Collaborative design in virtual environments

How can architects and engineers work together in the digital world? The article "Collaborative Design in Virtual Environments" provides an answer. The authors describe how the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is becoming increasingly important in the architecture industry and what opportunities this opens up. In particular, the article focuses on collaboration in virtual spaces and collaborative modeling of 3D objects. The authors also present a software tool that enables collaborative 3D modeling in virtual environments. The aim of the "Industry 4.0 in Teaching" project is to promote collaboration and joint learning and to prepare students for the requirements of the digital working world. (Editor)Wie können Architekten und Ingenieure in der digitalen Welt zusammenarbeiten? Eine Antwort darauf liefert der Artikel "Collaborative Design in Virtual Environments". Die Autoren beschreiben, wie die Anwendung von Virtual Reality (VR) und Augmented Reality (AR) in der Architekturbranche immer wichtiger wird und welche Möglichkeiten sich daraus ergeben. Insbesondere die Zusammenarbeit in virtuellen Räumen und die gemeinsame Modellierung von 3D-Objekten stehen im Fokus des Artikels. Die Autoren stellen außerdem ein Software-Tool vor, das die kollaborative 3D-Modellierung in virtuellen Umgebungen ermöglicht. Das Ziel des Projekts "Industry 4.0 in Teaching" ist es, die Zusammenarbeit und das gemeinsame Lernen zu fördern und die Studierenden auf die Anforderungen der digitalen Arbeitswelt vorzubereiten. (Herausgeber

Parametric BIM-based Design Review

This research addressed the need for a new design review technology and method to express the tangible and intangible qualities of architectural experience of parametric BIM-based design projects. The research produced an innovative presentation tool by which parametric design is presented systematically. Focus groups provided assessments of the tool to reveal the usefulness of a parametric BIM-based design review method. The way in which we visualize architecture affects the way we design and perceive architectural form and performance. Contemporary architectural forms and systems are very complex, yet most architects who use Building Information Modeling (BIM) and generative design methods still embrace the two-dimensional 15th-century Albertian representational methods to express and review design projects. However, architecture cannot be fully perceived through a set of drawings that mediate our perception and evaluation of the built environment. The systematic and conventional approach of traditional architectural representation, in paper-based and slide-based design reviews, is not able to visualize phenomenal experience nor the inherent variation and versioning of parametric models. Pre-recorded walk-throughs with high quality rendering and imaging have been in use for decades, but high verisimilitude interactive walk-throughs are not commonly used in architectural presentations. The new generations of parametric and BIM systems allow for the quick production of variations in design by varying design parameters and their relationships. However, there is a lack of tools capable of conducting design reviews that engage the advantages of parametric and BIM design projects. Given the multitude of possibilities of in-game interface design, game-engines provide an opportunity for the creation of an interactive, parametric, and performance-oriented experience of architectural projects with multi-design options. This research has produced a concept for a dynamic presentation and review tool and method intended to meet the needs of parametric design, performance-based evaluation, and optimization of multi-objective design options. The concept is illustrated and tested using a prototype (Parametric Design Review, or PDR) based upon an interactive gaming environment equipped with a novel user interface that simultaneously engages the parametric framework, object parameters, multi-objective optimized design options and their performances with diagrammatic, perspectival, and orthographic representations. The prototype was presented to representative users in multiple focus group sessions. Focus group discussion data reveal that the proposed PDR interface was perceived to be useful if used for design reviews in both academic and professional practice settings

PRESERVATION FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES, DIGITALIZATION, AND EXPERIMENTS WITH CONSUMERS AS PRODUCERS OF INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION

As digital documentation and recording technologies have evolved, so has the perception that they are segregated and intended primarily for use in either engineering/scientific or amateur/consumer applications. In contrast to this notion, the three-dimensionality afforded by these technologies differs only when considering them in the order of priorities; laser scanners and related image acquisition technologies document and visualize while inversely, consumer cameras visualize and document. This broad field of digital acquisition technologies has evolved into a heterogeneity of tools that all capture aspects of the physical world with a line drawn between them becoming blurred. Within this evolution, these tools are becoming less expensive, easier to use, and depending upon the application, can be operated successfully by individuals having modest or semi-professional skills. The proliferation of digital documentation technologies, the ease of their use, and the ability to share visual data on the internet allow us to examine the inclusion of digital documentation into the preservation management of historic industrial resource, pushing heritage to the digitalized culture

"Automobiles: Strategy-based Lean Production System"

The present situations and future prospects of the Japanese automobile industry are discussed. Selected topics in this paper include the following: analyses of the basic product-industry characteristics of the automobile (e.g., product architecture); the mature of the dynamic competition in the world auto industry; competitive performance (e.g., productivity) of the Japanese auto makers; organizational capabilities of better Japanese firms in production, development and procurement; overall environments in the 1990s; the concept of "balanced lean" system and its adaptation to environmental changes; new flexible production systems that cope with volume fluctuation; architectural strategies of the auto firms; modularization of parts; M&A and alliance; future of the automobile technologies and architectures; future of the capability-building competition.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) 02 Further exploration in Architecture, Engineering and Construction: Civil and Architectural Engineering

The technical report is a part of a research assignment carried out by students in the 5 ETCS course “Integrated Engineering Project”, during the 2nd semester of the master degree in Civil and Architectural Engineering, Department of Engineering, Aarhus University. This includes seven papers describing BIM for thematic subjects in Architectural Engineering and Construction Management

Virtual Reality

At present, the virtual reality has impact on information organization and management and even changes design principle of information systems, which will make it adapt to application requirements. The book aims to provide a broader perspective of virtual reality on development and application. First part of the book is named as "virtual reality visualization and vision" and includes new developments in virtual reality visualization of 3D scenarios, virtual reality and vision, high fidelity immersive virtual reality included tracking, rendering and display subsystems. The second part named as "virtual reality in robot technology" brings forth applications of virtual reality in remote rehabilitation robot-based rehabilitation evaluation method and multi-legged robot adaptive walking in unstructured terrains. The third part, named as "industrial and construction applications" is about the product design, space industry, building information modeling, construction and maintenance by virtual reality, and so on. And the last part, which is named as "culture and life of human" describes applications of culture life and multimedia-technology

Content Creation for Technical Research Centre of Finland's Virtual Reality System, Lumeportti

In this written part of my final thesis I describe the production work I did in co-operation with Technical Research Centre of Finland. The aim of the production work was to develop a content creation work flow and virtual environments for Lumeportti virtual reality system developed by the Technical Research Centre of Finland. The final content creation work flow developed for the Lumeportti system consists of multiple work phases and tools. Work flow starts with a phase where the geometry of the virtual environment is modeled and ends to a phase where the building blocks of final virtual environment are compiled and packed. After this last stage the virtual environment is ready to be used in the Lumeportti system. The building blocks, i.e. the content of the final virtual environment consist of 3D geometry of the objects, textures of those objects, lighting of the environment and different functional elements placed in to the environment. Content creation work flow developed during the production work was tested and used for building several virtual environments. The main virtual environment I built during the production work was used for demonstrating the use of the Lumeportti system as a tool for architectural visualization tasks. This written part of my final thesis starts by explaining and defining some key topics related with my production work and research area of virtual reality in general. The Lumeportti virtual reality system is described in detail to make it easier for the reader to grasp what was the technological environment I worked on. Next the different goals, challenges and problems I faced in my production work are introduced and described. The key problems of the production are stated in this chapter and next chapter explains in detail the solutions I found for these problems or in some cases why complete solutions were left unfound. Main issues here are focused on the questions of how to increase the rendered image quality in the final virtual environment, how to bind together different content creation methods used by the Lumeportti system’s graphics engine and physics engine and also how to find a way to re-use already existing 3D data in the content creation work flow. Last there is a summary of the experiences gain during the production work and some speculations of what was done well and what could have been done better in the production. In this last chapter there is also some comments of what should be done in the future to push the work I did even further