The听iDesign听project transforms contemporary performance design through the application of novel forms of dialogical aesthetics, i.e. developing the capability for users to create and adjust set models via a touch screen or keyboard and to immediately review them as life-sized virtual renditions. Leveraging the 360-degree听AVIE听visualisation platform networked to laptops and tablets, users can begin drafting their designs within a detail-rich 3D environment that digitally replicates of the real-life venue their production will be staged at. Using a range of interaction methods, such as gesture, mouse + keyboard as well as voice input, they can sketch or import architectural forms and props, and refine these by adjusting numerous parameters, such as size, colour, texture and placement. An integrated AI system that, for example calculates sightlines and occlusions, can assist in fine-tuning designs to grant audiences the best possible view of the stage action.听iDesign鈥檚听real-time lighting tools can imbue the virtual model with atmosphere and mood, allowing creative teams to trial and test the capability of a theatre鈥檚 lighting grid through direct plug-in with conventional industry software.
iDesign user interface
The system supports virtual collaboration between remotely located creative teams using different digital devices by supplying a visual articulation of design ideas at 1:1 scale, eliminating the need for abstracting from or translating technical drawings, easing communication between different stakeholders. For example, directors, dramaturgs and choreographers in different geographical sites can annotate the digital model, adding notes or placing animated actor avatars into the set and pathing their movements through the object constellations, while multimedia designers can integrate screen clusters or map dynamic digital projections.
iDesign听thus rethinks traditional modelling paradigms that have been constrained by sequential mock-up procedures and after-the-fact evaluation by increasing the available means for contextualising and iterating design concepts, which positively impacts their viability. Specifically, the project digitally transforms the traditional physical scale model paradigm known as a 鈥楤auprobe鈥 by streamlining production pipelines and reconfiguring the design process in ways that increase the economic efficiencies of set modelling. Its dialogical framework transforms the set design process into an agile real-time exchange between users and digital systems, resolving the inefficiencies which result from segregated pipelines that require complex manual assembly and review.
iDesign architectural view. Image courtesy of Sydney Theatre Company
David Fleischer 鈥淧laying Beatie Bow鈥 set design inside iDesign, Sydney Theatre Company