Engineering in a Virtual World

I love virtual worlds for their engineering and architecture and design potential. Sure, they give a naturally colaborative environment. They are immersive, so you feel like you are really there despite being physically separate. Being 3D is a natural fit for people very used to working in 3D. But its the future potential that excites me.

Architects, designers, and engineers have been creating virtual 3D products for years. This is how they validate their designs before creating them in the real world. Look at your car, house, cell phone and much of your furniture. Did you know there are virital representations for all of these? Companies just don't have a reason (or way) to share these designs with the world.

There are many specialized 3D design tools used for creating the designs but also for mocking up, managing, reviewing, and collaborating on the designs. Will there be a paradigm shift at some point where we start do do this type of work inside a virtual world?

Virtual worlds make use of physics engines to simulate collisions, gravity, and other object interactions. Specialized design software does the same. It is very important to be able to model physical inteactions in a product before spending money on a real product. Virtual "fly throughs" are common. This is all happening today in real world product design companies.

In the end I love virtual worlds for being immersive, 3D, an colaborative but it is the future potential that excites me.