A Multiview Interactive Interface for the Solution of Descriptive Geometry Problems

Abstract

Descriptive Geometry (DG) is the knowledge base for the design process (Engineering, Architecture, and Design). Despite its importance, in many universities, its teaching has been neglected and often has disappeared as a discipline, and its content has been integrated into more comprehensive courses such as technical drawing and CAD. We believe that the DG teaching-learning process should be improved so that the disciplines of technical drawing and computational drawing tools can be better used in the education of designers. For this reason, we developed the HyperCAL^3D, an application that performs all DG processes in multiple projections in a virtual environment. Although it is a software to aiding learning DG, its use depends on the knowledge of DG, because there are no automatic solution tools, the user must know the DG solution processes. Thus, this desktop application has allowed teachers and students to use DG knowledge to solve design problems quickly, directly in a virtual environment. This implementation is a milestone for the teaching of DG, as it allows the solution of complex problems in a few seconds, with high precision and with the understanding of the process being carried out. Such approach is a significant improvement because without the aid of the software the student must use the manual drawing as the only alternative, which is slow and laborious, and hinders the learning process.