CM Labs Simulations Inc. announced that Oceaneering Inc., has successfully integrated Vortex Studio into its planning and prototyping workflows for offshore tools, which will reduce the company’s training times and increase mission readiness.
With clients looking for a long-term partner to deliver safe and stable maintenance operations for multiple-years to decades at a time, Oceaneering’s Digital Innovation Design Team was tasked with reassuring potential customers through simulation-based demos.
“Our artists excel at creating 3D models, but the systems in place did not let us move to the next level where we could simulate unique scenarios or make changes on the fly,” said Mark Stevens, Digital Innovation Operations director at Oceaneering. “Even the smallest change required the scene to be re-rendered, easily taking five days or more.”
CM Labs’ advanced suite of real-time simulation and visualization software, Vortex Studio offered Oceaneering the platform it was looking for; a fast-paced, user-centric prototyping tool, streamlined for deployment testing, training, and customer engagement simulations. Offering high-fidelity dynamics, cable-systems and hydrodynamics, Vortex Studio presented a robust feature set, which was perfect for the company.
“With increasingly complex projects, the Oceaneering team wanted to refocus their resources,” explained Lisa Barbieri, CM Labs VP of Marketing & Customer Experience. “Vortex Studio allowed them to leverage their existing 3D artists in completely new ways.”
Free to add different difficulty levels to the simulated missions via Vortex Studio, crews are now able to start with basic skill building tasks and then progress to the same types of real-time challenges they will face while working onsite.
“ROVs (remotely operated vehicles ) have demanding deployment schedules and operating environments,” elaborated Barbieri. “It was important for the company to limit delays caused by damage during training and ensure maximum performance the moment they deployed the robot.”
This new type of training program is already gaining traction with Oceaneering’s Norwegian office, which is looking to leverage simulation-based training for its globally deployed ROV pilots.
“Based on preliminary data, Oceaneering is expecting hot-stab operations 30 percent faster and an increase in mobilization time of at least 20 percent.”