Collaborative Research in Immersive Design Environments

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In this project two PIs, one from Computer Science and the other from Architecture, will collaborate to investigate ways of effectively harnessing the full potential of immersive virtual environments technology to empower the creative processes involved in the earliest stages of architectural design. Through these efforts they expect to gain insight into how to enhance spatial awareness, facilitate spatial understanding, and enable the intuitive creation, manipulation, and comprehension of inexactly or incompletely specified geometric and environmental models, as well as abstract information, within immersive virtual environments that support the integrative nature of design. This project will lead to new and deeper understanding of issues relating to design research and education, and especially into how visual presentation, information representation, and user interaction affect spatial awareness and understanding, with architectural design as the driving application. Another project outcome will be new tools, in particular a virtual environment system suitable for the support of the activity of design, including new methods for content creation, new methods of information integration, and new algorithms for rendering a range of different kinds of models in a variety of realistic and non-photorealistic styles, with the objective of efficiently and effectively portraying large, complicated architectural datasets, including both building details and the accompanying environmental surround, in a perceptually effective manner that can capture multiple levels of ambiguity in the architectural specification. In addition, a diverse series of formal studies will be conducted to gather information about specific characteristics of the design process, including the efficiency and effectiveness of the interpretation of 3D information under various conditions, and the effect of representational style on the specificity with which a model is interpreted.Broader Impacts: This research will provide a basis for encouraging and deepening the interdisciplinary collaboration between faculty in computer science (specializing in computer graphics and visualization) and faculty in architecture, two fields with vastly different cultures but with many common interests and objectives. The project will attract and support students from non-traditional backgrounds to work and study in this interdisciplinary area. The modeling and rendering software developed as part of this project will enrich undergraduate and graduate courses in architectural design, and will serve as a resource for multiple potential uses by members of the greater design community. Further, the PIs and their research assistants will contribute to the creation of a virtual environment infrastructure that, through their involvement with the St. Paul Consortium, will be made accessible to city planners and community advocates for use in making informed decisions about the impact of proposed major development projects on the urban landscape.