Posts

Rural Mobile Living

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Image credit: Student award. 2020 DAAPworks Director’s DAAPcares award. Portable Disaster Relief. Students: Noah Nicolette, Jamie Waugaman, Travis Rebsch. 2020

ARCH 4002. Spring 2020
SAID DAAP, University of Cincinnati

Using the 10 miles rural area along I-90 at Lorain County, Ohio as the site, this Rural Mobile Living studio presents a study investigating the rural mobility with an emphasis on architecture as infrastructure and its connection to the means of transportation. Work closely with the Vehicle Design Studio in the School of Design, the research intended to realize the potential of the self-driving car, smart technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning into the architectural design process and address problems such as poverty, lack of transportation means and under-developed infrastructure. Ultimately, the studio looks to build upon the strengths of both vehicle design and architecture methods and explore the possible design solutions for the following five scenarios in the rural areas: “shared living, working homeless, digital nomad, disaster relief, and tourism recreation.

Faculty: Ming Tang
Students: Nick Chism, Maddie Cooke, Amy Cui, Noah Nicolette, Travis Rebsch, Vu Tran Huy Phi, Kristian Van Wiel, David Wade, Jamie Waugaman, Adam Baca. SAID, DAAP.

Award:

Student award. 2020 DAAPworks Director’s DAAPcares award. Portable Disaster Relief. Students: Noah Nicolette, Jamie Waugaman, Travis Rebsch. 2020

Collaborator: Vehicle Design studio. Juan Antonio Islas Munoz, School of Design, DAAP.

Acknowledgment

Thanks for the support from Autodesk Cloud-based computing BIM360.  

Demo

  1. Download our game here. “DCM.zip” (1.2GB) password “daapworks@2020”
  2. Unzip and Run the exe file

 

How to use the interface

  • use M to turn on/off Menu
  • use A W S D or Arrow key to move/drive
  • use C to switch the camera between the first person to the third person
  • use space bar to stop a car
  • use E to get in/out of a car
  • use F to turn on/off flying mode. Then use Q, Z to fly up and down. ( only as a host server or single-player mode)
  • walk into the “glowing green box” to teleport

For Multi-player game

A. Set up Steam on your computer

  1. Set up a Steam account and install Steam in your computer.
  2. Run the Steam program on your computer.
  3. Add Ming Tang as your friend. Friend code “301687106”

B. Join a multiplayer session.

  1. Make sure you use “Internet”, not “Lan”. Single-click the found session, not double click.
  2. You should be able to use “Shift + Tab” to turn on the Steam overlay. Ask questions in the Steam chat room.
  3. Choose the “Find games” option. Once you find an open session, double click the name to join the game.

Paper at Artificial Realities Conference

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Cyber-Physical Experiences: Architecture as Interface

Turan Akman and Ming Tang’s Paper Cyber-Physical Experiences: Architecture as Interface was presented at the Artificial Realities: Virtual as an Aesthetic Medium for Architectural Ideation Symposium in Lisbon, Portugal. 2019.

Abstract:

Conventionally, architects have relied on qualities of elements such as materiality, light, solids and voids, etc. to break out of the static nature of space, and enhance the way users experience and perceive architecture. Even though some of these elements and methods helped create more dynamic spaces, architecture is still bound by conventional constraints of the discipline. With the introduction of technologies such as augmented reality(AR), it is becoming easier to blend digital, and physical realities, and create new types of spatial qualities and experiences, especially when it is combined with virtual reality(VR) early in the design process. Even though these emerging technologies cannot replace the primary and conventional qualitative elements in architecture, they can be used to supplement and enhance the experience and qualities architecture provides.

To explore how AR can enhance the way architecture is experienced and perceived, and how VR can be used to enhance the effects of these AR additions, the authors proposed a hybrid museum which integrated AR with conventional analog methods(e.g., materiality, light, etc.) to mediate spatial experiences. To evaluate the proposed space, the authors also created a VR walkthrough and collected quantifiable data on the spatial effects of these AR additions.

Akman,T.Tang,M. Cyber-Physical Experiences: Architecture as Interface at Artificial Realities: Virtual as an Aesthetic Medium for Architectural Ideation Symposium, Lisbon Portugal. 2019

 

Navigating the New Longevity Symposium

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Prof. Ming Tang was invited as a panelist and presented his Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality research projects at the Navigating the New Longevity Symposium organized by the Village Chicago on November 7. The symposium topic is “How Will Virtual Reality Change Your Future?”

The Village Chicago organized a lively discussion of how immersion technology is changing the way we live, learn and care, a conversation exploring how immersion technology is transforming our well-being at all ages and stages of life – and be inspired to suggest new ways it can be put to use. Panelists include Neelum T. Aggarwal, M.D.; Carrie Shaw, CEO, Embodied Labs; Ming Tang, RA University of Cincinnati; and Emily Phelps, medical student of Rush University Medical Center.

Carrie Shaw, CEO, Embodied Labs presented at the symposium.

paper published in inForma

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Ming Tang’s paper “Architectural visualization in the age of mixed reality” is published by the architectural journal inForma.

Tang, Ming. 2018. “Architectural Visualization in the Age of Mixed Reality.” informa 11: 82–87.

Having been a promising visualization tool since the 1950s, ironically, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) were not widely used in the architectural design and evaluation process due to the high cost of equipment and complicated programming process required. However, with the recent development of head-mounted displays (HMD) such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, and easy-to-use game engines, both VR and AR are being reintroduced as Mixed Reality (MR) instruments into the design industry. This paper explores research related to VR concepts “essential copy” and “physical transcendence” (Bicocca, Levy. 1995), and their use in architectural design studios at the University of Cincinnati. We explored various methods to integrate MR in the architectural design process. This paper discusses two main aspects: (1) how to integrate MR into the design process as a design instrument, and (2) how to valuate MR methods for communicating architectural data, based on the workflow efficiency, rendering quality and users’ feedback.

This issue “Hybrid Realities“of inForma explores architectural discourse by looking at how twenty-first century economic, academic, technological and political shifts have set up conditions for architectural hybridity. We define ‘hybrid’ as points of convergence between different ‘breeds’, resulting in the creation of dynamic architectures and frameworks. Parting from the premise that disciplinary and theoretical crossovers can produce alternate readings and conceptualisations of space, ‘Hybrid Realities’ seeks to discuss the effectual offsprings between two different components, wether typological, disciplinary, idealistic, or others. Similarly, it aims at discussing works and research which places these crossovers in a wider, contextual discussion representative of our current moment in time. Borrowing ‘hybrid’ from biology, the issue situates it within the discussion of the built environment to challenge notions of architectural singularity and highlight the diverse ways in which the field is expanding.  

Interview featured at the Building Design + Construction magazine

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Ming Tang’s interview was featured in the article “The human touch“, by David Malone, editor of the Building Design + Construction magazine. Vol. 31. 04. 2018. The issue is about the TECH REPORT 5.0: Cognitive Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, Real-time Rendering, Digital Media.  Tang discussed the emerging research on eye-tracking and way-finding in Architecture and interior design.