03

Spatiality is a characteristic feature of VR. To be able to use it, there must be a space in which one can find oneself. 

For the project history of technology three-dimensional I chose a plain space. Little color and details allow to work in a focused way with 3D models, written sources and all digital tools.

In the ground state, the artifact is free from gravitational influences. This unreal state allows for easy interaction as the artifact can be placed freely in space. Thus, it can be placed in any position as well as rotation.

For development, the lightsaber serves only as a placeholder.

On the right hand side is the main menu, where the basic choice can be made whether to interact with the artifact itself or with the associated written sources. One level of order lower, the interactive tools can be found.

The menu opens as soon as the palm turns towards the face and closes as soon as it moves away.

The first tools provided for the artifacts themselves are Segment, Scale, Show Functionality, Change Material, Turn Visibility On and Off, and Extract Individual Parts.

The menu is designed in such a way that it can be expanded as easily as possible.

Segmentation of individual parts is possible via a slider in the menu. The degree of segmentation depends on the slider.

The artifact remains freely placeable despite the segmentation, allowing a view inside and easy recognition of individual parts.

The scaling enables a stepless magnification. In a first step, the minimum and maximum values are absolute (1x and 4x). In the further course, they are to be dynamic depending on the individual part size.

However, these bounds are basically necessary in order not to be able to make size changes that have a negative effect on usability.

By changing the material of the artifact, the focus can be shifted in certain situations. For example, transparency can be helpful in order to (better) perceive overlaps or undercuts.

For first test purposes of the functionality, the material can be changed in orange.

Different modules can be shown and hidden. Both the artifact itself and labels of individual parts can be selected here.

Tooltips serve to establish links between the written sources and the artifact. The labeling with technical terms is particularly interesting here, as it increases comprehensibility.

In the implementation, I designed the tooltips so that the text is always aligned with the camera and the connecting lines are dynamic. This allows the artifact to be moved without causing reading problems.

Technical drawings, spare parts lists, advertising posters and much more are important components of the virtual environment and can now be displayed. They can also be placed freely and are not affected by gravity. They can be faded in and out via toggle buttons. Here, too, the expandability of the menu is kept as simple as possible.

The technical drawing can be shown and hidden at any time. Important here was a dependency of the respective scaling, so when scaling the artifact, the technical drawing is resized in the same proportion.

When the artifact is placed in the technical drawing, it snaps to a defined anchor position (congruent). In this way, all information from the technical drawing, such as dimensions, can be linked directly to the model. The Duo can be positioned freely. It can be detached by simply gripping the 3D model. Despite anchors, all other tools can be applied, such as changing the material or segmenting.

Until now, it was only possible to interact with the artifact as a whole. A mode with which all individual parts can be made interactive expands the range of possibilities considerably.

For this purpose, there is now a toggle button through which the interaction mode can be changed. Furthermore, it should be possible to select a single part in order to extract it and apply all tools to it in turn.