Hui Tang 

2019/06

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This is my dissertation research project. The original idea stemmed from my observation of communication inefficacy in the architectural/urban design industry practices. 

 

It attempts to provide a common platform for stakeholders from different backgrounds and expertise to collaboratively and equally experiment and explore the design alternatives and simulate the consequences of an urban development project. And it also attempts to answer the following research questions:

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What factors in the system configuration and framework can facilitate collaborative architectural, urban design, and urban planning when using a hybrid model on an interactive tabletop? How effective are these factors?

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As shown in the first rendering, the tangible interactive system adopts embodied cognition theory that tangible objects help understand spatial concepts better. The critical input of the system is the tangible component that the general public can easily perceive and understand. 

 

Due to the depth-sensing, ad hoc working models, and other prototyping instruments such as Lego blocks, 3D printing models, and paper models can be accepted regardless of the material by the system for flexible scene construction and modification. The system configuration and framework can capture, update, and visualize the physical model equivalent and related urban metrics in real-time or near real-time as the physical input changes.

 

In this work, the system's centerpiece is the 65-inch touchscreen tabletop station used to hold, display informatics, and interact with the user. The touch table is also a stage of the participatory design process. All major interactions, computation, and visualization happen on this surface. The depth sensor used in this work is Microsoft Kinect v2 and its software development kit for Windows. A computer station beneath the touchscreen is used to process and analyze the input from the captured physical input for the location, height, and color information.