Formation Speaks on the Tools of VR + MR

Written by Anne-Elise Chung, All photos by Christopher Stollen

We recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Southern Design Summit hosted by IDSA Atlanta at Georgia Tech. We believe VR amplifies and streamlines the design process and it was great to have the opportunity to share this message with students from Georgia Tech, NC State University, and other schools, as well as with other local designers.

Few in the audience were already using VR in their design work, but most people had only had exposure to VR via gaming or demos. We wanted to empower other designers and design students by demonstrating the power of VR as a tool in the design process. After the presentation, we asked to see a show of hands of who was interested in actively looking for more ways to use VR in industrial design. Most of those in the audience raised their hands. We’re hoping the presentation had a lasting impression and we are very excited to see more people using VR in the product and industrial design space.

Based on audience feedback, it seems that most designers are interested in the complexity in translating their CAD models into VR. As upcoming software and technologies like Autodesk VRED and KeyShot KeyVR make this process simpler, more and more product designers will use VR as a visualization tool. Most designers may not realize that in addition to visualization, VR prototyping is invaluable for evaluating ergonomics, sight lines, signage placement, and interaction behaviors. See our latest article mentioned above for more.

Designers were apprehensive in the learning curve involved to create interactions for user testing and client demonstrations via programming in Unity. However, there were quite a few who came up to us afterward who expressed an interest in learning more. If you are interested in the tools and hardware we use in our VR process, check out this article!