Simulating Visual Perception of Different Human Sizes within the Vehicle Interior Using Virtual Reality–Ergonomic Evaluation
摘要
Future mobility concepts of the vehicle interior will focus on user-centered development, as passengers spend much time in the vehicle. Prioritizing the interior design with aspects such as comfort, acceptance, and visibility is essential. Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) are revolutionizing development processes in OEMs, especially in visualizations and driving simulations. However, their potential for evaluating ergonomic aspects has not been fully explored. This paper presents a VR technique to simulate different eye heights that enables a user to evaluate vehicle interiors from the perspective of different human sizes. The implementation occurs in the Unreal Engine (UE), whereby a 3D interior model is visualized with Varjo-XR3 MR glasses. Camera positions representing the perception of different human sizes are determined as the eye height using manual measurement and RAMSIS Digital Human Model (DHM) software, which calculates the eye height. These positions are integrated into UE via blueprint scripting, and a UI enables the selection of human sizes for visualization. A functionality test validated the technology by comparing individual human size perception. This technique allows engineers to assess the visibility and acceptability of interior components for different human sizes, thus avoiding physical prototypes and a large number of user evaluations, saving cost and time. Future work includes the integration of MetaHuman data and correspondingly scaled interior models to enable reachability analysis in ergonomic assessments.