Design and Initial Evaluation of a VR based Immersive and Interactive Architectural Design Discussion System

Design discussion is a very important course in architecture education. In this paper, we developed a VR based architecture design discussion system that allows members to visualize and discuss the architectural models and to modify the models during discussion. Since the system is designed to work on top of Rhinoceros and Grasshopper, the object database is updated right after the object modification. Members communicate via voice, object manipulations, and mid-air sketching as well as on-surface sketching in the virtual environment. Several tools have been designed to enhance the sense of presence and to make the discussion more effective. We also developed a rollback mechanism to help users intuitively and quickly revert to a previous state of discussion to make some changes or to start a new direction of discussion. To evaluate the system, we conducted an initial user study with 14 participants to assess the user experience, user impression and effectiveness of the system. The feedback from participants were positive and suggested that the system could be effective and useful for supporting architecture design discussion.