Unity workshop successfully completed

Since two years, the Institute for Numerical Methods and Informatics in Civil Engineering (IIB) at TU Darmstadt and the Institute for Urban Design at TU Graz maintain a teaching and research cooperation. The cooperation enables students of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at TU Darmstadt to work together with architecture students from TU Graz.

For the first time since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the IIB's research assistants Maximilian Gehring and Pascal Mosler put together an extensive workshop in presence which was attended by almost 30 students from both universities.

On Monday evening, 21 November, the architecture students from Graz and Prof. Wolfgang Dokonal arrived in Darmstadt. The next morning, Maximilian Gehring and Pascal Mosler gave a three-hour introduction to the game engine Unity, which was used to develop the virtual reality (VR) scenarios. Prof. Wolfgang Dokonal then went into design aspects. In the subsequent group work phase, both Darmstadt and Graz students examined the digital building designs brought along by the students from Graz. They discussed different ways of interacting with the components of a building or the effects of light and shadow and implemented selected functionalities together. In order to add interaction possibilities to their models, they were provided with templates for multiplayer and cardboard-based VR, which were specially designed for this workshop.

On Wednesday, 23 November, Prof. Uwe Rüppel gave a lecture on the different forms of VR and the human senses that are addressed in virtual worlds. Afterwards, the groups presented their concepts and received initial feedback. The following two days were dedicated to group work. Until Friday, 25 November, the groups completed their projects and tested them with the hardware provided.

In addition to the work in groups, networking between students from Darmstadt and Graz was a priority. The evening programme took the workshop participants to the Pauluskirche, where Pascal Mosler gave a guided tour of the organ and a small concert. Afterwards, they went to the Grohe Brauhaus, where the Graz students were able to sample regional specialities such as Kochkäseschnitzel and Odenwälder Handkäse.