Overview

Human Builder is based on a best-in-class human modeling system which, for many years, has permitted detailed investigation into human-centered design issues in the context of a workplace before it physically exists.

Welcome to the Human Builder User's Guide. This guide is intended for users who need to become quickly familiar with the Human Builder workbench product.

Human Builder in a Nutshell

Human Builder is based on a best-in-class human modeling system which, for many years, has permitted detailed investigation into human-centered design issues in the context of a workplace before it physically exists. Human Builder provides very accurate simulation of humans and their interactions with products to ensure they operate naturally in a workplace tailored to their tasks. The Human Builder product specifically focuses on creating and manipulating digital humans for "first level" human-product interaction analysis.

Human Builder consists of a number of advanced tools for creating, manipulating and analyzing how manikins (based on the 5th, 50th and 95th percentile value) can interact with a product. The manikins can then be used to assess the suitability of a product for form, fit and function. The manikins can be intuitively created and manipulated in conjunction with the digital mockup to check features such as reach and vision. A simple-to-use interface ensures that first-level human factors studies can be undertaken by non-human factors specialists.

Tools contained within the Human Builder product include manikin generation, gender specification, percentile specification, direct kinematics and inverse kinematics manipulation techniques, animation generation, monocular, binocular and ambinocular vision simulation, as well as vision output cones.

Before Reading this Guide

Before reading this guide, you should be familiar with basic Version 6 concepts such as document windows, standard and view toolbars. Therefore, we recommend that you read the Virtual Product Guide, Infrastructure that describes generic capabilities common to all Version 6 products. It also describes the general layout of Version 6 and the interoperability between workbenches.

You may also like to read the following complementary product guides, for which the appropriate license is required:


  • Human Measurements Editor
  • Catalog

Getting the Most Out of this Guide

To get the most out of this guide, we suggest that you start reading and performing the step-by-step user tasks, which cover product functionality.

The Interface Description section, which describes the commands Interface Description that are specific to Human Builder, and the Customizing section, which explains how to customize settings.