EON Reality IVP Creation.

Situation

TSC’s partnership with EON Reality connected process simulation and control-room operation with a 3D virtual plant. I took on the work as TSC’s product owner from September 2015. EON provided the technical artists who implemented the 3D environment.

The engineering model, operator interfaces and field equipment needed to describe the same process. Actions in the virtual plant had to produce the right response in the simulation, with the resulting state reflected back in the 3D equipment and instruments.

Task

I owned the engineering and product definition: the process being represented, what trainees needed to learn, the features the system required and how it should behave. My responsibility covered the process simulator build, all simulator-to-3D synchronisation logic, P&ID definition, emergency shutdown (ESD), learning objectives and process layout.

I also specified the 3D work in detail. EON’s artists needed requirements describing the equipment, interactions, indications and responses that would make the environment function as a process-training system.

Action

Building the simulator and defining the process

I built the dynamic process simulator and defined the process configuration and P&ID, ESD behaviour, equipment layout and system features. I established the learning objectives that those engineering choices needed to support.

The centrifugal compressor material below shows the relationship between that engineering definition and the delivered system: process and instrumentation drawings, the simulation overview, field equipment, local controls and bearing-monitoring displays.

Owning synchronisation and the 3D behaviour specification

I devised all of the synchronisation logic between the simulator and the EON environment. I specified how the 3D equipment should work, including the controls, indications and behaviour that connected the field-operator experience to the simulated process.

EON’s technical artists implemented the visuals and 3D behaviour to my specifications. My ownership extended across what was built and how it worked, as well as the underlying simulation and integration. I also made some later edits to the EON content.

Reviewing the environment and training features

The gallery includes the early untextured compressor model, developed equipment views, simulation screens and concept art for lube and seal oil filter leaks. The P&ID is retained with its drawing credit and revision information.

The examples also show the system on different display arrangements: an EON Icube, Igloo immersive displays and a triple-screen surround system. The latter formed part of the portable training system I designed and built with Harry Wright, which is documented as a separate project.

Result

The EON-based centrifugal compressor was available by the end of 2016. It brought together the process simulator I built, the synchronisation logic I devised and the 3D implementation produced by EON to my engineering and behaviour specifications.

The photographs and films document the EON compressor and Condensate Tank Farm environments, including compressor training in an Igloo in Houston and an early tank-farm demonstration at Igloo Vision’s offices in Craven Arms, Shropshire.

The partnership was publicly announced in October 2015 in the Auganix article. After the EON agreement ended, the later in-house Unity IVP development became a separate internal development effort. The current IVP product family covers those newer products.