Pierre Larochelle
Robotics & Spatial Systems Lab
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department
Florida Institute of Technology
Judy M. Vance
Virtual Reality Applications Center
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011-2160
Ball 2000 Symposium Proceedings, July 9-11, 2000, University of Cambridge, Trinity College, England, CD-ROM
Abstract
This paper presents a framework for generating and interacting with the line congruences associated with four general nite poses. These line congruences are the solution space of spatial 4C mechanisms which will guideaworkpiece through the four prescribed poses. Hence, the contributions of this paper are applicable to developing interactive tools for designing spatial 4C mechanisms for four pose motion generation. First, a methodology for generating a parameterized representation of the line congruences is reviewed. This is followed by strategies for visually repre- senting the line congruences which are appropriate for both workstation and immersive virtual reality computer graphics. Next, strategies and supporting algorithms for interacting with the line congruences to obtain solution mecha- nisms with xed links or coupler links in desired regions of the workspace are presented. The result is an intuitive interactive visual design methodology for generat- ing and interacting with the line congruences associated with four general nite spatial poses. Our hope is that this tool will in turn facilitate the creation of both virtual reality and workstation-based computer-aided design software for spatial 4C mechanism design.
