Workplace to support the teamwork in the early stages of the product development process

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Center for Product Development, ICVR – Innovation Center Virtual Reality, Tannenstrasse 3, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Corresponding author: kunz@imes.mavt.ethz.ch

Received: 30 June 2003
Accepted: 20 October 2003

Abstract

The teamwork characterizes the early stages of the product development process. The teamwork in these early stages is characterized by simultaneous writing and sketching. Since the work is done on paper a later use of the generated ideas with computer programs is hindered. This represents a break in the logical concatenation of the product development process and thus results in a loss of information. This implies that it is necessary to provide the group with a tool that collects the information already during writing and sketching. A technical workplace is described that uses techniques from virtual reality to allow a real teamwork in these early stages. Using picture acquisition and color separation techniques different pencils can be detected simultaneously in real time on a horizontal surface. Since only active parts are detected by the picture acquisition no quantization errors can occur caused by other objects on the surface like paper, elbow or hands. The realized teamwork space offers an A1-size work area onto which a simultaneous input is possible with four pens of different color. For the construction of the device a material has to be evaluated that is suitable for a back-projection.