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Figure from:Visualization and'auralization'of architectural design in a game engine based collaborative virtual environment

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Figure 5 : Current Asynchronous communication functionality.

Figure 5 : Current Asynchronous communication functionality.

Related Figures (4)

Figure 1. Bernard Tschumi, Manhattan Transcripts. By the late 1970’s and 80’s there was a re-evaluation of the role of the drawing particularly at the Architectural Association London where Bernard Tschumi reasserted the importance of the functional program for architecture. Inspired by a situationist view of the city Tschumi’s continuing aim is to re assert the importance of architecture as place for the unfolding of events. A key strategy in this aim was experimentation with alternate forms of architectural visualization and his design classes at the architectural association were among the first to attempt to inform architectural drawing with a sense of occupation through time. Drawings were annotated with evocative texts and photography was obsessively used “as live insert, as artificial documentation, as a hint of
Figure 1. Bernard Tschumi, Manhattan Transcripts. By the late 1970’s and 80’s there was a re-evaluation of the role of the drawing particularly at the Architectural Association London where Bernard Tschumi reasserted the importance of the functional program for architecture. Inspired by a situationist view of the city Tschumi’s continuing aim is to re assert the importance of architecture as place for the unfolding of events. A key strategy in this aim was experimentation with alternate forms of architectural visualization and his design classes at the architectural association were among the first to attempt to inform architectural drawing with a sense of occupation through time. Drawings were annotated with evocative texts and photography was obsessively used “as live insert, as artificial documentation, as a hint of
Figure 2. Overview of collaboration functionality Deliberately positioned as an application that compliments high end CAD software our approach is tailored towards use in the context of architectural education where design teaching is studio based. A teaching studio in architectural education is a mode of teaching by ‘the project’. The aim is to encourage creative thinking and conceptual design skills and as a result the outcomes are usually sketch designs that communicate design concepts rather then projects resolved to a high level of detail. In this context the restrictions of game engines in terms of geometry and evel of detail are less important and similar to the approach of narrative drawing our emphasis is on evoking he experience of place over time. Game engines are not capable (yet) of producing detailed geometry, photorealistic lighting or acoustically correct sound in real ime. We accept these limitations and in turn stress the evocation of context via image and sound, the use of real ime computation to allow a sense of immediacy when designing, and the value of collaborative working made possible by extending the multi user network functionality. Arcenitecture was seen as one or the logical benefactors of virtual reality technologies in terms of design visualisation but in practice the cost of software and hardware has resulted in minimal impact. The Schoo of Architecture at the University of Auckland and SIAL has been experimenting with multiplayer games software as a feature-rich but low cost alternative to high-end virtual reality software. While the applications themselves are not appropriate for education usage, the underlying engines are graphically sophisticated, offer advanced multi-user network capability and are designed to perform well on standard hardware and operating systems. Given these advantages and the comparative high cost of commercial virtual reality (VR) systems there has been some interest in the use of game engines for a variety of architectural applications [7]. Most of this activity has involved using the content editing software distributed with such games as HalfLife and Unreal Tournament. Our early experiments with Halflife proved successful but also revealed some limitations and by 2001 it was decided to investigate options for developing a more educationally orientated application. The key factors in the choice of a development platform besides good graphic and sound capability were support for large scale environments, robust multi-user capability on low band width, and of course access to engine source code to allow new functionality to be developed. Access to source code is
Figure 2. Overview of collaboration functionality Deliberately positioned as an application that compliments high end CAD software our approach is tailored towards use in the context of architectural education where design teaching is studio based. A teaching studio in architectural education is a mode of teaching by ‘the project’. The aim is to encourage creative thinking and conceptual design skills and as a result the outcomes are usually sketch designs that communicate design concepts rather then projects resolved to a high level of detail. In this context the restrictions of game engines in terms of geometry and evel of detail are less important and similar to the approach of narrative drawing our emphasis is on evoking he experience of place over time. Game engines are not capable (yet) of producing detailed geometry, photorealistic lighting or acoustically correct sound in real ime. We accept these limitations and in turn stress the evocation of context via image and sound, the use of real ime computation to allow a sense of immediacy when designing, and the value of collaborative working made possible by extending the multi user network functionality. Arcenitecture was seen as one or the logical benefactors of virtual reality technologies in terms of design visualisation but in practice the cost of software and hardware has resulted in minimal impact. The Schoo of Architecture at the University of Auckland and SIAL has been experimenting with multiplayer games software as a feature-rich but low cost alternative to high-end virtual reality software. While the applications themselves are not appropriate for education usage, the underlying engines are graphically sophisticated, offer advanced multi-user network capability and are designed to perform well on standard hardware and operating systems. Given these advantages and the comparative high cost of commercial virtual reality (VR) systems there has been some interest in the use of game engines for a variety of architectural applications [7]. Most of this activity has involved using the content editing software distributed with such games as HalfLife and Unreal Tournament. Our early experiments with Halflife proved successful but also revealed some limitations and by 2001 it was decided to investigate options for developing a more educationally orientated application. The key factors in the choice of a development platform besides good graphic and sound capability were support for large scale environments, robust multi-user capability on low band width, and of course access to engine source code to allow new functionality to be developed. Access to source code is
Figure 4: Student project by Fooch Chi.
Figure 4: Student project by Fooch Chi.
central theme of memory and its role in the collective and individual experience of the city. The pedagogical aim is that students understand how the built environment resonates with the sounds of human presence, natura events and technology. The sound samples are no acoustically correct but are used primarily as a form o notation — in effect a 3D ‘sound sketch’. Sound was used to communicate intent in terms of spatial characteristics or materiality and as importantly the pre recorded sound conveyed a sense of occupation and functional use. Sounds from café, street or private spaces were arranged in conjunction with visuals to stimulate discussion over appropriate usage and to indicate performance over a 24 hour or seasonal cycle. At the end of the studio, the individual works resided in a series of collective spaces. These spaces contained varied readings of Melbourne’s CBD. Two approaches are illustrated below. Figure 3: Student project by Laura Harper.
central theme of memory and its role in the collective and individual experience of the city. The pedagogical aim is that students understand how the built environment resonates with the sounds of human presence, natura events and technology. The sound samples are no acoustically correct but are used primarily as a form o notation — in effect a 3D ‘sound sketch’. Sound was used to communicate intent in terms of spatial characteristics or materiality and as importantly the pre recorded sound conveyed a sense of occupation and functional use. Sounds from café, street or private spaces were arranged in conjunction with visuals to stimulate discussion over appropriate usage and to indicate performance over a 24 hour or seasonal cycle. At the end of the studio, the individual works resided in a series of collective spaces. These spaces contained varied readings of Melbourne’s CBD. Two approaches are illustrated below. Figure 3: Student project by Laura Harper.