Application of Research
3.1 C1) Review
From my experience working in the architectural visualization industry both for, and with architects, designers, and clients I have witnessed the usefulness of 3D and digital models, and their ability to illustrate the design from a human perspective. People find it a lot easier to identify with imagery and material that provides a great fidelity to the design.
Many projects have occurred due to the requirement of “I want to see what X looks like”, or “What would it look like if we did that?”. Utilizing high end 3D software does indeed allow specific users to explore the digital realm to visualize concepts, however due to the cost, time, and training required to perform such tasks the majority of jobs do not see a glimpse of 3D perspective or any type of digital visualization.
Through my experience of architectural visualization I can experience the platform to truly explore designs in a virtual reality. However this power of freedom to explore the digital realm as a prototype or interactive review tool never truly lies in the hand of the architect, and rather stays attached to the 3D artist and their high end PC.
Currently digital models are outputted either through a rendered still or a predefined animation. The true power and immersion of the 3D aspects of digital models are diluted by the limited use of its conception. The ability to explore the full model, spin around, walk around, zoom into details, test lighting scenarios, material etc are left at the hands of the 3D artist. There is great potential to take these abilities and place these in the hands of the architect, client, or even the public.
An interface which will allow architects to create and interact with their digital designs more intuitively, virtual reality (VR), perhaps the most advanced of three-dimensional interfaces, has much potential for enhancing the way architects and designers interact with their digital models.
The central question is how virtual reality can be used in the design, production and management of the built environment?
As with other emerging technologies, realizing the early dreams for virtual reality has taken longer than was originally predicted. (Whyte, J, 2002)
We must consider,
How professionals within the project team – architects, engineers, construction managers etc – can benefit from using virtual reality. Also, end users can benefit from wider involvement.
1) What are the key business drivers for the use of virtual reality?
2) What are its limitation?
3) How can virtual reality be implemented within organisations?
(Whyte, J, 2002)
3.2 Virtual Reality
In his great invited lecture in 1965, “The Ultimate Display,” Ivan Sutherland laid out a vision,
Don’t think of that thing as a screen, think of it as a window, a window through which one looks into a virtual world. The challenge to computer graphics is to make that virtual world look real, sound real, move and respond to interaction in real time, and even feel real. (Brooks, F, P, Jr. 1999)
Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special or stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones.
Users can interact with a virtual environment or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus boom arm, and omnidirectional treadmill.
In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience, due largely to technical limitations on processing power, image resolution and communication bandwidth. However, those limitations are expected to eventually be overcome as processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.
Virtual Reality is often used to describe a wide variety of applications, commonly associated with its immersive, highly visual, 3D environments.
Mass media has been a great advocate and perhaps a great hindrance to its development over the years. During the research “boom” of the late 1980s into the 1990s the news media’s prognostication on the potential of VR, and potential overexposure in publishing the predictions of anyone who had one (whether or not that person had a true perspective on the technology and its limits) built up the expectations of the technology so high as to be impossible to achieve under the technology then or any technology to date. Entertainment media reinforced these concepts with futuristic imagery many generations beyond contemporary capabilities.
Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist and pioneer in, and popularized the term “Virtual Reality” (VR) in the early 1980s suggests some of the top reasons why VR has not yet become commonplace. These include -
1) Slow computers. In fact, the ceiling for real time graphics hasn’t budged in 5 years. SGI and its competitors stopped improving back then. Now that commodity cards have caught up with SGI, the new hope is building big machines out of commodity cards running in parallel.
2) Too many charlatans: $1 per minute crappy VR in malls really hurt the field in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
3) Because expectations are so high, it’s too easy to disappoint. Some of the attempts to build VR products have stumbled on this difficulty.
4) Because the basic ideas of VR still need some more work. We still don’t have a clear idea of what a truly useful general haptic interface would be like, for instance.
5) Because there is still no clear sense of where VR fits into the time and space of our lives and workflows. (Lanier, J, 2007)
Other such issues which may have resulted in a slow adoption could be that in virtual reality, the audience has the opportunity to observe more elements of the virtual world. In contrast, computer image and animation need only create the geometries to be shown to the audience. The three-dimensional model of virtual reality has to have more polygons than computer image and animation. This decreases the running speed and increase the time and cost of production.
3.3 So, has Virtual Reality worked?
So, with all these negative aspects it does make you question, is VR a route worth exploring to enhance current practice? Lanier continues to explain,
There’s no question that virtual reality has already been a success. You can’t buy a car today that wasn’t designed using it. And you can’t put gas in that car that wasn’t made out of oil that was discovered using virtual reality through an oil field simulation. Most new drugs are made in a process assisted by virtual reality. (Lanier, J, 2007)
What most people are curious about, though, isn’t so much these industrial uses; rather, they want to experience some new level of cultural expression that arises out of virtual worlds. And what we currently have, in this regard, is the video game world. The difference between video games and my sense of what virtual reality would be like relates only partly to the intensity of the experience.
The main element lacking in video games (compared to what I hope we’ll see in virtual reality) is an expressive power.
They would make up little realities and visit each other’s realities, or co-create them. And I think that level of activity would give rise to really, really wonderful new sorts of human relationships and experiences. I still believe in that.
The problem with digital stuff is always the same: the hardware gets cheaper and becomes more available, but it takes a really long time to figure out how to write good software. We still don’t have good personal computer software. So, how long will it take for us to get good virtual reality software? It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s a big project. (Lanier, J, 2007)
What I envision is not so much a pre-programmed virtual world that you might play as a game, but rather a virtual world that you can change from the inside that people use as a form of expression in which they’re creating things together. (Lanier, J, 2007)
The rise of virtual reality is the direct result of the development of computer
graphic systems. Undoubtedly, the key components of virtual reality, like immersion, interactivity, and sensory feedback, take the fidelity of architectural visualization to a new level. However, in the early stages of computer development, due to the low speed of CPU and the low resolution of display systems, the value of virtual reality was not recognized.
By the end of the twentieth century, computer technology had advanced enough to create a high fidelity virtual world and other accessories for virtual reality. It is time for virtual reality to begin to govern the area of architectural visualization, and more advancements in this area promise to take place in the near future. (Hao, W. 2006)
3.4 C1) Plan
The plan for Cycle 1 is to reflect on the research stated above to construct and implement a user study to gain feedback regarding influences in design decision making. It is important to establish existing knowledge and perception of current practice to determine if specific areas require addressing.
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