Supporting design with 3D-annotations in a collaborative virtual environment

Abstract

In collaborative product design situations, enabling effective communication between participants and managing related knowledge are two key elements in the collaboration process. In this paper, we propose an enhancement to communication and knowledge management through the use of 3D-annotations directly in the collaborative virtual environment. We present our 3D-annotation model, which is based on three components: form, spatialization, and metadata. To facilitate the manipulation of 3D-annotations, we introduce a knowledge model, which is used to index and filter the annotations in the virtual environment. Experiments examining the influence of this knowledge model on the annotation-reading task show that users find the pertinent information more easily and with a greater level of confidence.