A novel 3D user interface for the immersive design review

Abstract

This work describes a novel hardware/software platform dedicated to design review process simplification, using immersive reality technologies. The proposed platform allows designers to interface with CAD engines and visualize different data types simultaneously into an immersive and stereoscopic multi-view visualization system. This research focuses on the development of a novel immersive user interface, a smart 3D disk with a set of widgets. During the immersive sessions, the user can activate functionalities using cost-effective pointing devices and the conceived 3dUIs projected into the virtual environment. In this way, it is possible to easily manipulate virtual objects, perform basic operations such as rotations and translations but also more complex CAD functionalities such as surfaces shape modification. Each feature can be selected inside the virtual world using the smart 3D disk. Users evaluations show that the use of a virtual environment may enhance the perception of designers ideas during the design process and the use of smart 3D interfaces simplifies the interaction among user and virtual objects.