RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Integrated Methodologies for the Survey, Drawing, Modelling of Urban and Architectural Environment.

University Co-ordinator

Politecnico di MILANO - INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, DELLE ARTI DELLA COMUNICAZIONE E DELLA MODA - INDACO - ()

Research Unit Leader

Marco Gaiani

Description

This research project will concern the problem of the instruments of data acquisition of digital 3D models, and of the information referring to them, analyzing different scenarios concerning architecture and industrial design projects, on different scales, from the object to the city, from the car to the interior design.
The problem involves two main aspects:
- tools to query the models
- technologies to visualize them.
The late appearance of a new generation of tools to develop advanced interactive visual application causes the possibility to analyze new research activities, to exploit the versatility of virtual models; sophisticated prototypes allowing the user to observe, simulate and analyze the manifold valence of the design.
The research unit handles advanced instruments that cover the whole database building process and its fruition, ranging from 2D and 3D data acquisition, to data processing software, from software used in the rebuilding of digital 3D models to hardware and software systems used to visualize and manipulate the results in various on technological level, from a semi-immersive large scale virtual reality context (Virtual Theatre, stereoscopic screen equipped, dimensions 5x2,2m) to desktop-like systems, based on web interfaces. With this backdrop, the main goal of the research will be twofold:
A. the design and tuning of new interfaces that allow an effective interaction with the descriptive data of digital models to provide a multidimensional information system involving geometric, textual, and visual data that are the usual documents used by architects and industrial designers that at present need independent and different fruition methods.
The research will be about the engineering of interaction between computer and user, abandoning the traditional approach. The study of the interaction between computer and user today is considered to be a real subject that includes, apart from this study, the development and the evaluation of the instruments with pc interacts, as well as, the interface planning, which is related to other disciplines such as information technology, psychology, sociology and ergonomics. The complexity of a problem appears to be evident and must be faced from two different points of view; the human one, linked to the theory of communication, to the graphic and the perception of symbols and of icons, to the design of instruments, to the psychological approach; and the mechanical one, closely linked to information science and operative systems, to languages, to codes and development behaviours. However in this research project we want to face the problem from yet another and different point of view; that of the designer and scholar, who are research instruments for thinking, exploring, projecting, presenting, and thus form a perfectly integrated and easy to use group. It also regards those professionals, who may be very capable and competent, but not specifically trained for high-tech instruments. We will develop the modalities necessary in order to place the attention on the interaction, whose main components are in the user interface and in the input device.
B. The implementation of real-time iconic visualization systems for the visualization and customization of interior design objects and urban environments. On this side the research applies in the multidisciplinary field of computer graphic oriented to the creation of real-time rendering that successfully affected the business activities concerning object visualization (in this field we will make use of strong partnership with a company leader – RTT.ag – using their rendering engine in this part of the research) in the interiors and external spaces. The main purpose is to create a digital representation of a 3d model to make it indiscernible in comparison with the real object. The process leading to this result involves issues concerning calculating methods to be used by the information system to obtain these results. In particular, under a theoretical and practical point of view, it is still not possible to describe in an accurate way the synthetic process performed by the human optical-perceptive system so that the mathematical representation models created by different software could be comparable to reality; the new challenge of the research in this sector. Rendering spaces, the main factors that deal with the creation of perceptive-emotive effect of the scene are: shapes geometric and material distribution and light (important elements that play an important role in the interior design, and must be translated by the rendering software). The interior design using digital tools could be considered as an innovative use of real-time digital visualization technologies, as they allow a correct evaluation of qualitative and quantitative aspects of geometric ratio, colours and illumination. The model visualization must possess an interactive feature to consent variations and manipulations of object and their components in real-time. This is the aim of the second part of the research. Considering the extent of the problem, it is important to circumscribe the precincts of the research. Starting from case studies, the research must explore the deep difference of fruition, on different dimensional scale and also changing the user point of view (inside/outside and static/dynamic).
On the urban scale the project is explored moving inside of it, but with the interest and the desire to verify it even from anomalous point of view (aerial perspectives could be considered), due to the lack of prefixed physical limits; on the interior scale the designing space is contained in a more limited dimension and above all spatially limited.
The large scale industrial design project could vice versa both contain the previous situation (considering a cruise ship, a train, but even a car) while on the small scale the scenario could be overturned: being able to interact with the hands, the dynamism of the observer changes from the user to the object.
On this aspect the research will face the possibility of managing on the same time data communication and exploration with methods and techniques of advanced visualization, with different levels of investigation, keywords, thematic view, also connected to cognitive aspects of data consultation.
To reach this purpose, partnerships have been established with some companies to engine typical cases of study that allow an efficient and real testing of the hypothesis and of the prototype engineered in the research field. Contacts have been made in this sense with Centro Stile Engines Engineering, Centro Stile Alfa Romeo, with the Alessi technical division, with B&B Italia and with the Urban Furniture Department of the Milan Municipality.
Once that some case studies have been identified, the research will focus on the presentation process of a new design concept to the costumer. This activity will be handled by the architect or by the senior designer in charge of the project or by the reseller.
Nowadays two different ways are used to present the design at the object scale: by means of a virtual theatre as typically used in the automotive sector where the model could be observed with different variations of shape, colours and interacting with it using different scale factors, interactively changed in real-time even with the aid of a stereoscopic vision to augment the real perception of the single part ratio, using a desk as in the “ancient” practice to read the project drawing (created in case with the aid of a computer). These solutions possess benefits and drawbacks: the table allow the direct management of the material by the designer apart from his know how and skill concerning the information technologies used to obtain the results; on the other side there are some implicit limits connected to the drawing on the paper sheet, the virtual theatre is apparently provided with opposite characteristic, allowing the navigation inside the space and dimension of the representation, although with the difficulty of use requiring a skilled technician supporting the presentation session.
In the case of and urban environments and interiors presentation at the present time a virtual dynamic prefiguration in real-time isn’t yet defined, and at best the solution is provided with some static renderings or a pre-calculated movie.
The research themes will be twofold:
A. to explore the opportunities of the technological architecture of the virtual theatre, not yet deeply used, to obtain an easy and natural interaction for the designer to use directly digital models with some advantages
B. finding the way to obtain an appropriate visualization activity for models created by millions of shaded polygons with global illumination algorithm in real-time, capable of lighting up in a photorealistic way outer and interior spaces.
The organizational scheme of the two-years activity provided for this field of the research can be summarized in:
1) analysis, implementation and planning of contents:
- analysis of actual kind of meeting that takes place for a new project, separating the characteristics of technical meetings that take place with a designer, a technician and an external supplier, from those that take place with a designer, a technician and a customer;
- simulation of a presentation meeting to set up in a room in a traditional way with drawings, to get dynamic needs
- simulation of a presentation meeting to set up in a room prepared with a wide screen to show the digital 3D model of the project on it, using a specific operator to get needs and problems in its data acquisition;
- research, analysis and evaluation of other national and international development;
- Interaction test using a PDA to verify the possibility of making the designer independent from the presence of technical operator and to simplify the dialogue with the model respect to the traditional mouse and keyboard.
2) designing and execution of the prototype of an interface:
- editing of a precise project of interface, that satisfies indicated needs;
- integration of multimedia data 2D and 3D related to the project model
- verify coherence between prototype and planned characteristics
- evaluation of alternative solutions as an input instrument
- recording of specifics related to the obtained model
- divulgation of the obtained results.
Item B:
The research project can be summarized in two steps:
First step: problem evaluation and description of a real-time visualization system focused on furniture and able to be used instead of physical setup for a life style and a urban presentation;
Second step: visualization system implementation built on a real case study and critical analysis of the obtained results
Practical organization in detail:
Step 1. The experimental phase will have three practical steps: a design one when an urban environment and a virtual setup will be designed using the products from the partner company; the making of the 3d digital model and the research on materials to be used as a texture into the rendering process with the goal to build the range of the object possible variants; the visualization output.
Step 2: The visualization system implementation phase, will be based on an even stronger relationship between the research unit and the partner company. In this phase the results from step 1 will be collected in a critical way and will be put in relation with the company daily job: the furniture design process and the product advertising strategy (marketing) either for the interior either for the urban design. Technical details will be tuned for modelling and for rendering some products from the company range or some objects to insert in an urban scenario. A special attention will be used to setup textures and shaders of padded furnitures, because of their inherent visualization difficulty (indeed, because of its physical consistency and its skin, leather, alcantara, textile, the padded furnitures need a more accurate research activity to get out a more realistic result) and to setup the multiresolution textures of urban environment representation.