Meaning of "in-situ design": Design objects with regard to real-world reference. (not focus on fabricability in the following suggested scenarios)
Content of application scenarios below:
- Domestic interior design: furniture
- External design: architecture
- Large-scale design: space rocket model
- Tiny-scale design: mini-robot
- Dangerous/inaccessible situation: medical, disastrous situation
- For gaming purpose
- For education/training purpose: 3D design course
Domestic interior design: furniture
Scenario: A person who is far away from home wants to add a furniture in the house.
Solution: They can ask someone (or themselves) go to the house once, use a mobile phone to scan the inside of the house to create a virtual reconstruction of the rooms. And then they can design environment-aware furniture inside that virtual room, while they can be physically far away from the room where the furniture is going to locate.
External design: architecture
Scenario: An architect wants to design an environment-aware house (a draft of architecture design)
Solution: The architect can use a mobile phone to scan the surrounding reference buildings, to create a virtual replica of the surrounding where the target architecture will be located. And then they can design the building inside that virtual room.
The difference between external design and internal design is that, the external scan and reconstruction is more difficult to be accurate. The scale of architecture will be larger than furniture, so the designs in virtual environment might need to be rescaled to human-scale.
Large-scale design: space rocket model
Scenario: A space designer wants to design a space rocket in reference of a space station.
Solution: They can create a reconstructed space station in the virtual environment, and then design draft models of space rockets in the virtual room. Since the virtual environment allows the object and room to be rescaled, the space station and space rocket during design process can be rescaled to human size, so that hopefully the design process can be easier and quicker.
Tiny-scale design: mini-robot
Scenario: A robotic designer wants to design mini-robots, especially when the usage space of the mini-robots is limited for human to enter and/or move around. (also fit in the next "inaccessible situation")
Solution: They can send auto-scan mobile phone into the limited space to scan and reconstruct it in virtual room. The tiny-scale space can be rescaled to human size in the virtual environment, and the robotic designer can design mini-robot more intuitively, and more environment-aware. And then for fabrication purpose, the design parameters can be rescaled to tiny-scale.
Dangerous/inaccessible situation: medical, disastrous situation
Scenario: People wants to design some surgery accessories in reference of the medical room that is not applicable for the designer to stay long while they are designing.
Solution: They can scan the medical room and design in reference of the virtual replica in virtual environment.
For gaming purpose
Scenario: People can design objects for fun, and the physical reference and constraints are aimed to increase the difficulty level and also for dun.
Solution: The players can be instructed to design something in all kinds of different scenarios, for example the physical constraints can be reduced to smaller and smaller rooms as the game difficulty level increases.
For education/training purpose: 3D design course
Scenario: The scenario is similar to the domestic interior design, except the user is not the customer who wants to own furninture but the 3D design students/trainees who are learning about how to design environment-aware objects.
Solution: The trainers can create different design environments in virtual space, to help trainees to practice design in these different scenarios.