Virtual Reality for Industrial Designers: Revealing the Nature of Interaction Between Designers and Physical and Virtual Artifacts to Support Design Reflection and Discovery

This book provides a better understanding of the industrial design process and the tools that are required to support it. Specifically it focuses on the use of Virtual Reality to assist designers at the conceptual or early stage of the industrial design process. The starting point for this work is that industrial design focuses on the discovery of new knowledge and that this process of discovery is reflective in nature. Designers make use of models and representations throughout the design process to support them in this discovery. The emergence of Virtual Reality has allowed designers to make use of virtual representations within the design process. To reveal the role of the different types of representations used in design, a study of the interaction between designers and their artifacts was undertaken. This book outlines the differences between the various types of artifacts, specifically physical and virtual artifacts and how they can be used to positively support early stage design activity.