CNH Industrial
The Experience
CNH Industrial, a global leader in the agricultural and construction equipment sectors, has significantly advanced its virtual reality capabilities by integrating a cutting-edge visualization lab at its new Oak Brook facility in Illinois.
At the heart of this next-generation space is a 20’x 11’ 6 by 3.4-meter) Direct View LED ActiveWall system powered by SiliconCore’s 1.2mm pixel pitch Lavender display modules. Designed and delivered by Virtalis, a long-time trusted VR partner of CNH, this high-resolution immersive system allows teams to visualize full-scale machinery and equipment designs with unprecedented clarity and scale.
This installation supports CNH’s entire product development process, enabling high-fidelity 3D stereoscopic visualization at every stage from concept evaluation through to final engineering design. Engineers and stakeholders can now interact with detailed virtual prototypes, streamlining the iteration process and enhancing collaboration across departments and with end users.
Behind The Scenes
Following the relocation to its new headquarters, CNH identified a unique opportunity to enhance its immersive technology capabilities. Previous installations at other CNH sites had already demonstrated the value of VR systems in the product development cycle. With this new lab, CNH sought to scale and centralize those capabilities into a state-of-the-art facility that would serve as a hub for innovation and cross-functional engineering collaboration.
During the early concept phase of a product, CNH teams collaborate with brand and innovation departments to explore potential machine designs and new product capabilities. End users are brought into this process early on to experience realistic, three-dimensional representations of proposed concepts and to provide valuable feedback. This approach ensures that new ideas are validated before they reach the costly physical prototyping phase.
As products move into the engineering phase, the visualization system is used to perform immersive design reviews with engineering, industrial design and simulation teams. These highly collaborative reviews allow stakeholders to assess space claims, tolerances, styling elements and assembly and maintenance processes from a human perspective. By identifying design issues earlier, the team avoids delays and rework, saving both time and money and enabling a faster path to market.
The result is a more efficient and collaborative workflow. The new visualization system enables teams to engage with near-real representations of machines in ways that smaller-scale systems simply cannot achieve.
The Technology
The Virtalis ActiveWall installation utilizes SiliconCore’s Lavender 1.2mm pixel pitch dvLED display, offering over 13 million pixels of resolution. This ultra-fine pixel pitch display delivers exceptional image fidelity, supporting high-performance 3D visualization in true-to-life scale. The system is powered by SiliconCore’s patented Common Cathode IQ technology, which provides ultra-low power consumption and superior image performance. The high refresh rates and enhanced color reproduction offered by its proprietary driver chip enable a much better viewing experience than competing technologies.
The Common Cathode design also reduces power consumption by up to 40% by providing the correct voltage to each LED. This contributes to lower operational costs while supporting CNH’s environmental and sustainability goals. In addition, the system achieves high brightness and wide dynamic range even at low luminance levels, making it ideally suited for detailed, immersive VR application
SiliconCore’s proprietary LISA encapsulation technology protects the display surface against damage, enhancing durability in environments where displays may be exposed to physical contact. The display system is also engineered for better contrast and longevity, with an extended lifespan of over 100,000 hours, and features hot-swappable tile technology for simplified maintenance and maximum uptime.
Paired with Virtalis’ three decades of immersive system expertise, the result is a visualization platform tailored precisely to CNH’s evolving engineering needs. The system delivers outstanding image quality, low power usage, and minimal maintenance requirements, ensuring high reliability for this mission-critical application.
Andrew Brokaw, CNH’s Virtual and Augmented Reality Technical Leader stated:
“Virtalis has had a strong partnership with CNH for almost two decades and this latest collaboration further cements this relationship. The previous version of VR Lab in Burr Ridge was originally built by Virtalis in 2006: That lab operated successfully and productively for over 15 years. That says a lot about the design and service we received from Virtalis in its build, operation, and service. So by going with Virtalis for the new lab, we could be confident in the design and functionality for many years to come. We also recognized that Virtalis had been a leader in developing stereo-enabled high resolution LED walls, which was necessary given the size constraints of the new office.”
