Immersive virtual reality comes to process plant operations

In grand American style, it’s called Immersive Virtual Reality Process technology, but putting that aside, it promises to help improve plant safety and security, ensure environmental and regulatory accountability, and increase production and efficiency while also controlling feedstock and material costs. Some claim, but Maurizio Rovaglio, director of IPS global consulting, says that’s the potential when operators see three-dimensional computer-generated representations of process plant, using its stereoscopic headset. “The ability to simulate complex processes in connection with virtual actions allows the user to directly experience an environment that changes over time, making it more effective at transferring skills learned in training to the work environment,” he says. “And because rarely performed volatile tasks, such as plant shutdowns, can be rehearsed in a stable, realistic environment, users and operator trainees have the opportunity to learn and make mistakes without putting themselves, the community or the environment at risk. In addition to that, using computer models of real equipment allows endless experimentation without ever taking the equipment off line, mitigating risk to production as well,” he adds. Users get a stereoscopic headset, users enter a totally immersive environment in which they can move through the plant in any direction. Such freedom is made possible because the virtual environment is rendered at 60 frames per second, significantly faster than what can be achieved by traditional, non real-time rendering.