Virtual World used as Engineering Tool

clipped from www.designnews.com Second Life Utilized to Design a Personal Mass Transit System As highlighted in the Orange County Register article, “Second Life as a simulation tool”, building the SkyTran system in Second Life highlighted several human-machine interface issues that would otherwise have only been identified after the system was actually constructed. First, the current track arrangement, while safe, “feels” unsafe. Second, the repetitive track components passing by could induce epileptic seizures in susceptible passengers. Both of these early problems were uncovered by recording the experiences of a Second Life avatar as it sat in a SkyTran car taking a virtual ride. Not only were human-machine interface issues identified early by employing Second Life for engineering design, but also the algorithm used to control the virtual SkyTram cars can be migrated for use to run the real-world SkyTran system. This migration is feasible because Second Life physics mimic physics in the real world.