Manufacturing processes may be modeled in various ways, including 3D modeling. There is a need to visualise, control and monitor manufacturing processes remotely via the Internet. Virtual Reality (VR) can be described as the science of integrating man with information. It is based on three distinct environments: three-dimensional, interactive and computer-generated. VR has come to the Internet in the form of VR modeling. The evolution of Web technologies in recent years has enabled the use of VR modeling for visualisation of manufacturing processes. The VR modeling language (VRML), which has become the standard for transmitting 3D virtual worlds across the Internet, can be used to control and monitor manufacturing processes visually. A 3D model of a manufacturing process, specifically an industrial robot arm, was created for this project. This model was successfully linked to the industrial robot that it represents in order to control and monitor the robot’s actions remotely via the Internet using Web technologies. This dissertation proves the viablity of using Virtual Reality to effectively visualise, monitor and control an industrial robot via the Internet. It also describes the methodology that was followed in modeling the industrial robot arm in VRML as well as linking the model to the real world application.

A methodology for 2D and 3D collision free path planning algorithm in a structured environment is presented. The isolated free convex areas are represented as a nodes in a graph, and a graph traversal strategy that dynamically allocates costs to graph path is used. Modification of the algorithm for small computational time and optimality is discussed. The 3D path planning is done in the three orthogonal two-dimensional projections of a 3D environment. Collision checking to increase the optimality for 3D paths is done in each of the three orthogonal two-dimensional subspaces.