Stimulating interest in technological and engineering literacy using a multidimensional desktop virtual reality framework

Abstract

In this paper geometry and graphics are employed to design and implement a multidimensional dVR (Desktop Virtual Reality) framework to stimulate interest in technological/engineering literature. Students, especially those at the beginner's level, typically tend to associate literature with 'textual information' and huge volumes of books. While a seasoned faculty member or a researcher is quite used to reading voluminous literature, students and non-domain audience may find this challenging. Hence, this paper puts forth a novel approach wherein an interactive multidimensional dVR framework is used to methodically organize and present engineering and technological literature. Technological literature is represented as geometry objects embedded in a graphic interface that facilitates viewing from multiple perspectives (literature-wise) and sort and re-structure the literature as required. Users can navigate within this 3D environment and interact with scene elements. The Virtual scene elements represent various elements of technological literature in different formats that include 3D representations as well as conventional files such as word documents, web pages, etc. One primary drawback with a vast majority of visualization systems is that information is presented to the audience in a pre-determined fashion. Nevertheless, there may be times when the information receiver may want to view the information in other ways. A good visualization platform should be flexible enough to allow the user (audience or the information receiver) to interact with the information. The user should be able to dynamically interact, manipulate, modify, and re-arrange the information in accordance with their particular needs. Hence, the authors have enabled dynamic interaction capabilities within this framework that facilitates 're-arranging' the way in which the information is presented. The application is being built using web-friendly technologies such as VRML/X3D and Java/JavaScript to facilitate online dissemination. © American Society of Engeneering Education, 2013.