Marine Technology - October 2007 - Page#32

<BODY> <span id="lblContents">? Marine Technology, Vol. 44, No. 4, October 2007, pp. 203?211 Marine Technology Research the Virtual Assembly Multimedia Ship Construction Information System Ying-Han Wu,1 Mei-Xin Huang,1 and Heiu-Jou Shaw1 This research proposes to build a "Multimedia Ship Construction Information System" to integrate the information of ship design and construction with the implementation document. The system exploits the characteristics of XML to present the electronic implementation document, and thus the information can be used repetitiously. It will then further develop into an extensible and reconstructible script language for the process script of ship construction. It integrates the virtual reality technology and establishes a mechanism that transforms text description into virtual assembly. A three-dimensional (3D) solid model of ship component built previously can be reused, and through the virtual assembly the visualization of implementation process simulation and planning can be conducted. Human intuition is used to present the construction information of the ship so that documents can be transformed from two-dimensional to three-dimensional form to accelerate the information flow on shipbuilding. With relational database technology, a multimedia (text and image) database on ship design and shipbuilding will be established through product data management (PDM), whose function is to control and manage documents to raise the value of information utilization. Moreover, the establishment of a wireless network not only can solve the communication problem between the internal shipyard and the construction site, but also assists the constructors to build the ship correctly, significantly elevate the quality of construction, and increase the working efficiency. 1. Introduction THE Internet is a virtual society composed of computers and networks. It enables the integration of different networks and provides interactive and diverse multimedia information services along with a free environment to users. The integration of multimedia onto the World Wide Web (www) accelerates the transformation of Internet application and development into multimedia services and inevitably accelerates the development of .txt format into multimedia format documents. With the emergence of program languages, documents can even be presented with active Web pages, and the technique of visual reality can further present those twodimensional (2D) documents in three dimensions. With the popularity of high-speed Internet, the obstacle of broadband limit has been removed; the browsing and application of three-dimensional (3D) virtual reality can reach the level of institutional operation and of a more humane interaction (Wang 2002). As we are in the era of multimedia information technology, we ought to efficaciously use multimedia as a tool to exchange information and increase the efficiency of transferring information. Furthermore, some people believe that the multimedia virtual assembly environment (VAE) with audio/visual feedback contributes to a more efficient production procedure and high customer satisfaction. In recent years, some shipyards proposed that the first step to be conducted to integrate shipyard environment with Extensible Markup Language (XML) is to integrate the inner system of a shipyard. Briggs and Rando (2001) suggested that data on the Web servers can be transferred through XML, and the communication and access of shipyard information can be integrated by applying STEP Application Pro1 tocol (AP) (Rando 2001). In 2002, Rando developed a program based on XML for the information exchange between shipyard departments. Rando further proposed that the automatic exchange of information, including specifications, production information, and electric business documents among different departments has to rely on XML and STEP APs that are relevant to shipbuilding, are used as reference to establish XML schema. Based on previous discussion, this paper proposes a multimedia information system for shipbuilding that can save all relevant information on design and construction. The application of this system is shown in Fig. 1. It starts from contact with the customer. After confirming the requirements of design and signing the contract, the professionalism of design staff and construction strategy are combined to create the electronic construction document and design document, and then the virtual protocol of the ship will be produced. With the protocol, a virtual construction environment can be produced to simulate the construction procedure. Then, through the Web interface, the data produced in previous stages can be managed using PDM (product data management) and saved in the database for future reference. At the construction site, constructors can access the system through a wireless Internet connection for multimedia construction information. Good construction quality and efficiency can only be obtained when there is collaboration between designers and constructors. By doing so, it can assist constructors with their work and reduce problem reports. Therefore, developing an information system that provides accurate design and construction data will increase the quality of design and shorten the cycle of production. Department of System and Naval Mechatronic Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, Republic of China. Manuscript received at SNAME headquarters January 2007. 2. Analysis of multimedia construction documents Construction specification is not only a technology contract, but also the collective knowledge for ship design and MARINE TECHNOLOGY 203 OCTOBER 2007 0025-3316/07/4404-0203$00.00/0</span> <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.digitalwavepublishing.com/" title="Digital Magazine">Digital Wave Publishing</a> </BODY>