organisations, who are interested in the visualisation, simulation and evaluation of ergonomics issues in computer created environments, a context recognised as virtual ergonomics. The network was established in the spring of 2006 and its aims are to stimulate and strengthen contacts between interested researchers and people from industry, software companies and others. The purpose of this paper is to give a short description of the Centre and the steps that led to its formation. Further information can be obtained from the Centres home page http://www.vec.se. Keywords: virtual ergonomics, simulation, computer manikin 1. Introduction The use of computers in design and other applications has now a long tradition in engineering as well as in ergonomics. The development of computer based methods and tools for ergonomics applications started in the late 1960ies when the first computer models of human operators were created. The intention was that the models should be used in the design of workplace layouts to simplify the realisation and analysis of variations in design solution so that the most appropriate one could be chosen for implementation. Traditionally a separate drawing had to be hand made for each case to be analysed, a rather time consuming effort. By means of the computer design variations could be produced quite easily and printed for further analysis. The computer was used as an automatized drawing tool and the term adopted for the technique was computer aided design, CAD. Not surprisingly the human computer models were fist used in the design of complex products involving large investments, e.g. in the design of airp