The generation of virtual prototypes for performance optimization

I am suspicious of tools without a purpose - tools that are not developed in response to a clearly defined problem. Of course tools without a purpose can still be useful. However the development of first generation CAD was seriously impeded because the solution came before the problem. We are in danger of repeating this mistake if we do not clarify the nature of the problem that we are trying to solve with the next generation of tools. Back in the 1980s I used to add a postscript slide at the end of CAD conference presentations and the applause would invariably turn to concern. The slide simple asked: can anyone remember what it was about design that needed aiding before we had computer aided design?

Capturing Australian indigenous perception of virtual landscape

This short paper presents a means of capturing non spatial information (specifically understanding of places) for use in a Virtual Heritage application. This research is part of the Digital Songlines Project which is developing protocols, methodologies and a toolkit to facilitate the collection and sharing of Indigenous cultural heritage knowledge, using virtual reality. Within the context of this project most of the cultural activities relate to celebrating life and to the Australian Aboriginal people, land is the heart of life. Australian Indigenous art, stories, dances, songs and rituals celebrate country as its focus or basis. To the Aboriginal people the term “Country” means a lot more than a place or a nation, rather “Country” is a living entity with a past a present and a future; they talk about it in the same way as they talk about their mother. The landscape is seen to have a spiritual connection in a view seldom understood by non-indigenous persons; this paper introduces an attempt to understand such empathy and relationship and to reproduce it in a virtual environment.

Supporting pre-tender construction planning with virtual prototyping

Purpose – Virtual prototyping technologies linked to building information models are commonplace within the aeronautical and automotive industries. Their use within the construction industry is now emerging. The purpose of this paper is to show how these technologies have been adopted on the pre-tender planning for a typical construction project. Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology taken was an “action research” approach where the researchers and developers were actively involved in the production of the virtual prototypes on behalf of the contractor thereby gaining consistent access to the decisions of the planning staff. The experiences from the case study were considered together with similar research on other construction projects. Findings – The findings from the case studies identify the role of virtual prototyping in components modelling, site modelling, construction equipment modelling, temporary works modelling, construction method visualization and method verification processes. Originality/value – The paper presents a state-of-the-art review and discusses the implications for the tendering process as these technologies are adopted. The adoption of the technologies will lead to new protocols and changes in the procurement of buildings and infrastructure.

Being ethical : how process drama assists pre-service drama teachers to reflect on professional ethics

This research thesis focuses on the experiences of pre-service drama teachers and considers how process drama may assist them to reflect on key aspects of professional ethics such as mandatory codes or standards, principled moral reasoning, moral character, moral agency, and moral literacy. Research from higher education provides evidence that current pedagogical approaches used to prepare pre –professionals for practice in medicine, engineering, accountancy, business, psychology, counselling, nursing and education, rarely address the more holistic or affective dimensions of professional ethics such as moral character. Process drama, a form of educational drama, is a complex improvisational group experience that invites participants to create and assume roles, and select and manage symbols in order to create a fictional world exploring human experience. Many practitioners claim that process drama offers an aesthetic space to develop a deeper understanding of self and situations, expanding the participant’s consciousness and ways of knowing. However, little research has been conducted into the potential efficacy of process drama in professional ethics education for pre-professionals. This study utilizes practitioner research and case study to explore how process drama may contribute to the development of professional ethics education and pedagogy.

Doing cultural heritage using the torque game engine: supporting indigenous storytelling in a 3D virtual environment

Digital Songlines (DSL) is an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. This paper outlines the goals achieved over the last three years in the development of the Digital Songlines game engine (DSE) toolkit that is used for Australian Indigenous storytelling. The project explores the sharing of indigenous Australian Aboriginal storytelling in a sensitive manner using a game engine. The use of the game engine in the field of Cultural Heritage is expanding. They are an important tool for the recording and re-presentation of historically, culturally, and sociologically significant places, infrastructure, and artefacts, as well as the stories that are associated with them. The DSL implementation of a game engine to share storytelling provides an educational interface. Where the DSL implementation of a game engine in a CH application differs from others is in the nature of the game environment itself. It is modelled on the 'country' (the 'place' of their heritage which is so important to the clients' collective identity) and authentic fauna and flora that provides a highly contextualised setting for the stories to be told. This paper provides an overview on the development of the DSL game engine.

From literacy to multiliteracies : diverse learners and pedagogical practice

In this paper, we provide specific examples of the educational promises and problems that arise as multiliteracies pedagogical initiatives encounter conventional institutional beliefs and practices in mainstream schooling. This paper documents and characterizes the ways in which two specific digital learning initiatives were played out in two distinctive traditional schooling contexts, as experienced by two different student groups: one comprising an elite mainstream and the other an excluded minority. By learning from the instructive complications that arose out of attempts by innovative and well-meaning educators to provide students with more relevant learning experiences than currently exist in mainstream schooling, this paper contributes fresh perspectives and more nuanced understandings of how diverse learners and their teachers negotiate the opportunities and challenges of the New London Group's vision of a multiliteracies approach to literacy and learning. We conclude by arguing that, where multiliteracies are understood as “garnish” to the “pedagogical roast” of traditional code-based and print-based academic literacies, they will continue to work on the sidelines of mainstream schooling and be seen only as either useful extensions or helpful interventions for high-performing and at-risk students respectively.

Life cycle modelling and design knowledge development in 3D virtual environments : final report

Experience plays an important role in building management. “How often will this asset need repair?” or “How much time is this repair going to take?” are types of questions that project and facility managers face daily in planning activities. Failure or success in developing good schedules, budgets and other project management tasks depend on the project manager's ability to obtain reliable information to be able to answer these types of questions. Young practitioners tend to rely on information that is based on regional averages and provided by publishing companies. This is in contrast to experienced project managers who tend to rely heavily on personal experience. Another aspect of building management is that many practitioners are seeking to improve available scheduling algorithms, estimating spreadsheets and other project management tools. Such “micro-scale” levels of research are important in providing the required tools for the project manager's tasks. However, even with such tools, low quality input information will produce inaccurate schedules and budgets as output. Thus, it is also important to have a broad approach to research at a more “macro-scale.” Recent trends show that the Architectural, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry is experiencing explosive growth in its capabilities to generate and collect data. There is a great deal of valuable knowledge that can be obtained from the appropriate use of this data and therefore the need has arisen to analyse this increasing amount of available data. Data Mining can be applied as a powerful tool to extract relevant and useful information from this sea of data. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Data Mining (DM) are tools that allow identification of valid, useful, and previously unknown patterns so large amounts of project data may be analysed. These technologies combine techniques from machine learning, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, statistics, databases, and visualization to automatically extract concepts, interrelationships, and patterns of interest from large databases. The project involves the development of a prototype tool to support facility managers, building owners and designers. This final report presents the AIMMTM prototype system and documents how and what data mining techniques can be applied, the results of their application and the benefits gained from the system. The AIMMTM system is capable of searching for useful patterns of knowledge and correlations within the existing building maintenance data to support decision making about future maintenance operations. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system on building models and their maintenance data (supplied by industry partners) utilises various data mining algorithms and the maintenance data is analysed using interactive visual tools. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system to help in improving maintenance management and building life cycle includes: (i) data preparation and cleaning, (ii) integrating meaningful domain attributes, (iii) performing extensive data mining experiments in which visual analysis (using stacked histograms), classification and clustering techniques, associative rule mining algorithm such as “Apriori” and (iv) filtering and refining data mining results, including the potential implications of these results for improving maintenance management. Maintenance data of a variety of asset types were selected for demonstration with the aim of discovering meaningful patterns to assist facility managers in strategic planning and provide a knowledge base to help shape future requirements and design briefing. Utilising the prototype system developed here, positive and interesting results regarding patterns and structures of data have been obtained.

What student attributes affect experience of PBL in Virtual Space?

Some Engineering Faculties are turning to the problem-based learning (PBL)paradigm to engender necessary skills and competence in their graduates. Since, at the same time, some Faculties are moving towards distance education, questions are being asked about the effectiveness of PBL for technical fields such as Engineering when delivered in virtual space. This paper outlines an investigation of how student attributes affect their learning experience in PBL courses offered in virtual space. A frequency distribution was superimposed on the outcome space of a phenomenographical study on a suitable PBL course to investigate the effect of different student attributes on the learning experience. It was discovered that the quality, quantity, and style of facilitator interaction had the greatest impact on the student learning experience. This highlights the need to establish consistent student interaction plans and to set, and ensure compliance with, minimum standards with respect to facilitation and student interactions.

Using Agents for Mining Maintenance Data while interacting in 3D Objectoriented Virtual Environments

This report demonstrates the development of: (a) object-oriented representation to provide 3D interactive environment using data provided by Woods Bagot; (b) establishing basis of agent technology for mining building maintenance data, and (C) 3D interaction in virtual environments using object-oriented representation. Applying data mining over industry maintenance database has been demonstrated in the previous report.

Life Cycle Modelling and Design Knowledge Development in 3D Virtual Environments

Experience plays an important role in building management. “How often will this asset need repair?” or “How much time is this repair going to take?” are types of questions that project and facility managers face daily in planning activities. Failure or success in developing good schedules, budgets and other project management tasks depend on the project manager's ability to obtain reliable information to be able to answer these types of questions. Young practitioners tend to rely on information that is based on regional averages and provided by publishing companies. This is in contrast to experienced project managers who tend to rely heavily on personal experience. Another aspect of building management is that many practitioners are seeking to improve available scheduling algorithms, estimating spreadsheets and other project management tools. Such “micro-scale” levels of research are important in providing the required tools for the project manager's tasks. However, even with such tools, low quality input information will produce inaccurate schedules and budgets as output. Thus, it is also important to have a broad approach to research at a more “macro-scale.” Recent trends show that the Architectural, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry is experiencing explosive growth in its capabilities to generate and collect data. There is a great deal of valuable knowledge that can be obtained from the appropriate use of this data and therefore the need has arisen to analyse this increasing amount of available data. Data Mining can be applied as a powerful tool to extract relevant and useful information from this sea of data. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Data Mining (DM) are tools that allow identification of valid, useful, and previously unknown patterns so large amounts of project data may be analysed. These technologies combine techniques from machine learning, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, statistics, databases, and visualization to automatically extract concepts, interrelationships, and patterns of interest from large databases. The project involves the development of a prototype tool to support facility managers, building owners and designers. This Industry focused report presents the AIMMTM prototype system and documents how and what data mining techniques can be applied, the results of their application and the benefits gained from the system. The AIMMTM system is capable of searching for useful patterns of knowledge and correlations within the existing building maintenance data to support decision making about future maintenance operations. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system on building models and their maintenance data (supplied by industry partners) utilises various data mining algorithms and the maintenance data is analysed using interactive visual tools. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system to help in improving maintenance management and building life cycle includes: (i) data preparation and cleaning, (ii) integrating meaningful domain attributes, (iii) performing extensive data mining experiments in which visual analysis (using stacked histograms), classification and clustering techniques, associative rule mining algorithm such as “Apriori” and (iv) filtering and refining data mining results, including the potential implications of these results for improving maintenance management. Maintenance data of a variety of asset types were selected for demonstration with the aim of discovering meaningful patterns to assist facility managers in strategic planning and provide a knowledge base to help shape future requirements and design briefing. Utilising the prototype system developed here, positive and interesting results regarding patterns and structures of data have been obtained.

Virtual design process : design validation tool schematic approach in car carrier

An important aspect of designing any product is validation. Virtual design process (VDP) is an alternative to hardware prototyping in which analysis of designs can be done without manufacturing physical samples. In recent years, VDP have been generated either for animation or filming applications. This paper proposes a virtual reality design process model on one of the applications when used as a validation tool. This technique is used to generate a complete design guideline and validation tool of product design. To support the design process of a product, a virtual environment and VDP method were developed that supports validation and an initial design cycle performed by a designer. The product model car carrier is used as illustration for which virtual design was generated. The loading and unloading sequence of the model for the prototype was generated using automated reasoning techniques and was completed by interactively animating the product in the virtual environment before complete design was built. By using the VDP process critical issues like loading, unloading, Australian Design rules (ADR) and clearance analysis were done. The process would save time, money in physical sampling and to large extent in complete math generation. Since only schematic models are required, it saves time in math modelling and handling of bigger size assemblies due to complexity of the models. This extension of VDP process for design evaluation is unique and was developed, implemented successfully. In this paper a Toll logistics and J Smith and Sons car carrier which is developed under author’s responsibility has been used to illustrate our approach of generating design validation via VDP.

DesignWorld : a tool for team collaboration in high band virtual environments

Current software tools for documenting and developing models of buildings focus on supporting a single user who is a specialist in the specific software used within their own discipline. Extensions to these tools for use by teams maintain the single discipline view and focus on version and file management. There is a perceived need in industry to have tools that specifically support collaboration among individuals from multiple disciplines with both a graphical representation of the design and a persistent data model. This project involves the development of a prototype of such a software tool. We have identified multi-user 3D virtual worlds as an appropriate software base for the development of a collaborative design tool. These worlds are inherently multi-user and therefore directly support collaboration through a sense of awareness of others in the virtual world, their location within the world, and provide various channels for direct and indirect communication. Such software platforms also provide a 3D building and modelling environment that can be adapted to the needs of the building and construction industry. DesignWorld is a prototype system for collaborative design developed by augmenting the Second Life (SL) commercial software platform1 with a collection web-based tools for communication and design. Agents manage communication between the 3D virtual world and the web-based tools. In addition, agents maintain a persistent external model of designs in the 3D world which can be augmented with data such as relationships, disciplines and versions not usually associated with 3D virtual worlds but required in design scenarios.

Where the actions are : bring reality into virtual reality

This paper describes a work-in-progress on developing design environments that combine wireless and mobile technologies with augmented reality to facilitate bringing context from the physical environment to the virtual models for design work. One of the challenges for designers in a variety of end-user-oriented design disciplines such as architecture and industrial design has been capturing and replaying the contextual information of the intended domain of the artifact being designed. Either the technology is decidedly low-tech, such as charcoal drawings in a sketchbook, out-of-reach, such as immersive virtual reality CAVEs, or a “make-do” with existing technologies, such as a collage of digital photos. This paper describes a novel combination of “off-the-shelf” technologies that may allow designers more capability to create models using standard computer-aided design applications and augmented reality to combine the current, physical context with the projected, digital context. We demonstrate this approach in the building design domain to address a common problem in building construction, construction defect resolution.