Accelerating product design using VR sketches
Published Wednesday July 12, 2023Virtual reality (VR) sketching has emerged as a revolutionary tool for industrial designers, allowing them to create scalable, collaborative, and 3D (digital/physical) prototypes faster than ever.
What is VR sketching?
VR sketching is a tool that allows designers to sketch and model objects in a virtual reality environment. It uses a combination of virtual reality technology and 3D modeling software allowing designers to create 3D products and designs in real-time.
Innovation in industrial design is all about speed, efficiency, and collaboration. That’s why Kinetic Vision, a leading product design and engineering firm, has been using virtual reality sketching as a new tool in its design process.
Virtual reality sketching is a new tool that allows designers to create surfaces, solid objects, and products inside a virtual reality headset. According to Nori Sakatsume, the Manager of Industrial Design at Kinetic Vision, virtual reality sketching is a game-changer for industrial designers.
Benefits of VR sketch
The benefits of this technology provide designers with several added values to their design process, including:
- Immersive experience: Allows designers to create in a more immersive way than traditional mediums
- Realistic results: By using VR sketches, designers can sketch and model in a real scale
- Speed: You can save time by enabling sketching, modeling and directly sending file to a 3D printer all in one application
- Interactive: VR sketching allows for a creative and interactive experience for multiple team members and clients
Designers can work in a real-scale and view objects from many different angles. Instead of guessing the size of an object or sketching multiple different angles, designers can create one piece of sketch and walk around it to see the scale of it.
VR sketching also allow for fast iteration and ideation. Traditionally, this process was more involved – took multiple tools to go from a sketch to 3D printing. Now, designers can go from a sketch to 3D print in one tool.
The benefits of VR sketch prototyping don’t stop there. It also lets designers collaborate with other experts within Kinetic Vision as well as clients faster and more effectively. With virtual reality sketching, designers can collaborate in the same virtual reality environment, annotate, and walk around the products they design.
Challenges of VR sketch
While VR sketching offers numerous benefits, there are also some challenges that come with using this technology. The professional artist we spoke to highlighted the following challenges:
- High cost: The equipment needed can be expensive, making it difficult for some artists to access.
- Learning curve: Learning how to use VR sketching technology and software can be challenging for some artists.
- Limited audience: VR sketches may not be accessible to all audiences, as some people may experience motion sickness or have difficulty accessing VR technology.
Tips for Creating Art with VR sketches
The professional artist we spoke to shared the following tips for artists who are interested in using VR Sketching in their artistic process:
- Experiment and explore: VR sketching allows artists to experiment and explore in a way that traditional mediums do not.
- Be patient: Learning how to use VR sketching technology can take time, so be patient and allow yourself to make mistakes.
- Focus on the art: While technology is important, the focus should always be on creating the art itself.
Here at Kinetic Vision, we use the most advanced tools to help us innovate rapidly and provide a path to product for our clients. Contact us to see how we can help take your ideas straight to a ready product.
