SOLIDWORKS/FRC 2019- VR Field

Background:

FRC is the First Robotics Challenge that brings together high school engineering students to design and compete in a robotics competition. Every year, a game is designed and released where each team will construct a robot to compete in a series of challenges for points leading to a national competition in Detroit.

Problem:

SOLIDWORKS (SW) was tasked to design a VR walkthrough of the 2019 field (Destination Deep Space) where teams can use VR gear from Google Cardboard to HTC Vive fro viewing purposes.

FIRST wished for this to be a high quality rendering where stickers, lighting, and textures were used to be as accurate to the built field.

CAD model of the 2019 FRC Field

Actions:

SOLIDWORKS Visualize was decided to be used to create a high-quality rendering of the field

Field would be including guided VR video tour, VR “hotspots” around field, measurement capability, two high quality background choice, correct textures and stickers from real field.

Problems and Solutions:

Problem: Correct texture mapping for game piece models

Solution: Utilized images of actual game pieces to slowly change settings for optimal design

Problem: Lighting issues as background environments changed

Solution: Carefully tweaked and saved settings for different backgrounds in order to create more realistic environment