Abstract
Designing complex confined human environments requires the rigorous application of anthropometry to ensure that the environments are fit for use for the full range of body sizes in the target population. While anthropometry is a well-established discipline, the tools and methods for its application are not as developed and refined. Important tools for applying anthropometry are physical models and Digital Human Manikins (DHMs), used in CAD and ergonomics software. DHMs currently need to be posed body segment by body segment, which is cumbersome, time-consuming and requires an expert user. Also, they do not provide designers with direct experiences of different body sizes in environments. The challenges associated with the development and use of DHMs reduces their impact and effectiveness as part of the design process. The Real Anthropometric Experience System (RAES) presented in this paper addresses the current limitations by providing a new way of engaging in prototyping with DHMs that gives designers experience using different body sizes, leading to a more empathic understanding of the environment for different users. The system has two tools, a DHM poser and a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. In the first tool, the user moves in front of a motion capture device while viewing a screen showing a DHM that is driven by their body movement in a virtual environment. Users can pose DHMs with different body sizes and experience the different postures required to achieve a goal. Poses are captured and exported to CAD. In the second tool, the designer enters a VR environment from the viewpoint of a DHM, their body is tracked and the DHM moves with them in real time. They can ‘inhabit’ different body sizes to gain a physical and visual sensation of being in a different body that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.
Keywords
Anthropometry; Virtual Reality; Ergonomics; Digital Human Manikins; Human Centred Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2023.128
Citation
Schumacher, P., Fraysse, F., Matthews, B., Modra, S.,and Smith, R.(2023) A virtual reality experiential prototyping tool for the application of anthropometry in complex, confined human environments., in Silvia Ferraris, Valentina Rognoli, Nithikul Nimkulrat (eds.), EKSIG 2023: From Abstractness to Concreteness – experiential knowledge and the role of prototypes in design research, 19–20 June 2023, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2023.128
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
A virtual reality experiential prototyping tool for the application of anthropometry in complex, confined human environments.
Designing complex confined human environments requires the rigorous application of anthropometry to ensure that the environments are fit for use for the full range of body sizes in the target population. While anthropometry is a well-established discipline, the tools and methods for its application are not as developed and refined. Important tools for applying anthropometry are physical models and Digital Human Manikins (DHMs), used in CAD and ergonomics software. DHMs currently need to be posed body segment by body segment, which is cumbersome, time-consuming and requires an expert user. Also, they do not provide designers with direct experiences of different body sizes in environments. The challenges associated with the development and use of DHMs reduces their impact and effectiveness as part of the design process. The Real Anthropometric Experience System (RAES) presented in this paper addresses the current limitations by providing a new way of engaging in prototyping with DHMs that gives designers experience using different body sizes, leading to a more empathic understanding of the environment for different users. The system has two tools, a DHM poser and a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. In the first tool, the user moves in front of a motion capture device while viewing a screen showing a DHM that is driven by their body movement in a virtual environment. Users can pose DHMs with different body sizes and experience the different postures required to achieve a goal. Poses are captured and exported to CAD. In the second tool, the designer enters a VR environment from the viewpoint of a DHM, their body is tracked and the DHM moves with them in real time. They can ‘inhabit’ different body sizes to gain a physical and visual sensation of being in a different body that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.