Since January 2005 Fabio Bruno is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering of University of Calabria. He works in the scientific sector “Design and Methods of Industrial Engineering”.
From 10/1/2001 to 7/31/2003 he held a research fellowship at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of University of Calabria. The research activities concerned the development and the implementation of the VEIS system (Virtual Environment for Interactive Sketching) for the modelling of curves and NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B-Spline) surfaces in Virtual Reality.
From May 2001 to September 2001 he worked at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Calabria, developing a research on the interaction techniques for geometric modelling in Virtual Environment.
EDUCATION He obtained a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering at the University of Calabria in 2001 with a thesis concerning the interaction techniques for Virtual Reality aided design systems. The research activity has been carried out during a three-months stage at the Department of Industrial Applications of the Fraunhofer Institute of Computer Graphics (Darmstadt, Germany).
In 2006 he obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Calabria, discussing a thesis titled: “Innovative methodologies of industrial design based on virtual reality techniques”.
TEACHING ACTIVITY
Fabio Bruno teaches the course of “Machine Design” for the students of Mechanical Engineering and the course of “Technical Drawing” for the students of Chemical Engineering at the University of Calabria.
He has supervised more than 30 degree thesis and 4 stages in private enterprises.
He is a tutor of a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Calabria.
RESEARCH PROJECTS COORDINATION AND INVOLVEMENT
From February 2007 to February 2009 he has been in charge of a Research Unit in the project MiUR-PRIN2006 – PUODARSI ‘Product User-Oriented Development Based on Augmented Reality and interactive Simulation’.
From February 2007 to February 2009 he has been scientific supervisor of a work package about “3D Scientific Visualization” in the CESIC Project (Supercomputing Centre for Computational Engineering) presented by NEC Italy s.r.l. and financed by the MiUR.
From February 2008 to February 2009 he has been scientific supervisor of a work package about the development of a Computer Graphics tool in the RESTARTS (REStoration Tools for ARTS) project presented by the T.E.A. s.r.l. and financed by the Regional Council of Calabria.
From December 2005 to December 2008 he has been the scientific supervisor of a work package about “Definition of Methods, Systems and Tools for the on-site individuation of Underwater Archaeological Heritage” in the project MESSIAH (Innovative Methodologies, Tools and Services for Underwater Archaeology) financed by MiUR and Regional Council of Calabria within the Technological District of Cultural Heritage of Crotone. In this project, he participates to the development of the research lines A.1.5 “Development of 3D Scanning Underwater Techniques” and A.1.6. “Development of a demonstrative prototype of an underwater 3D scanner”.
From December 2005 to December 2007 he participated to the LaBC project (Laboratory for the 3D scanning and image diagnostics of Cultural Heritage) financed by the Regional Council of Calabria.
From December 2005 to December 2007 he developed the research line ‘3D Visualization of simulation-optimization problems’ within the LOGICA project (Technological Laboratory of Logistics in Calabria) financed by the Regional Council of Calabria.
He has been scientific supervisor for 6 research commitments with private enterprises.
SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY
The scientific activity carried out by Fabio Bruno has developed over three main research themes:
Theme 1: Innovative methodologies for industrial design based on Virtual Reality techniques
The main research theme concerns the VR applications in the design process of industrial products. The application of VR technologies in the industrial field allows the designer to evaluate some of the most important success factors of an industrial product, such as aesthetics, ergonomics, maintainability and usability since the first steps of the design process, without the need of the realization of physical prototypes. In this sector, he has developed innovative techniques which allow the designer to interact in an intuitive and natural way with virtual prototypes of products in the development phase.
The first research activity has concerned the development of interaction techniques based on the use of VR technologies for free-form surfaces modelling. This research has been initially conducted in collaboration with the Department of Industrial Applications of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (Darmstadt, Germany).
Within three distinct research contracts with the Virtual Reality Centre of Elasis (Pomigliano d’Arco, Naples), a VR system for the maintainability analysis and a tool for the cabling design have been developed.
The potentialities of VR allow the development of new ‘user-centred’ design methodologies, which have pushed the research activity toward the study of VR techniques dedicated to the usability analysis of industrial products. In the realized tests, VR has demonstrated to be a valid alternative to the traditional methods of usability evaluation since the first phases of the conceptualization of products, thus realizing a more effective participatory design.
One particular specialization of VR is Augmented Reality (AR), which allows the visualization of data and digital objects in a real context. Using those technologies, it has been developed an integrated hardware and software system which aims to improve comprehensibility of CAE simulation results of industrial products (also physical prototypes) which have been already realized. The research activities in this sector are currently concerned to the development of a system which allows to carry out the CAE analysis during either the modelling or re-design phases of the products, and to visualize the results in an interactive way through the AR techniques. Those activities have been a part of the project MiUR-PRIN2006 – PUODARSI “Product User-Oriented Development Based on Augmented Reality and interactive Simulation”.
Theme 2: Innovative Methodologies to support the industrial design
Within of the Project MiUR-PRIN2005 – PROSIT “From Systematic Innovation to Integrated Product Development”, coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano, a research has been conducted starting from the analysis of topological optimization at the interior of the Development Process of a Product, which aims to define a methodology to integrate topological optimization tools with feature-based CAD systems, in order to improve the efficacy of these design support instruments.
Theme 3: Virtual Reality applications in the Cultural Heritage fields
The technologies of Virtual Reality and Reverse Engineering, developed for the industrial sector, have been successfully employed also in the Cultural Heritage fields. The first phase of the research has been centred on the reconstruction of the archaeological site of Capo Colonna and on the development of an interactive application for the VR fruition of the site. Subsequently, some research activities related to the MESSIAH project (Innovative Methodologies, Tools and Services for Underwater Archaeology) financed by MiUR and the Regional Council of Calabria. In particular, the main results concerned the development of a 3D digitizing system based on Augmented Reality. Other research lines concerned the development of an innovative system for the fruition of Cultural Heritage in VR.
Also in the MESSIAH project, a system of 3D acquisition of shapes in underwater environment has been development. The scanner is based on the use of structured light and it is composed by two cameras and a digital projector which uses the LED illumination (Light Emitting Diode). It has already been realized a first prototype able to operate on objects ranging from few centimeters to 1-2 meters, maintaining a good precision. This feature is absolutely original because other devices for 3D Scanning in underwater systems, being mainly focused on the seabed scanning, operate on much bigger dimensions (dozens of meters) with a clearly inferior precision.
