The Virtual Engineering Centre (VEC) of the Technical University Sofia has been established by a decision of the Academic Council from September 26th, 2007 and has been opened on June 11th, 2008 by Prof. Kamen Veselinov and Prof. Jivka Ovcharova. In 2009 the Centre bears the name of its founder Prof. Ilia Boyadjiev.
The Virtual Engineering Centre integrates the following research units of the Technical University Sofia:

The Computer Visualization Lab of the Chair for Programming and Computer Technologies at the Faculty for Computer Systems and Control
The Virtual Reality Lab of the Faculty for German Engineering and Management Education
The CAD/CAM/CAE Lab of the Faculty for Industrial Technology
The Lab for System Design and Assembly Automation of the Faculty for German Engineering and Management Education
The Mechatronics Lab of the Faculty for Mechanical Engineering
The Lab for Complex Automation of the Discrete Manufacturing of the Chair of Discrete
Manufacturing at the Faculty for Mechanical Engineering

The Virtual Engineering Centre is an integral part of the international research infrastructure used by interdisciplinary research teams from Bulgaria (Technical University Sofia) and Germany (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - Lifecycle Engineering Solution Centre (LESC), Research Centre for Computer Science, „Implus" Association and engage AG) for research activities in the field of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR & AR), Virtual Prototyping (VP), Product Design, 3D Modeling, FEM analysis and optimization, reliability, kinematic and dynamical analysis, preparation of interactive technical documentation and Web design, PDM software development, Rapid prototyping and tooling etc.

The Centre has modern equipment that allows performing its scientific and research goals:

  • Specialized wall for passive immersive high resolution stereoscopic projection (Power Wall)
  • Portable desktop system for active immersive high resolution stereoscopic projection
  • Computer cluster for calculation of the immersive stereoscopic projection
  • 12 CAD workstations for preparation of the 3D objects and textures for the virtual scenes
  • 44 workstations with 6 CAD servers
  • 4 computer classes with 70 PCs
  • DTM Sinterstation 2500 Plus with SLS technology for Rapid Prototyping
  • Specialized software for designing, editing and visualization of interactive virtual scenes COVISE
  • Other software packages such as AutoCAD, SolidWorks, CATIA, Unigraphics NX, ProEngineer, ANSYS, Visual NASTRAN, SurfCAM, PowerMILL, Oracle, Ingress.

All activities of the Centre are funded by:

  • EU FP7 research projects
  • research projects of the National Science Fund of the Bulgarian Ministry for Education and Science
  • projects of the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency
  • internal funds of the Technical University Sofia
  • funds of Bulgarian and foreign companies

Now, two years after its foundation, the total value of the research contracts of the Centre members is estimated at approximately at 1.400.000 BGN.