Virtual reality gains a small foothold in the enterprise

Another virtual reality system is a CAVE (computer assisted virtual environment), which is a room with large screens on three walls and on the ceiling. Users wear stereoscopic glasses for a holodeck-like effect life-size, 3D images of objects appear in the middle of the room, so that engineers can walk around and examine them.

Another system allows users to walk around inside a large open space while it tracks their position. "We can put an F-250 [super duty truck] into that environment and you can walk around it like it's a life-sized vehicle," Baron says. "It's like an inspection tool for what we're producing and what our customers might take delivery of. That's a really important aspect in our product development process."

A virtual environment allows engineers to dial up different lighting settings, to see how the exterior would look at noon on a hazy day, or in the evening or under mercury vapor lights. Virtual environments also help enable long-distance collaboration, she says.

"We also have a virtual space in Australia, and if they're immersed and we're immersed at the same time, we can see where they are in the virtual environment and we can talk to each other," she says. "We can say, 'Look at this, look at that.'"

And virtual reality allows the company to look at many more prototypes than would have been possible if they had to be actually built.