In this scenario the architect visits the site for the first time. He is interested in exploring the interaction of a planned (but not yet designed) building with its surroundings. The most important effect that will be assessed is that of shadows cast by the new architecture. To do this, the architect is wearing the HMD and sketches some simple geometry (e.g. using a tablet PC) and the shadows cast by this geometry onto the real world are calculated by the IMPROVE system. The geometry and shadows are then displayed in the HMD and the user can walk around the site and inspect the virtual sketch of the building from different viewpoints. Furthermore the lighting at different times of the day can be simulated by interactively positioning a virtual sun. The user can save the sketched geometry and take it back to the office. There he can load it into a third party modeling package (VectorWorks) for further refinement.
In this scenario different design alternatives of a building have been created and these are to be reviewed cooperatively by architects and consultants involved in the planning of the building. Every user wears a HMD and the design proposal is visualized on a table, i.e. the virtual model is overlaid on a real table and the users can move around this table to view the model from different perspectives. All parts of the model have materials applied and the quality of the visualization in this phase should be as good as possible. Alternative versions of different parts of the model can be loaded and moved interactively. New materials can be applied to the model and the lighting under which the model is viewed may be changed to show lighting situations at different times of the day. The analysis of the lighting inside the building is of interest in this scenario, therefore windows (transparency) will be supported and tools to explore the inside of the building (like cutting planes) will be provided. Annotations to parts of the model in the form of text and stokes will be possible and the changed model can be saved to transfer the data to the third party modeling program.
In this scenario the design of the new building is finalized and the result is presented to the customer. The architect and the customer wear a HMD and review the proposal on the construction site. The virtual building is rendered into the HMD and overlaid on the real world with correct occlusions between real and virtual objects and consistent shadows. The users can move around or through the building to explore the lighting situation. Windows will be simulated and the position of a virtual sun can be changed interactively to show the lighting at different times of the day. The material of parts of the building can be changed and annotations (e.g. text, strokes, audio) will be possible. However, the geometry of the building will not be changed in this phase. Finally the model with changed materials may be saved to take the results of the review back to the office.
In this scenario a design proposal of a car is reviewed. An engineer uses a tiled display to view the outside of a car model that is supplied by a stylist. Using this technique the car can be rendered in a 1:1 scale and the engineer can assess the aesthetics of the design in a better way than using a downscaled model. Furthermore diagnostic tools can be applied to assess the quality of the car’s surfaces. This quality analysis includes loading simulation data of the production process (stampering simulation) and placing annotations and simple sketches at critical parts of the surfaces. These annotations can be stored and sent back to the stylist to give him suggestions on how to fix the problems in the critical areas.
In this scenario a real car is subject to re-styling. This includes re-styling of the interior as well as of the exterior. The stylist wears the HMD and views a real car. For exterior re-styling new designs of parts of the car can be loaded that will be superimposed on the real car. Annotations and simple sketches can be made to the virtual parts and these can be stored for later use. The materials of the virtual parts can be changed and as well as the lighting to analyze the aesthetics of the new design. For interior re-styling the stylist sits inside the car wearing the HMD. He can load new versions of the dashboard or parts of the dashboard and possibly move parts of the dashboard to fine-tune the design. Finally new materials may be applied to the interior of the car that can be viewed under different lighting conditions to choose between design alternatives. Annotations can be made in the same way as in exterior re-styling and the changed model can be stored for later use in a third party styling package.
