Today I (Sub Project B) had a meeting with people from TNO. TNO is “an independent research organisation whose expertise and research make an important contribution to the competitiveness of companies and organisations, to the economy and to the quality of society as a whole” (from their website). I met two people at the JVRC conference in Nottingham, and was invited to talk about the VR research done for the REPAR project to a bigger audience within TNO.

TNO participates in the Manuvar project, which is a European project aiming to provide “ergonomics, safety, work assistance and training in the manufacturing and service industries”. With a specific focus on VR and AR, there are several mutual interests between the projects.

Ergonomics analysis tools

After the presentation and discussion with some interesting topics, TNO demonstrated several analysis tools, particularly targeting ergonomics. It was interesting to see the similarities between their setups and some of the ideas we have/had for the REPAR companies, even though we are targeting different parts of the design process. Most importantly, both try to support the process with relatively low-end VR solutions, rather than pushing in high-end and/or new VR technologies.