Resumen
The article focuses on the possibility of virtual humans for maintenance procedures. The design of complex physical systems must accommodate the human technicians who assemble and maintain them. Technicians need instructions guaranteeing successful and safe task performance. By integrating computer-graphic human models, 3D geometric environments and a system's functional models, designers and instruction authors gain a computational tool for automating task validation. Language-level instructions are interpreted as parameterized procedures that control embodied agent models to execute these tasks and report success and failure conditions. Interpreting these instructions requires integration of spatial, visual and functional reasoning. Instructions guides one to do things one has not done before or remind of forgotten tasks, supporting ones' efforts to assemble, operate and service a multitude of technological artifacts. But no computational procedure can guarantee a particular instruction will be executed correctly or successfully. INSET: Disassembly, Sequencing.