3D Navigation
Natural and easy-to-use navigation in a 3d virtual space by using different hardware, like a mouse, flat screen, keyboard, or 3d VR/AR glasses, 3d navigation input devices, or sensors in software solutions provided by Graphisoft like ArchiCAD or BIMx.
The goal was to invent a 3d Navigation for ArchiCAD for parallel and perspective projection from scratch (back in time, when even 3d was new). We redesigned it as the technology enabled us to do better. Then redesigned to new platforms, like iOS, Android, and Oculus. We wanted to provide as easy an experience as getting around in the real world. We can walk, look around, and pay attention to objects as passing by without even thinking about that (our brain deals with a complex muscle movement in sync). Cameras can zoom, pan, tilt, dolly, pitch, yawn, etc, but it mostly comes from what a human can do. Besides mimicking the easiness of real life, we wanted to delight our customers with the experience of flying as well... Our efforts paid off and we became a founding contributor to the current industry 3d navigation standards.
Project Overview
WHAT
Virtual Reality 3d Interaction
WHERE
Graphisoft
WHEN
1998-2014
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1998 1st major release on desktop
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1999 extensive VR lab research
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2000 academic papers publish
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2006 2nd major release on desktop
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2010 iOS release
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2011 Android release
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2014 Oculus Rift release
1st major release on desktop
Academic papers publish
iOS release
Oculus Rift release
1998
1999
2000
2006
2010
VR lab research
2nd major release on desktop
Android release
2011
2014
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Complete design cycle by defining the geometrical abstractions, user interactions, supported devices, behavior, scaling, refining, testing
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I designed the first version of 3d navigation for ArchiCAD, the first in the industry
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I published an academic paper about the research and design (165 pages essay in Hungarian)
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I designed the second generation of navigation for ArchiCAD
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I designed navigation support for 3d glasses, like Oculus Rift, 3d input devices like Space Ball and 3DConnexxion
My Contribution
Just to put things in "perspective" in the timeline. The first ArchiCAD navigation was released in 1998, when other professional software had no easy way to get around in 3d.​ This was the industry standard AutoCAD:
The Challenge
The gaming industry released the first Half-life, which was revolutionary, but the only goal was there to get around (and shoot) in a well-defined area and mostly it was played by a joystick. Architects wanted to edit a model, which could be a small house or a huge hotel, or even an entire city. Navigation was a necessary evil for them and editing was the goal. The joystick was not an option (they are serious adults).
The biggest challenge is, however, the expectation based on the easiness in real life. People do not even think about that, it is so natural. I look right, walk a bit, feel my muscles, I have a lot of physical feedback and there is no lag in the "rendering".
The second biggest challenge was the computer-human interface: a 2d display, a keyboard, and a mouse. Those were the default hardware elements for an average architect (it slightly changed 15 years later, but that is still the default setup).
The Journey
I learned a lot about human perception at my home university, plus about camera movements so I had a solid research background. The first and biggest challenge was to find the bridge between the real world and the virtual world through simple hardware devices. It meant simplification. Looking right with a head or turning with the whole body was the first. Even if we can walk sideways, we normally don't do that. Tilting was another one - luckily buildings are not slanted and we keep our heads straight. Soon enough it was simple enough, but the problem is with the screen and the lack of feedback in the virtual world. Walking sideways is unnatural, but getting stuck in front of a wall is really frustrating.
Another important factor is how the architect thinks of a building: it is either the real one, which one can walk into, but it is a model as well, which can be looked at from a bird's view or built like a paper mockup. Depending on the scale both are needed. Another challenge is the differences between parallel projection and perspective. We can use a camera metaphor for perspective, but no camera for the parallel projection (or it is infinitely far).
10 years later designing for Oculus Rift glasses was much easier. It was just setting up the right defaults and the VR glass motion sensor did everything for me. Same with 3DConnext - the input device defines the navigation.
The last challenge was the technology. Games, like Half-life or Doom could optimize the 3d model to run fast, which is an essential factor for navigation. A lagging system destroys the experience and users would abandon 3d editing and struggle in 2d as they did in their past life. So technologically a not real 3d navigation was pretty tempting - but turned out as a dead end.
To keep people on the same page I made videos and many drawings to explain the expected behaviors.
The Lessons
I learned a lot on the journey and there were many human, technical, development challenges, which were solved or managed. The biggest one, which made this story to my portfolio is not the challenge of an exciting feature or the geometry behind it, or the human part. It was all new, revolutionary and exciting all the way. I got access to the newest technologies and smartest developers and best gadgets. The biggest challenge was to redesign a whole system as technology changed. Coming over my ego was easy, but I had to convince the same developers to go the other way we went before. I had to emphasize and made it super clear that why we went to one direction and go the opposite later. In this particular case, with those developers, a simple collection of logical pros and cons worked the best. I could not show them tests results without having a POC solution from them, so I had to demonstrate with running, jumping in a building, playing with paper mockups and simulating everything in real life to make those arguments visible, understandable for everyone. Exploring new solutions required continuous innovations even in the methods to develop ahead of the industry.