Utilizing a 3D game engine to develop a virtual design review system

A design review process is where information is exchanged between the designers and design reviewers to resolve any potential design related issues, and to ensure that the interests and goals of the owner are met. The effective execution of design review will minimize potential errors or conflicts, reduce the time for review, shorten the project life-cycle, allow for earlier occupancy, and ultimately translate into significant total project savings to the owner. However, the current methods of design review are still heavily relying on 2D paper-based format, sequential and lack central and integrated information base for efficient exchange and flow of information. There is thus a need for the use of a new medium that allow for 3D visualization of designs, collaboration among designers and design reviewers, and early and easy access to design review information. This paper documents the innovative utilization of a 3D game engine, the Torque Game Engine as the underlying tool and enabling technology for a design review system, the Virtual Design Review System for architectural designs. Two major elements are incorporated; 1) a 3D game engine as the driving tool for the development and implementation of design review processes, and 2) a virtual environment as the medium for design review, where visualization of design and design review information is based on sound principles of GUI design. The development of the VDRS involves two major phases; firstly, the creation of the assets and the assembly of the virtual environment, and secondly, the modification of existing functions or introducing new functionality through programming of the 3D game engine in order to support design review in a virtual environment. The features that are included in the VDRS are support for database, real-time collaboration across network, viewing and navigation modes, 3D object manipulation, parametric input, GUI, and organization for 3D objects

Creating agent platforms to host agent-mediated services that share resources

After a period where the Internet was exclusively filled with content, the present efforts are moving towards services, which handle the raw information to create value from it. Therefore labors to create a wide collection of agent-based services are being perfomed in several projects, such as Agentcities does. In this work we present an architecture for agent platforms named a-Buildings. The aim of the proposed architecture is to ease the creation, installation, search and management of agent-mediated services and the share of resources among services. To do so the a-Buildings architecture creates a new level of abstraction on top of the standard FIPA agent platform specification. Basically, an a-Building is a service-oriented platform which offers a set of low level services to the agents it hosts. We define low level services as those required services that are neccesary to create more complex high level composed services.Postprint (published version

User-centred interface design for cross-language information retrieval

This paper reports on the user-centered design methodology and techniques used for the elicitation of user requirements and how these requirements informed the first phase of the user interface design for a Cross-Language Information Retrieval System. We describe a set of factors involved in analysis of the data collected and, finally discuss the implications for user interface design based on the findings

Observing Users - Designing clarity a case study on the user-centred design of a cross-language information retrieval system

This paper presents a case study of the development of an interface to a novel and complex form of document retrieval: searching for texts written in foreign languages based on native language queries. Although the underlying technology for achieving such a search is relatively well understood, the appropriate interface design is not. A study involving users (with such searching needs) from the start of the design process is described covering initial examination of user needs and tasks; preliminary design and testing of interface components; building, testing, and further refining an interface; before finally conducting usability tests of the system. Lessons are learned at every stage of the process leading to a much more informed view of how such an interface should be built