According to a press release by HaptX, they have teamed up with Nissan to introduce virtual reality (VR) touch feedback for automobile design, enabling design reviews to be more efficient than costly full-scale physical prototypes.
“We are entering a new era of design, and Nissan is leading the way,” said Joe Michaels, Chief Revenue Officer of HaptX, “We’re honored to see HaptX Gloves adopted as a tool by Nissan’s world-class design team. Working together, we can radically enhance the vehicle design process so that automakers can make better decisions, faster.”
The goal of the partnership is to address the biggest shortcomings in VR car design: touch and input. While the auto industry has invested heavily into VR to reduce the need for physical prototypes, it had to rely on controllers in order to interact with a car’s VR proof of concept, or digital twin (a concept we covered when concerning training simulations). The HaptX Gloves, however, integrate haptic technology through 130 actuators inside of the gloves, allowing users to touch and feel objects in VR. According to HaptX, leveraging their gloves can reduce the time to test a complete physical prototype from years to days.
Nissan has already used the HaptX Gloves when designing the Nissan Leaf and the Nissan IMs, two of the company’s best-selling electric cars. The tool was demonstrated publically at South by Southwest (SXSW), where HaptX was a finalist for the SXSW Interactive Innovation Award.
Using VR digital twins to scope out large scale designs has been both an innovative and cost-efficient use of the medium, and the implementations aren’t just limited to the auto industry – Australian airline Qantas Airways also used a VR experience to demonstrate their First Lounge in Singapore before its construction. Future applications from other industries will only further demonstrate VR’s usefulness to enterprise.
