Collaborative 3D content created in Hyve-3D

‘Hyve-3D is a new interface for 3D content creation via embodied and collaborative 3D sketching,’ said lead researcher Prof Tomás Dorta, of the university’s School of Design. ‘The system is a full-scale immersive 3D environment. Users create drawings on hand-held tables. They can then use the tablets to manipulate the sketches to create a 3D design within the space’.

The 3D images are said to be the result of an optical illusion created by a widescreen high-resolution projector, a specially designed 5m-diameter spherically concave fabric screen and a 16-inch dome mirror projecting the image onto the screen.

The system is driven by a MacBook Pro laptop, a tracking system with two 3D sensors, and two iPad mini tablets. Each iPad is attached to a tracker.

‘The software takes care of all the networking, scene management, 3D graphics and projection, and also couples the sensors input and iPad devices,’ Dorta said in a statement. ‘The iPads run a Satellite application, which serves as the user interaction front-end of the system. Specialised techniques render the 3D scene onto a spherical projection in real-time’. The Hyve-3D software works also on conventional 2D displays.