ARCH: DMUVR – A Working Prototype of a Distributed Collaborative Design System

Abstract

This paper outlines a working prototype which suggests a distributed Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) system to promote a new model of collaborative design. Recently, there has been a growing interest in distributed CAAD integration due to the needs of direct collaboration among project participants. The potential for the integration of information is expected to have a tremendous impact on architecture and the construction industry. The aim of this research is to provide a new paradigm for a CAAD system by combining research on integrated CAAD applications with recent collaboration technologies. The proposed system has been designed and a prototype implemented to produce enough guidelines to foster interest in the development of future CAAD systems on the Internet. To this end, two different scopes of implementation are evaluated: first, global architecture and the functionality of a distributed CAAD system; and, second, the association of an architectural application to the system.