Mixed reality mockups for multimodal evaluation of product prototypes

Abstract

In the process of industrial product development, there is a constant need for prototypes representing the current state of development. Since the manufacturing of physical prototypes is very cost-intensive, virtual prototypes gain more and more importance. Moving from a 2.5D screen visualization to a 3D virtual reality visualization (e.g. in a CAVE) offers a better spatial impression and the possibility of visualizations in a 1:1 scale. However, those virtual prototypes cannot be a complete replacement for physical ones because of their exclusively visual nature which does not allow the evaluation of non-visual features like weight and inertia. We propose using mixed reality (MR) technologies to serve as a bridge between virtuality and reality, combining the advantages of both worlds. These functional and intuitively usable prototypes enable the designer to find flaws in the concept and allow the inclusion of customer-feedback and usability tests in early development phases.