Spatial Understanding in Immersive Virtual Environments

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Our experiments demonstrated that the problems of VEs are not insurmountable. Because technical solutions are constantly evolving, difficulties resolved and equipment is becoming more sophisticated and easy to use. Working with VEs architects can explore alternative solutions to those achieved in conventional design methods. This is despite the challenges of visual perception, mental workload, errors, comprehension of design and its communication and the different frequency of creation feedback-modification loops. Since IVEs increasingly play a role in the design and form finding of architectural creations, virtuality becomes, in that sense, reality. In this experiment, we have identified that such form finding may be better in IVE than in other media but that the representation of these forms in other physical media may require better tools. This suggests that techniques that produce physical representations on demand, such as rapid prototyping (RP) may have a significant contribution to make to a design process that involves IVEs.

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