Title: Knowledge integration for annotating in virtual environments

Authors: Stephane Aubry, Indira Thouvenin, Dominique Lenne, Shigeki Okawa

Addresses: Laboratoire Heudiasyc, UMR CNRS 6599, Centre de Recherches de Royallieu, Universite de Technologie de Compiegne, BP 20539, Compiegne Cedex 60205, France. ' Laboratoire Heudiasyc, UMR CNRS 6599, Centre de Recherches de Royallieu, Universite de Technologie de Compiegne, BP 20539, Compiegne Cedex 60205, France. ' Laboratoire Heudiasyc, UMR CNRS 6599, Centre de Recherches de Royallieu, Universite de Technologie de Compiegne, BP 20539, Compiegne Cedex 60205, France. ' Department of Information and Network Science, Chiba Institute of Technology, Narashino, Japan

Abstract: Annotations in virtual environment are the means to improve communication in distant collaborative design. In the Matrics project, we develop a platform to support annotation-based collaboration and associate those annotations with a knowledge model. We present the collaborative design situations we are working on and split them into three subsituations: symmetrical collaboration, workflows and project re-exploitation. In these situations, collaboration problems often arise. We present a solution that consists in enabling the designers to directly annotate their model in the 3D-environment as well as its implementation in an application for annotating in VR environments. Then, we discuss tests on this application and the need to link the annotations to a knowledge model. We present the knowledge model, the ways to exploit it as well as experiments in order to evaluate the benefits of knowledge integration in the annotating environment.

Keywords: 3D annotations; product design; ontology; knowledge management; collaborative virtual environment; virtual reality; product development; collaborative design; knowledge integration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2007.013430

International Journal of Product Development, 2007 Vol.4 No.6, pp.533 - 546

Published online: 28 Apr 2007 *

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