This report documents the results of the Literature Review for the CRC project 'Team Collaboration in High Band-with Virtual Environments'. The main focus of team collaboration research is at the intersection of communication technologies and tools to support conceptual design. The Literature Review has two objectives: the first is to gain knowledge about the current status of the research, which will determine the project objectives and shape the research program; the second is to provide relevant information to the project industry partners to guide their future planning for the introduction of new technologies to support remote teamwork.
The page will be updated during the course of the project as new information is discovered. These exchanges can be used to determine the benefits that new support systems can bring. This will involve a series of empirical investigations at the workplaces of the participating project partners.
This report documents the results of the literature review for the CRC project "High Bandwidth Team Collaboration with Virtual Environments". The site will be developed and updated during the course of the project as new information is identified.
COLLABORATIVE DESIGN
- Conceptual design
- Domain Differences
- Team Design
- Empirical Studies of Collaborative Design
- Key Issues in Collaborative Design
The semantic density and ambiguity of design representations helps the designer to continuously develop concepts (Goel, 1995). Communication behavior in the domain of design is one of the key topics in collaborative design research. The authors investigated general patterns in team communication and the problem-solving process, and analyzed the components of designers' communication behavior and individuals' self-reflection.
The paper also presents detailed literature reviews of the existing research projects and applications in the area. Categorization of the activity categories for easy access for the participants (work related, people related, meeting related). Different design behaviors in teams were observed and the behavior and performance of the individual compared to that of a team.
This result was based on the analysis of collaborative process actions that included task planning: i.e. their studies looked specifically at the content of communication rather than the quality of the design product. Munkvold includes a number of case studies of the introduction and use of collaboration technologies in the workplace and research settings.
The definition of group or teamwork includes the types of interactions and the social structure of the group. Similarly, coding schemes used in a planning context are considered to reflect an aspect of the planning process. Codes are constructed on the basis of representing people's actions, actions and activities in context.
A brief overview of activity theory and its relationship to human cognitive processes is given in the next section.
COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGIES
- Conceptual Design Tools
- Collaboration Support Systems
- Collaborative Virtual Environments
- Key Issues for Collaboration Technologies
These media are valuable components of distributed collaboration, but they do not address the important convenience of enabling each participant to create, edit, comment on, and view a shared 3D model simultaneously with other designers on the team. Other collaborative conceptual modeling tools in the field of design also suggest creating, manipulating, and viewing 3D models in a shared virtual space. In the same study they propose a virtual environment platform where users will have the opportunity to participate in a shared workspace, as well as use a personal desktop or whiteboard.
Within TeamSpace, there is another categorization for the tasks present on the platform. The role of awareness for team performance was also highlighted in the TeamSpace framework with synchronous and asynchronous awareness mechanisms. 2002) summarize two approaches to collaborative conceptual design: web-based and agent-based. In an online approach, design team members use the Internet as a collaborative tool, to access catalog and product design/design information, to communicate among multidisciplinary team members, and to access design tools, services, and documents.
This increases the speed of interaction and helps designers keep their focus on the design session, while constantly being made aware of what others are doing in the design environment. To display the objects that have moved, the system uses a ghostly, transparent copy of the given object that moves towards the real object. Annotation arrow – the system creates a 3D arrow in the virtual environment when an arrow-like sketch is created in 2D.
Gesture recognition is also supported in Sketchpad VR, which enables a designer to specify viewpoints in the 3D VRML scene. CUP allows a designer to quickly sketch the major components and structural relationships in the assembly. Attention to collaborative technologies specifically for design is to be found in centers such as the Design Machines Group at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Washington, USA (DMG, 2003).
A number of research and commercial tools that have been developed to facilitate collaborative conceptual design were identified in this survey. The commercially available systems that were identified offer a variety of functions supporting the design tasks. A key issue identified was the problem of providing a common sense of presence for all participants in the virtual space.
MULTI-VIEW MODELLING
- Data-base Approaches
- CAD Systems
- Data Representation and Standardisation
- System Architectures and Environments
- Key Issues for Multi-View Modelling Research
In CAD systems, perspectives are used to manage the multi-expert aspect of design progress (Naja, 1999). All aspect models are based on a kernel that stores view-specific information, and each entity of an aspect model must be a subtype of a kernel entity. The purpose of this standard, officially called ISO 10303, is to facilitate the exchange of information of an industrial product by defining data models.
IFCs are data elements that represent parts of buildings, or elements of the process, and contain the relevant information about those parts. However, each application uses only a subset of the model and has a partial view of the model. In particular, the EXPRESS mapping language defines a common interpretation of the standard with regard to data and rules for STEP.
Although the core of the DIMS system is based on IFC 1.5.1, additional classes have been developed to model structural technical information that is missing in IFC 1.5.1. An object-oriented database was developed to integrate the IFC schema and other classes and support data persistence. The work described is very close to the objectives of the Multi-view research stream of this CRC project.
1998) present a multi-view visualization architecture (OBVIouS), using the concepts of the Open Distributed Processing – Reference Model (ODP-RM) as entities for visualization. It was never made clear who created the model in the first place and how such a model would fit all the needs of the various 'players'. The concerns of an architect are with form, space (spatial organization and communication) and the environment of such spaces in relation to the performance of the activities and the senses, while the concerns of a structural engineer are with the stability, strength and integrity of the building system.
The constructor is not interested in the finishing of the wall, while the architect is not interested in details such as the internal reinforcement.
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK
9.REFERENCES
- Background
- Collaborative Design
- Collaboration Technologies
- Multi-View Modelling
Proceedings of Design Thinking Symposium.http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/%7Echris_a/MaherPubs/marylou99.html. 2002) Coding and modeling communication in architectural collaborative design, Automation in Construction 11, pp. 1995) Sketches of Thought, MIT Press, Cambridge MA. Zelkowitz (ed.), Advances in Computers, Vol.45. 1992) Identifying potential CSCW applications through activity theory concepts: a sample example, in Proceedings of CSCW 92, ACM Press, pp Cognitive factors in distributed design, Computers in Industry 48(1), pp. 1998) Collaborative Conceptual Modeling Using the SKETCH Framework. Collaborative design: a process model for renovation, Automation in Construction 11(5), pp. 1981) Problems of mind development.
2003) Specifications for computer-aided conceptual design of buildings, Design Studies, 24 (1), p. 2001) Collaborative Virtual Environments: Digital Spaces and Cities for CSCW: An Introduction. Digital Places and Spaces for Interaction, Springer, London, pp Multidisciplinary Perspectives for Integrated and Concurrent Planning, in Mathur, K S, Betts, MP and Tham, K W (eds), Management of Information Technology for Construction, World Scientific, Singapore, p . 1999). A review and analysis of an integrated project database, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Concurrent Engineering in Construction 1999, Espoo, Finland, p. 2000) Building Information Visualization: A Process View, International Journal of Computer Integrated Design and Construction.
An Integrated Web-Based Virtual Model to Support Water Treatment Projects, Proceedings of the First International Structural Engineering and Construction Conference (ISEC-01), University of Hawaii, UAS, pp. 2002). Interpretation objects for multidisciplinary design, in Gero, J S and Sudweeks, F (eds), Artificial Intelligence in Design'94, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 1998). Product modeling strategies for today and the future, Proceedings of the CIB W78 Conference 1998, Stockholm, Sweden, pp. 2000).
Maintaining multiple views in feature modeling, Proceedings of the 1997 4th Symposium on Solid State Modeling and Applications, ACM, New York, NY, USA, p. 2003). Determining multiple representations of a design object in SORAC, in Gero, J S and Sudweeks, F (eds.), Artificial Intelligence in Design'94 Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, p. 1998). A multi-view visualization architecture for open distributed systems, Proceedings of the 1998 22nd International Conference on Computer Software and Applications, IEEE, Vienna, Austria, p. 1996).
2000) Integrated Design System to Support Partnering Practice in the Water Industry, Proceedings of Construction Information Technology 2000, Island, s. 2000) Integration Technologies to Support Organizational Changes in the Construction Industry, Proceedings of the 7th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering 2000, Lyon, Frankrig, s. 2000) Integrated Information Management and Exchange for Water Treatment Projects, Proceedings of the ASCE 8th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering 2000, Stanford University California, USA, s. 1997) Multiple Views and Multiple Formats in Knowledge Management, Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering 1997, Pisa, Italien.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
