Seamless Integration of Multi-touch Table and Immersive VR for Collaborative Design

During the design of a new hospital, many different stakeholders are involved. These types of complex projects requiremore knowledge than any single individual possesses and in this context, it is necessary for all involved stakeholders tounderstand, participate, communicate, and collaborate with each other to obtain a high-quality outcome. This paperpresents a collaborative design system, which support these creative and shared design processes. The presented system,Virtual Collaborative Design Environment (ViCoDE), features a seamless integration of a multi-touch table and severalimmersive VR-systems that support interactive and collaborative design work. The system has been evaluated during twostudies in a real-world context of designing new healthcare environments (e.g. operating theaters). The results show thatinvolved stakeholders better understand, participate, communicate, and collaborate with each other and that themulti-touch table and VR-system complement each other by facilitating different design spaces—both collaborative, aswell as individual