3D Collaborative Virtual Environment to Support Collaborative Design

Author(s):  
Mohd Fairuz Shiratuddin ◽  
Alen Hajnal

Constructivist learning emphasizes students’ involvement in the learning process, how they become self-directed learners and actively engaged in the learning environment. This chapter describes Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) and its relevance to collaborative learning and constructivism. The authors developed the Collaborative World Design Tool (CWDT) software to evaluate the benefits of CVE for architectural design students. The CWDT was developed based on the Torque 3D Game Engine, thus the appearance and functionalities of the CWDT within the CVE are similar to computer game playing environment. In the experiment, subjects designed within the CVE, were either experts or novices, worked either individually or in pairs, and constructed a virtual building in a three-dimensional outdoor environment. Results show that working collaboratively within a CVE has great potential to increase performance where teamwork is faster than individual work, and overall provide a constructive learning environment.

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masahiro Ishii ◽  
Masanori Nakata ◽  
Makoto Sato

This research aims at the realization of a networked virtual environment for the design of three-dimensional (3-D) objects. Based on an analysis of an ordinary collaborative design, we illustrate that a collaborative work space consists of a dialog space and an object space. In the dialog space, a participant interacts with partners, and in the object space with an object. The participants enter the dialog space and the object space in turn, appropriately. In addition, collaborative design of 3-D objects is carried out with multimodal interactions: visual, auditory, and haptic. A networked virtual environment must support these interactions without contradiction in either time or space. In this paper, we propose a networked virtual environment for a pair of participants to satisfy the conditions described above. To implement the networked system, we take into account the necessity of visual, auditory, and haptic interactions, the need for participants to switch between the dialog space and the object space quickly and appropriately, and human ergonomics on the functional space of hands and eyes. An experiment on hand-over task was done to investigate the effect of the networked haptic device with the proposed system. Object layout tasks, such as toy block layout, office furniture layout, city building layout, etc., can be performed by using this environment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robyn Harkness

<p>Within healthcare architecture, there is a void of attention directed towards the non-medical spaces; the waiting rooms, hallways and all ‘between moments’ where many people spend extended periods of time under acute stress. Nowhere is this more prevalent that in the emergency departments where patients seek care and treatment for real or perceived, serious injuries or illnesses. While waiting for medical attention, exposure to high levels of harsh lighting, sterile furnishings, chaotic activity and cavernous rooms with others in distress can cause and increase anxiety, delirium and high blood pressure. The emotional experience of such spaces changes based upon a user’s unique sensory conditions and therefore their individual perception of space.  The architectural design tools and devices to explore these highly charged sensory spaces have been historically limited to technical plans and sections and rendered marketing perspectival images, which do not fully communicate the immersive experience of these spaces when in use. Virtual reality is emerging as a powerful three-dimensional visualisation tool, offering designers the opportunity to comprehend proposed designs more clearly during the planning and design phases, thus enabling a greater influence on design decision making.  This research explores the use of VR in a healthcare perspective, adopting a participatory design approach to simulate sensory conditions of blindness, deafness and autism and the emotions associated with these conditions within space. This approach diverges from a purely visual method of design towards an understanding of the haptic, exploring the critical phenomenology behind these non-medical spaces. The research finds significant potential for the use of virtual reality as a design tool to simulate the experience of these spaces in early design stages.</p>


1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Strohecker

This paper describes premises of a video, Zircus, presenting a design for a virtual environment. The video is a basis for discussion—a sketch, rather than a specification, of a virtual playspace and interactions that can happen there. The playspace is conceived as a learning environment in which constructive activities can focus thinking on certain sets of ideas. Conversations within the multiuser environment can also be conducive to learning, as well as to developing an online community. These actions and conversations would depend on a future system combining technologies in networked graphics, speech, AI, various input devices, and high-level software for constructing animations and audio/video sequences. Taking the ideas in Zircus from sketch to implementation will require contributions from researchers in a range of disciplines, including architectural design, film media, learning theory, and computer science.


2012 ◽  
pp. 1493-1505
Author(s):  
Brian G. Burton ◽  
Barbara Martin ◽  
Doug Thomas

This chapter’s goal is to examine the experiences and perceptions of undergraduate students using a 3D Virtual Learning Environment. After creating a 3D didactic constructivist virtual environment, student conversations were observed for collaborative elements. Findings revealed that five forms of collaboration amplified the learning process and indeed occured within the virtual learning environments. Results further suggested that the 3D VLE project, though limited in time and scope, successfully created a community of learners.


Author(s):  
Denis V. Dorozhkin ◽  
Judy M. Vance

Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming an important tool in the engineering product development process. The virtual environment provides the user with the ability to interact with three-dimensional digital representations of products using natural head and hand motions. While interacting with digital objects in VR seems natural, the use of traditional two-dimensional menu systems does not always provide a convenient interface to controlling task specifications in the three-dimensional space. New human-computer-interfaces are needed for this emerging VR design tool. This paper will present the details of implementing a speaker-independent, command and control, speech recognition menuing system for a virtual reality application. The menuing system will be described as it is incorporated into a virtual environment for the design of spatial mechanisms. Design and technical issues involved in the interface creation process are discussed and the resulting interaction system is described.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robyn Harkness

<p>Within healthcare architecture, there is a void of attention directed towards the non-medical spaces; the waiting rooms, hallways and all ‘between moments’ where many people spend extended periods of time under acute stress. Nowhere is this more prevalent that in the emergency departments where patients seek care and treatment for real or perceived, serious injuries or illnesses. While waiting for medical attention, exposure to high levels of harsh lighting, sterile furnishings, chaotic activity and cavernous rooms with others in distress can cause and increase anxiety, delirium and high blood pressure. The emotional experience of such spaces changes based upon a user’s unique sensory conditions and therefore their individual perception of space.  The architectural design tools and devices to explore these highly charged sensory spaces have been historically limited to technical plans and sections and rendered marketing perspectival images, which do not fully communicate the immersive experience of these spaces when in use. Virtual reality is emerging as a powerful three-dimensional visualisation tool, offering designers the opportunity to comprehend proposed designs more clearly during the planning and design phases, thus enabling a greater influence on design decision making.  This research explores the use of VR in a healthcare perspective, adopting a participatory design approach to simulate sensory conditions of blindness, deafness and autism and the emotions associated with these conditions within space. This approach diverges from a purely visual method of design towards an understanding of the haptic, exploring the critical phenomenology behind these non-medical spaces. The research finds significant potential for the use of virtual reality as a design tool to simulate the experience of these spaces in early design stages.</p>


Three-dimensional virtual environments have gained wide popularity due to improvement in graphic rendering technology and networking infrastructure. Many education institutions have been trying to leverage the potential of 3D virtual environments in their application in education. In this research, we aim to evaluate the students’ perception of virtual environments in teaching and learning activities. We set up a virtual classroom, where a short presentation was delivered to students through virtual projectors in Second Life, the most widely adopted 3D virtual environment. The students filled in a questionnaire after the class. We found that the students gave a statistically higher evaluation to 3D virtual environments in terms of satisfaction and enjoyment, while comparable scores between 3D and traditional learning environment in terms of concentration, perceived usefulness, and learning and understanding were obtained. Our results show that virtual learning environment is of great potential in e-learning. Some recommendations in using the virtual environment for learning activities are given.


Author(s):  
Brian G. Burton ◽  
Barbara Martin ◽  
Doug Thomas

This chapter’s goal is to examine the experiences and perceptions of undergraduate students using a 3D Virtual Learning Environment. After creating a 3D didactic constructivist virtual environment, student conversations were observed for collaborative elements. Findings revealed that five forms of collaboration amplified the learning process and indeed occured within the virtual learning environments. Results further suggested that the 3D VLE project, though limited in time and scope, successfully created a community of learners.


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