Real Teaching and Learning through Virtual Reality

Abstract

This paper addresses an articulated vision of Virtual Reality which lends itself to design collaboration in teaching, learning and communication of architectural design ideas among students, design professionals and client body during the early stages of the design process. Virtual Reality (VR) has already acquired a new degree of complexity through development of network-based virtual communities and the use of avatars. The intrinsic quality of VR technology is to support collaborative design experience. The design tools developed for this experiment are capable of creating 3D objects in a shared VR environment, thus allowing the design and its evolution to be shared. The choice of programming language (JavaTM) reflects the desire to achieve scalability and hardware independence, which in turn allows for creation of a VR environment that can co-exist between high-end supercomputers and standard PCs. The prototype design environment was tested using PC workstations and an SGI system running a Reality Centre. The research and teaching/learning experience in the collaborative design environment reported in this paper describe the development and application of software that aims to increase the opportunity for architects to collaborate within virtual worlds which enable effective and transparent information exchange