by Steve DiPaola, Daria Dorosh
SFU/FIT Collaborative Design Project
About :: Colab. Design :: Downloads :: Contact
Collaboratively created cyber-fashion show, where sketches (white bg)
from FIT fashion designers are turned into 3d avatar models (black bg) by SFU students
- all using distance collaborative tools between two coasts and countries.
About
This was a collaborative design / e-learning research project between two
university professors/researchers (w/ their 4th year students)
- from two different countries working with and about online virtual tools for design.
The project had it's start in the fall of 2002 when Daria Dorosh
at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, was invited
by Steve DiPaola, at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada
to participate in an university collaboration between their
students in the disciplines of design, interactive computer
graphics, virtual collaboration for design and learning. An
industry partner was enlisted to complete the collaboration process
-- Adobe and their beta software Adobe Atmosphere, a 3D virtual
environment system. The goal was to explore how collaboration
systems and virtual environments can be used practically, for
learning, design collaboration, virtual portfolios, virtual
fashion and cross cultural online/physical events. This then
was an interdisciplinary, cross-institutional, international
effort in collaborative design, distance learning and virtual
environments
One of several 'virtual fashion-cyber mystery show' rooms, here before
the virtual crowds arrived. These models are click-able, revealing
additional 3d galleries of the designers work.
The system
Guided by the two researchers/teachers, the students at SFU and FIT
worked via several online collaboration systems in an iterative process.
Collaboration took place at many levels of the project:
- creating and translating fashion designs to explore how they relate to virtual environments
- exploring how virtual worlds can support artists (artwork is included from NYC and Vancouver)
- interactive narrative performance (characters are played by actors simultaneously from both coasts/countries)
- how collaborative projects can bring people and countries together
- exploring as a group that never met the issues of the "real" and the virtual.
Original fashions for the event called "Ratava's Line" were designed and drawn by students at the FIT in NY. The drawings were then translated into 3D using a variety of software and tools by students at SFU in Vancouver. The fashion performance event included a narrative look of what is real and what is virtual (i.e. the fashion industry, computer graphics, media events, ...) so the students also collaborated on the character design, and the story writing, as well as the specific roles needed to put on an international, online and two city event.
What is Real: In exploring these ideas, FIT designer Leon, poses
at the seminar event in NYC, clothed in his designs, in front of different virtualities of himself.
Collaborative Design
Collaboration occurred entirely via virtual online systems -- no-one from
FIT and SFU (including the faculty) ever met physically during the project.
New design and learning skills
The researchers looking to understand how technology can help provide new design
and learning skills, by guiding
and documented the students as they learned to work with new design and learning
skill including:
- Range of environments: 2D, 3D, physical, virtual, live
- Range of media: Fashion show, art show, interactive narrative, game, live performance
- Collaborating as a distributed international team
- Interdisciplinary communicating, thinking, working, negotiating, results
Collaboration tools were used in the teaching, planning, design and execution of the final event. Online collaborative tools included:
- Shared virtual 3D spaces for design collaboration and portfolio
- Real time chat
- Video Webcam during the seminar and event.
- Open Source Discussion forums with team and topic threading.
- Collaborative web tools: (Wiki, open permission website)
- Phone conferencing
The learning/research hybrid culminated in a live fashion opening, interactive cyber-mystery event on April 23rd, 2003. The audience was invited to attend physically at either NYC or Vancouver; or online via the created 3d worlds. This was a simultaneous international and online event, that displayed original fashion designs using 3D avatars, demonstrated how virtual collaboration can work and included an interactive cyber mystery where fictional characters in the fashion show were played by online actors on both coasts. Earlier in the day a seminar for academics, the press and industry was held with participants and speakers from SFU, FIT, NYU (Ken Perlin), the game industry and the press. Student physically at FIT and via a webcam and via online 3d avatars participated at SFU. Ratava’s Line and the seminar garnered much press from diverse publications as the fashion industry trade newspaper "Women’s Ware Daily", to the academic Chronicle of Higher Education. Several additional seminars continue this collaboration on the future of virtual collaboration. See the downloads for more details
Downloads and Links
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Main SFU/FIT Site
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WebLink: SFUs SFU/FIT main project site.
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Document SFU/FIT Site
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WebLink: DigitalSpaces's documentation site of SFU/FIT main project site.
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Chr. Higher Ed. article
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WebLink: Chronicle of Higher Education Article reprint.
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Sigragh Paper
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WebLink:PDF from Siggraph Education Program on Ratava's Emergent Learning and Design tab2_bot () ?>
colabDesign Contacts:
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Click on images for larger versions.