Ford is looking into the possibility of designing cars in virtual reality. The automaker has started experimenting with Gravity Sketch, a tool that allows its designers to draw 3D cars in VR and thereby saving them lots of time in the process. See, vehicle designers start with 2D sketches, which are scanned and rendered in 3D by software to determine if they’re feasible. Using Gravity Sketch will give them the power to skip that first step completely and dive straight into 3D — all they have to do is wear a VR headset and use a controller. That will apparently shave so much time off the design phase that what used to take weeks will only take hours.
