Synthetic Environments for Cooperative Product Design

Synthetic Environments (SE) facilitate an easy setup of various virtual realities since they are component-based and relatively easy maintainable. Through three stages, involving various types of stakeholders, the feasibility of SEs for cooperative product design (CPD) was explored: 1) Semi-structured group interviews with 19 engineers and designers assessed SE's potential for CPD; 2) Implementation of a SE; 3) Comparison of a SE with its real counterpart, through: a) an experimental task and b) questionnaires to determine the task performance, the mental workload, the experienced spatial presence, involvement, and realness. 16 participants had a similar task performance, mental workload, and involvement but differed in experienced realism (F(1,30)=5.11, p=.03) and spatial presence (F(1,30)=7.02, p=.01). This research emphasizes the benefit of SE for CPD, which can increase the communication, speed and quality of CPD. Hence, a first step is made towards a new era of CPD.