CoViD, A System for Collaborative Virtual 3D Design

Many important decisions in the design process are made fairly early on, after designers have presented initial concepts. In many domains, these concepts are now realized as 3D digital models and, in meetings, the stakeholders evaluate these potential solutions. Frequently, the participants in such a meeting want to interactively modify the proposed designs to explore the design space better. Today's systems and tools do not support this, as computer systems typically support only a single user and computer-aided design tools require significant training. This paper presents a new system to facilitate a collaborative 3D design process. The new system, CoViD, consists of two main parts. The first part is an easy-to-use conceptual 3D design tool that can be used productively even by naive users. The second part is a novel infrastructure for collaborative work, which offers an interactive table and several large interactive displays in a semi-immersive setup. The synthesis of both parts forms a new platform for collaborative virtual 3D design.