Welcome to Advanced Automation, a podcast by Calvary Robotics, where you'll find industry leaders and experts sharing their thoughts on the world of automation. My name is Joe Gemma, and I will be your host today. We have a really special guest today, one of my colleagues in special technology he's gonna talk to you about. Please join me in welcoming Chris Grieve from our one of our technology areas. Chris, welcome. Before we get started on the discussion, we wanna talk about the technology. Maybe tell us a our listeners, who may not know you, a little bit about yourself. Yeah. Absolutely, Joe. Thanks. It's nice to be here. I've, grown up here in, Webster, New York, currently working at Calvary Robotics. Been here for about six years. Run the the simulations virtual reality department. Basically, what we do in my department is we support the sales and applications department by creating, conceptual renderings and animations of the machines running at rate for, sales proposals and marketing material. Oh, it sounds pretty interesting, and, certainly, we've taken advantage of those technologies. So it's kind of a unique kind of background. What explain your path, and what brought you to where you are now? Okay, so, I was kind of interested in like, drawing in in high school, but not really like artistic I guess you could say more like mechanical stuff and, took drafting in high school and cad in high school kind of got my feet wet there and then I ended up going to Alfred State College and took the drafting CAD technical illustration program there. I graduated from there and ended up working in the industry and basically kind of evolved the role of a technical illustrator to what it is now. With the advent of three d software, the technical illustrator job was kind of becoming obsolete because engineers could generate their own exploded drawings and instruction manuals and stuff from from the solid models. Whereas with what we're using now, we're taking more of an artistic approach to it. So we'll take the the engineering models, and we'll add detail to them. We'll light them and shade them so they look hyper realistic and do what we do. We create our images for our proposals and our animation. So it sounds like you got a little bit of educational background to get you to move you in that direction, but then you actually learned a little bit on the job as you went along. Is that is that your Yeah. Yeah. So when I went to college, we were doing renderings with airbrushes and stuff. I mean, it was the the three d stuff was was out there, but a lot of companies hadn't, transitioned to it yet. You're talking, like, nineteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight. And then, you know, five or six years down the road, a lot of companies transitioned to this stuff, and it became more affordable. So I kinda took the route of of finding this kind of process and teaching it to myself. Interesting. So, you know, we hear a lot of people talk about some of those terms like animation and simulations and VR, and it's certainly interesting, I think, to our audience. And, hopefully, as they listen in, they can learn a little bit more about this. So maybe explain from the Calvary perspective, what what is that process of simulations in VR at Calvary? What does it mean for us? So simulations is is basically where we create our our animated videos. So we'll take the the three d models from engineering, and sometimes, like, we'll get, like, not no three d models. We'll get, like, a, sketch on a dry erase board. Sometimes a paper napkin sketch, and then we'll build the geometry in the computer. But we'll take that that engineering data or create new data in more of a a software that's traditionally used for video game and film and television visual effects. So you take that that proverbial napkin drawing and turn it into some kind of a reality perspective for people? Right. And that's for the the simulations part. Right. But then from there, we can leverage all the work that we've done animating and bring it into a video game engine to create VR applications. Okay. So many of our customers take advantage of the VR applications? Yeah. There's been a few. The the hard part about that is that they have to be on-site here to see it because we have to have the the sensors, and I'm actually sitting in the the VR room right now. So not every one of them do, but we have done quite a bit of it. So for the benefit of listeners, we have that capability of technology on-site there in house that they can take advantage of then? Yeah. Absolutely. There was actually one instance where, we were doing a design approval for a job, and we basically built the whole thing in VR, and they did the design approval all day. These guys had they were out of the shop floor. We brought the rig out to the shop floor, and they they were doing the wearing the goggles, and they did the whole design approval process through that. And they actually found some ergonomic issues that they wouldn't have found until they actually started manufacturing. So it saved a bunch of money and change orders, and it worked out really well. So it brought some other practical benefits, to the process. So what what's the value add of simulations and and VR to our customers? Yeah. So, basically, a lot of times when we go out to bid the jobs, the the person making the the decision is in the purchasing department. And they usually don't have a lot of experience probably reading CAD drawings and whatnot. So what we provide them is a a video that is hyper realistic showing how the machine runs and functions at the rate that it's supposed to doing every process that it needs to, and they can actually see what they're going to buy before it's engineered and designed and built. So it actually even works at the rate. It's not like a sped up, version. So it really works at the rate that they should expect to see on their floor. Yeah. And and and there are instances sometimes where we we you can speed it up, and we'll we'll do, like, a time lapse because some certain processes are, you know, you know, take minutes where somebody doesn't wanna sit there and watch a twenty five minute video to show The whole something. So so so there are instances where we'll, like, do time lapse and cut fade and whatever. But for the most part, we can make anything run at the real speeds that it's gonna speed or run and, and animate it that way. That's interesting information because there's some flexibility to it too that I I didn't realize. So I'm sure our listeners will benefit from that too. Mhmm. Okay. So can you talk about the addition of virtual reality to Calvary and how that's changed our business? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a a great tool. Like I said, the there's, you know, the nuance of the customer has to be here. It's not something we can build and send them via email and whatnot. But it does does help get a good perspective of what's going on in the machine, and people can see it and walk through it. You can actually, you know, look at the gripper fingers moving and actuating and taking parts and walk through the guarding. It's definitely a a great tool to have in our arsenal for sure. And so it gives the customer a little more level of confidence of what they're gonna have because they can actually work through their own factory. Absolutely. Yeah. So now it's a very dynamic technology world we're living in today, and certainly you're on the technology side. How do you keep up with this ever evolving dynamic technologies in your field? Well, we're constantly always doing research, and we're constantly learning, because things change rapidly and so fast. So, you know, something you did for a project, you know, a year ago may not be the best way to do it now. So in my department, I encourage everybody to do as much research as possible, learn as much as you can, and just stay on on up to date with the the current trends and what's going on. And I'm sure your department shares what they're learning with each other, so that's a great way to kinda expand what you learn. And you mentioned something, previously too about email and well, virtual reality isn't something you can email, but the simulations or animations you do, are those can you transfer those through, email technologies or, for file transfer? Excuse me. Typically, some of the videos are too large to actually be through email. So what we'll do is we'll Dropbox them or FTP them that way. Some of them are short enough and small enough where we can, you know, send an email. But for the most part, they're they're usually, like, FTP or Dropbox. Okay. So the customer can see it without having to come to Calvary. We can share Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And then also from these these animations, we can generate images that actually go into the sales proposal. That helps document the actual quote. And it gives a three d image right in the document. So Mhmm. Nice. Yeah. Good. And I guess even in things like, you know, what we're doing video type of communications like we're doing now, in a GoToMeeting, we would have be able to even show it on a screen so we could share it that way too. Correct? Yes. Absolutely. Oh, good. Okay. So you've done a lot in this area, certainly supported the company, helped our growth in that way, and and this technology has, been been a nice tool for our customers. What what would you say are some of the your greatest achievements or success stories for you and your team or your department have had to this to date? One one thing comes to mind, and it was, I think probably one of the first things I did when I came to work at Calvary. And, it was for a customer, and it was kind of the customer was on-site, and they were doing kind of review processes and making changes daily. So the, applications engineer would come to me and be like, alright. They wanna change this. Can you can you modify it? So I would I would make the modifications, and then we would rerender it overnight. And then the next morning, we come in, and we have a video of it. The final video actually got shown, I think, to, to the, I think, the CEO of the of the the company. And he couldn't understand why he couldn't buy the one he was watching in the video. So It was supposed to be him. Right. So not only did we win the work because we we, you know, we we did our our good job that we always do, But he gave me one of the best comments I can get as an artist because he he didn't know it was fake. Nice. Yeah. So, you know, we all try to look at what's the future, and then we talk about technology is so dynamic at this point. So what do you see in, in fact, your department, your role five years from now? I'm probably gonna be still be doing what I'm doing. I I enjoy being a working manager. You know, I I definitely get in the trenches with the guys and and, you know, learning constantly and advancing. Definitely would like to see the group get bigger, though. It'd be nice to maybe, you know, double the size in five years. Good. Well, your help in growing our business should probably dictate that that'll happen. So thanks for what you're doing there to help us. No problem. Anytime. So now to people that are listening in or watching for the first time here thinking, wow. This stuff's really amazing. It's exciting. I I I wanna do that for maybe for a living. What would you tell them? How do they get started? What would they do? What should they do? Well, I would look into possibly, you know, video game design, film and television effects, that kind of thing. It's definitely we leverage that as those skills a lot for sure. Okay. Okay. Good. Thanks. And at least gives us some direction to start out because it is exciting work. So now we're we're gonna as we we close out, maybe some people want to get in touch with Calvary about how to use these tools. What's the best avenue for them to reach out to Calvary Robotics to take advantage of us as an organization and take advantage of the tools that you have available to help them see what their factory could look like? I would say just reach out to account managers, and, we'd go from there. Good. Good. Well, we'll certainly try to help them, and we we appreciate the work you're doing and the time, you spent with us today. Thank you again, Chris, for being here today. It's really it's really exciting stuff you're doing. It's it's energizing for all of us, and I know our customers, will continue to take advantage of it, and certainly, hopefully, more customers will take advantage as we go forward. Thanks again for spending your time. For our listeners, we appreciate you tuning in. Look forward to speaking to you next time. Thanks, Chris.
