Collaborative Research in Immersive Design Environments

在这个项目中，两个PI，一个来自计算机科学，另一个来自建筑学，将合作研究有效利用沉浸式虚拟环境技术的全部潜力的方法，以增强建筑设计早期阶段所涉及的创造性过程。 通过这些努力，他们希望深入了解如何增强空间意识，促进空间理解，并使直观的创建，操作和理解不准确或不完全指定的几何和环境模型，以及抽象的信息，在沉浸式虚拟环境中，支持设计的综合性。 该项目将导致对设计研究和教育相关问题的新的和更深入的理解，特别是视觉呈现，信息表示和用户交互如何影响空间意识和理解，建筑设计作为驱动应用程序。 另一个项目成果将是新的工具，特别是一个适合支持设计活动的虚拟环境系统，包括内容创建的新方法、信息集成的新方法以及以各种逼真和非逼真风格渲染一系列不同类型模型的新算法，目的是高效和有效地描绘大型复杂的建筑数据集，包括建筑物细节和伴随的环境周围，以感知上有效的方式，其可以捕获建筑规范中的多个模糊级别。 此外，还将开展一系列形式多样的研究，以收集有关设计过程具体特征的信息，包括在各种条件下解释3D信息的效率和有效性，以及代表风格对解释模型的特异性的影响。本研究将为鼓励和深化计算机科学教师之间的跨学科合作提供依据（专攻计算机图形和可视化）和建筑系，这两个领域有着截然不同的文化，但有许多共同的兴趣和目标。 该项目将吸引和支持来自非传统背景的学生在这一跨学科领域工作和学习。 作为该项目的一部分开发的建模和渲染软件将丰富建筑设计的本科生和研究生课程，并将作为更大的设计社区成员的多种潜在用途的资源。 此外，PI及其研究助理将通过参与圣保罗联合会，为创建虚拟环境基础设施做出贡献，城市规划者和社区倡导者将可以使用该基础设施，以便就拟议的重大发展项目对城市景观的影响做出明智的决定。

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.