WebShaman: shared virtual prototypes for product designers in the World Wide Web

• Published in: SIGGROUP bulletin : a publication of the Special Interest Group on Supporting Group Work 1999-04, Vol.20 (1), p.51-55
• Main Authors: Tuikka, Tuomo, Salmela, Marko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2372-7403; 2372-739X
• DOI: 10.1145/327556.327633

We present WebShaman, a virtual prototyping application which shows how the work of electronics and telecommunications product designers can be supported using the World Wide Web. We describe a concept design session where two or more electronics product designers and their customers work on a design object such as a future mobile telephone. WebShaman demonstrates the computer support of synchronous product concept design over the WWW. The system represents the design object as a three-dimensional virtual prototype, which can be shown and manipulated in an information space accessible to all participants. Distributed simulation of the device can be used to mediate the designers' understanding of the prototype's functionality. To facilitate this, we use a technique called "smart virtual prototyping". It allows the users to add functionality and simulation to virtual prototypes and to use them in a collaborative fashion. We will first present the background of our work and then the application architecture and its use.