Scenario-based VR Application for Collaborative Design

Romain Terrier

1,2

, Val

erie Gouranton

1,2

, C

edric Bach

1,3

, Nico Pallamin

and Bruno Arnaldi

1,2

IRT bcom, Cesson-S

evign

e, France

Univ Rennes, INSA Rennes, Inria, CNRS, IRISA, Rennes, France

Human Design Group (HDG), Toulouse, France

Keywords:

VR, Framework, Scenarios, Collaborative Design.

Abstract:

Virtual reality (VR) applications support design processes across multiple domains by providing shared en-

vironments in which the designers reﬁne solutions. Given the different needs speciﬁc to these domains, the

number of VR applications is increasing. Therefore, we propose to support their development by providing

a new VR framework based on scenarios. Our VR framework uses scenarios to structure design activities

dedicated to collaborative design in VR. The scenarios incorporate a new generic and theoretical collabora-

tive design model that describes the designers’ activities based on external representations. The concept of a

common object of design is introduced to enable collaborations in VR and the synchronization of the scenar-

ios between the designers. Consequently, the VR Framework enables the conﬁguration of scenarios to create

customized and versatile VR collaborative applications that meet the requirements of each stakeholder and

domain.

1 INTRODUCTION

Virtual reality (VR) is largely used to support de-

However, depending on the designers and the sector

needs, each VR application has to be personalized

and has to offer various design functionalities. The

development time is becoming longer due to the re-

quirement to script new behaviors from the beginning

and devise new rules for each need. As an alterna-

tive to building each application from scratch, in this

paper, we propose a unique VR Framework based on

scenarios to create various VR multi-user applications

for collaborative design.

VR is an appropriate tool that the designers can

use to cooperate. The shared and interactive envi-

ronments enable the designers to work on complex

systems (Wang et al., 2019). There is a great vari-

ety of VR applications that can be utilized to work

on these complex systems. This variety is explained

by the necessity to take into account the knowledge

and the work tools of multiple stakeholders in VR,

and by the integration of the different types of collab-

orations that occur during the design process (Falzon

et al., 1996). The reasons for this diversity highlight

the complexity of building VR applications for effec-

tive collaborative design and underline the necessity

of supporting the development of such applications.

To support the development of VR applications

for collaborative design, we propose a new VR multi-

user Framework that offer several services to the de-

velopers (Fig. 1). The Framework is based on scenar-

ios to sequence and to deﬁne the services in compli-

ance with our theoretical design model.

SOLUTION

ACTIVITIES

Waiting

Activity

NewContent

Modif.Content

Use_Tool

button

pressed

Create_Inf

modif.

content

button

released

new

content

Add_Inf

Stop_Use

button

pressed

New

Modif.

button

pressed

new

active

modif.

active

Auto

Waiting

EVALUATION

ACTIVITIES

Waiting

Activity

NewContent

Modif.Content

Use_Tool

button

pressed

Create_Inf

modif.

content

button

released

new

content

Add_Inf

Stop_Use

button

pressed

New

Modif.

button

pressed

new

acti

modif.

active

Auto

Waiting

Figure 1: Virtual reality (VR) framework based on scenar-

ios for collaborative design applications.

First, we describe the generic design activities

and the levels of collaboration in a theoretical model.

Then, the theoretical model is incorporated into vari-

ous scenarios “to depict all the possible sequencing”

of design activities in VR (Claude et al., 2015). The

construction of the scenarios is based on Petri-Net,

which enables the developers to adjust this process in

the event of changes to the theoretical model. Finally,

the new concept of a common object of design is im-

plemented in the scenarios as a service to the devel-

opers to enable different collaborations during the de-

sign process, including functionalities to display de-

sign state information in VR.

Terrier, R., Gouranton, V., Bach, C., Pallamin, N. and Arnaldi, B.

Scenario-based VR Application for Collaborative Design.

DOI: 10.5220/0010268602370244

In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2021) - Volume 1: GRAPP, pages

237-244

ISBN: 978-989-758-488-6

237

In this way, the developers are provided with a tool

to create VR multi-user and personalized applications

for collaborative design.

2 RELATED WORK

This section presents the state of the art of the various

design activities, that are part of a general process,

and the collaboration between designers. These activ-

ities, collaborations and processes are structured into

theoretical design models that are subsequently out-

lined. Finally, multiple Frameworks are presented to

facilitate the development of VR applications based

on activities.

2.1 Design: Activities and Process

The design process could be deﬁned either as a

problem-solving process (Simon, 1995) or as a situ-

ated and reﬂective practice (Sch

on, 1991). Regard-

less of the deﬁnition adopted, the design process is

composed of a succession of design activities (Gero

and Neill, 1998) during which the designer’s knowl-

edge is reﬂected in practice (Sch

on, 1992). These

activities act on and occur in the designer’s mind or

in the physical world, that is, the activities are inter-

nal or external (Zhang, 1991). The designers use the

external activities to materialize their internal repre-

sentations (Eastman and Computing, 2001), and the

external activities are easier to implement in a VR ap-

plication than internal activities.

In the literature, scholars mostly divide the de-

sign process into two main spaces, namely the prob-

lem space and the solution space (Lonchampt et al.,

2006). A third space, called the evaluation space, has

been introduced to characterize the activities involved

in the evaluation of a design (Terrier et al., 2020).

The designers perform multiple sequences of activi-

ties to reﬁne the design (cos, 2003). The three spaces

are linked (Brissaud et al., 2003), and they co-evolve.

Thus, all the spaces are reﬁned together, and the de-

sign process ends when the ﬁnal state of compromise

is reached (Simon, 1995). Regardless of the design

process and the design domains involved, the prob-

lem, the solution, and the evaluation are shared con-

cepts among the design domains.

The users’ design actions are described by activi-

ties that produce external representations that are cat-

egorized into generic design spaces.

2.2 Collaboration and Cognitive

Synchronization

In the collaborative design process, the design activi-

ties involve several designers cooperating simultane-

ously. In VR, this cooperation is classiﬁed into three

levels (Margery et al., 1999). In level 1, the users are

able to see each other and to communicate. In level

2, the users are able to act on the scene by changing

the scene individually. In level 3, the users are able to

act on the same entities in the scene. But these lev-

els are never used to describe the collaborative design

process. The users’ success depends on their abil-

ity to establish a cognitive synchronization (D

etienne,

2006). Thus, in VR collaboration, the design sys-

tems have to support communications between the

designers and provide a mutual workspace that en-

ables a “shared understanding of the design artifact

among a design team” (Saad and Maher, 1996). A de-

ﬁciency in shared understanding may lead to misinter-

pretation, or annoyance, consequently slowing down

the design process (Valkenburg, 1998). Representa-

tion and interaction metaphors can be utilized to avoid

this drawback. The relevant ideas and knowledge are

externalized through the metaphors, thus facilitating

and supporting communication between the design-

ers (Perry and Sanderson, 1998). For these reasons,

common descriptions and explanations of a system

are key factors for effective collaboration, which em-

phasizes the necessity of synchronicity and commu-

nication between the designers (Smart et al., 2009).

External representations are important for sharing

information to establish a shared understanding be-

tween the designers in VR and for easing communi-

cation between them, which could also be supported

by the use of a verbal channel in virtual environments

(VE) (Gabriel and Maher, 2002).

2.3 Theoretical Design Models

Different models have been proposed to structure and

understand the design process. During the design pro-

cess multiple iterations occur, and these aspects of de-

sign can be described by models. Some models envis-

age design as consisting of multiple activities (Girod

et al., 2003) without deﬁning it as involving a series

of events. Others group activities by family and link

the activities with events to describe a generic design

process (Gero and Kannengiesser, 2004). All of these

models enable iterations and describe activities, but

none depict collaboration.

To overcome this gap in the existing models, the

individual function-behaviour-structure (FBS) model

has been extended for collaborative design (Gero and

GRAPP 2021 - 16th International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications

238

Milovanovic, 2019). The junction between the indi-

vidual activities occurs in the external world, thereby

allowing the development of shared understanding.

The FBS model is a powerful tool for understanding

and encoding the collaborative design mechanism, but

it describes internal and external activities. The inter-

nal activities occur in the mind of the people, thus

the development of these activities are not possible.

A generic model has been proposed for individual

design describing the co-evolution of the problem,

solution, and evaluation space (Terrier et al., 2020).

This model describes generic activities categorized

according to the three spaces delineated in Section

2.1. Moreover, the described activities acts on ex-

ternal representations and have been used to struc-

ture VR activities. Nevertheless, this model does not

describe collaborative activities, the common under-

standing process, and the three levels of collaboration.

A solution to this limitation is to extend this individ-

ual model following the multi-user FBS extension.

2.4 Framework for VR

The development of VR applications requires support

provided by generic and reusable systems (Mollet and

Arnaldi, 2006). Several frameworks exist. MAS-

SIVE (Greenhalgh and Benford, 1995) enables the

developers to immerse the users into a shared vir-

tual environment with rules to deﬁne different collab-

orative states. Another framework (Gonzalez-Franco

et al., 2015) enables the developers to build multi-

user application that engages the users in three levels

of collaboration according to their proximity of each

other. But the developers cannot use these frame-

works to drive and to sequence the activities of the

users, and to implement personal tools into the ap-

plication. VHD++ (Ponder et al., 2003) enables the

developers to create and use personal tools.

Another solution is to use scenarios. The sce-

narios are able to fully constrain, partially constrain,

or completely free the users’ actions by listening to

and interacting with the VE. A graphical representa-

tion can be used to model scenarios, for example, the

Petri-Nets in #SEVEN (Claude et al., 2014). In this

way, communication is facilitated between the devel-

opers and the users. An advantage of the scenarios-

based approach lies in the fact that the actions de-

scribed are similar to the external activities depicted

in the theoretical design models. Here, the actions de-

scribed are the interactions between the users and the

objects or the virtual world. In addition, the scenario

of each user can run independently from one user to

another, allowing the users to temporarily work indi-

vidually (Jota et al., 2010). Consequently, the scenar-

ios are able to reﬂect the collaborative design activi-

ties of multiple users and enable iterations. Solutions

exist to create a Framework for collaboration in VR,

but none of these solutions have been used for collab-

orative design based on generic activities occurring in

VR.

The related works surveyed in this section reveal

the need to propose a new theoretical collaborative de-

sign model that depicts external activities categorized

in the three spaces. To the best of our knowledge,

the scenarios have not previously been used to de-

scribe a collaborative theoretical model with the goal

of structuring collaborative design activities in a syn-

chronized VR application.

3 SOLUTION OVERVIEW

In this paper, the VR Framework supports the de-

velopers’ work towards building personalized, multi-

tool, and multi-user VR applications intended to meet

the needs of multiple design domains. The solution

needs to drive the generic users’ actions in VR inde-

pendently of the domain to structure the collabora-

tions of and to support the communication between

designers in VR.

Consequently, the solution we propose here uses a

theoretical design model to deﬁne the generic design

activities of several users. The collaboration is mod-

elled through the common object of design (Fig. 2,

part 1). Next, the theoretical model is naturally de-

scribed by the three-level scenarios in a VR Frame-

work, with each level managing functionalities mak-

ing possible speciﬁc activities in the collaborative de-

sign process (Fig. 2, part 2). For example, a user is

able to select an object for the team and each user is

able to perform evaluation or to generate new solu-

tions. Finally, the implementation of the scenarios in

a VE leads to the production of VR applications for

industrial design (Fig. 2, part 3).

For example, the developer conﬁgures the sce-

nario to provide access to speciﬁc tool metaphors to

enable the creation or modiﬁcation of a 3D object in

VR (Fig. 1). Scenarios are the cornerstone of our VR

Framework. All the design activities are correlated to

the use of a set of design tools. Each user has their

own independent instance of the scenarios. The sce-

narios can be adapted to depict other models and alter-

native spatial or conceptual organizations of the VE.

Scenario-based VR Application for Collaborative Design

239

Theore�cal model

Unity3D

Editor

Virtual

Environment

SCENARIO

Collabora�on

Object of

design

Spaces

Design tools

Ac�vi�es

EVAL Space

SOL Space

PB Space

Scenario-based VR Framework

Interac�ons

Network

Design

Tools

USER #2

USER #1

Unity3D

Editor

Virtual

Environment

SCENARIO

Collabora�on

Object of

design

Spaces

Tools

Ac�vi�es

EVAL Space

SOL Space

PB Space

Services and func�onnality

Tools

Existing

software

components

Figure 2: In red, our contribution: (1) a new theoretical col-

laborative design model deﬁning generic design activities

and collaborations, (2) the three-level scenarios depicting

the new theoretical model, providing services to the devel-

opers (blue dots) and enabling the implementation of tools

(green dots), and (3) an implementation of the scenarios in

a virtual environment (VE).

4 THEORETICAL

COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

MODEL

Our multi-user VR Framework is driven by a generic

and theoretical collaborative design model to cover

the needs of various domains. It is composed of a

multiple single-user theoretical model linked by de-

sign objects and logical space for collaboration.

4.1 Single User Dimension

The model depicts the three logical design spaces:

problem, solution, and evaluation (Terrier et al.,

2020). In each logical space, two activities are distin-

guishable: the creation and the iteration of contents.

In addition, the evaluation logical space includes the

act of evaluating and the act of deﬁning or modifying

the criteria of evaluation. The next step is to depict

the multi-user dimension in the theoretical model.

4.2 Multi-user Model

As the collaborative design implies multiple design-

ers, we propose to use one instance of the theoretical

single user design model for each designer. Since the

activities are based on the creation of external rep-

resentations, the internal mental process of building

of a shared understanding is not represented in our

multi-user model. However, the collaboration and the

shared understanding can be facilitated. To this end,

the model introduces the concept of a common object

of design. This concept describes the object of de-

sign on which the designers are working in unison.

Once a common object is deﬁned, all the activities of

each designer focus on this speciﬁc object. In this

way, the collaboration level 3 occurs between the de-

signers (Fig. 3, top). For example, two designers are

able to modify the same mockup of a room to propose

new solutions. The model also describes the collabo-

ration level 2, which occurs when no common object

is selected, thereby allowing the designers to interact

with any object of the mockup. In this situation, the

designers still collaborate to reﬁne the design but are

not constrained to work on the same object (Fig. 3,

down). For example, one designer is able to modify

a workstation while the second moves screens around

the room to adjust together the overall layout of the

room.

Designer A

Designer B

common object

selected

COLLABORATION LEVEL 3

eval

sol

eval

sol

Designer A

Designer B

no common

object

COLLABORATION LEVEL 2

eval

sol

eval

sol

Figure 3: The theoretical collaborative design model intro-

ducing the common design object. It depicts, top, the col-

laboration level 3, and down, the collaboration level 2.

Thus, our theoretical collaborative design model is

able to depict various collaborative design situations

and their associated activities. The next step is to de-

pict this model with a scenario model that will be used

by developers and interpreted by a scenario engine to

play the events in the VE.

5 SCENARIO MODEL FOR

COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

5.1 Scenario Details

Our VR Framework uses a scenario creation tool in-

tegrated into Unity (Claude et al., 2014). Based on a

Petri-Nets (Petri, 1962) language, the scenarios are

edited into Unity with graphical representations to

model user events, environment states, and object be-

GRAPP 2021 - 16th International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications

240

havior. The scenario model is a graph depicting a se-

ries of events made up of places, transitions, and sub-

scenarios. The scenario model is able to listen to and

modify the state of the VE through sensors and effec-

tors. The associated scenario engine is able to play

the events in the VE and, thus, to sequence the design

actions (e.g., collaboration level and common object

selections) depending on conditions (e.g., roles).

5.2 Three-levels Scenario Model

The theoretical collaborative design model is split

into three levels of scenarios (see Fig. 4). An instance

of the three-levels scenarios is attached to each user.

Shared VE

common

3D object

selected

3D object

not selected

scenarios

Collaboration

and object

Space

and tool

Activity

Figure 4: Three-Level scenarios depicting the theoretical

collaborative design model. An instance of the three-level

scenarios is attached to each user. The synchronization be-

tween each instance is performed through the common 3D

object in the VE.

The ﬁrst level manages the functionalities that the

developers can use to enable selection of the com-

mon object of design in the VE by the designers. The

framework provides a service of synchronization that

occurs only between each ﬁrst level and that depends

on the state of the selection of a common design ob-

ject in the shared VE. As described in the theoreti-

cal model, the collaboration level 3 occurs when a

common object is selected. All of the activities are

performed on this object. The framework integrates

a service based on roles for developers to enable the

functionality of selection only for the “supervisor”.

The other role can only select a design object when

the collaboration is level 2 (i.e., no common object is

selected). For example, the service enable only the

“supervisor” to select the collaboration mode level 3

or level 2. Once the selection is executed, the selec-

tion state is detected by all the instance of scenarios

at the same time engaging all the designers to work

jointly or independently. If the level 3 is activated by

the scenarios for each designers, only the “supervi-

sor” is able to select the common object of design.

The services enable the designers to change their se-

lections (i.e., collaboration mode and object).

The second level manages the functionalities that

the developers can use to enable the users to access

one of the three logical spaces of design (i.e., prob-

lem, solution, or evaluation) and to pick a tool. For

example, independently of the choice of the other de-

signers, each scenario is able to provide the capacity

for a designer to select the solution space and a virtual

pen to later propose a new solution of a workstation.

This level is activated only when an object is selected.

The scenario enables the developers to allow the de-

signers to switch from one space to another and to

switch from one tool to another.

The third level manages the functionalities that the

developers can use to enable the users to access the

design activities (i.e., creation and modiﬁcation) of

the space. The level is activated only when a space

and a tool are selected. The developers are able to

constrain the user to select one activity at a time. The

scenario enables the designers to switch between ac-

tivities for a single tool.

5.3 Technical Details

Many items need to be synchronized between each

user’s applications: the scenario, the VE state, the

avatars, and the common design object state. Be-

sides making sure that things are running smoothly,

the synchronization supports the building of a shared

understanding between the designers. The framework

implement an existing software component to pro-

vide this service to the developers. The networking is

managed by the component TNET3

. Moreover, the

framework meets the developers’ need to share infor-

mation regarding each user’s own activity state to the

others in the VE by adding effectors to provide these

awareness information. This information takes the

shape of a text displayed above the user’s avatar with

the following information: the space of the activity,

the tool in use, and the current activity performed by

the user (see Fig. 5). All this awareness information

is updated according to the user’s scenario. The net-

working setup also enables the developers to imple-

ment audio sharing among the designers. In this way,

the VR Framework enables distant and co-localized

collaborations.

6 USE CASE

The use case stems from the industrial partner’s activ-

ities, which deal with the collaborative design of new

working spaces. In this use case, the developers im-

merse two designers in a VE and to reﬂect on a layout

(see Fig. 5), considering that the surface of the room

remains unmodiﬁed and that a workforce increase of

TNET3: www.tasharen.com

Scenario-based VR Application for Collaborative Design

241

50% is expected over the next 5 years. Based on these

details, the designers propose and analyze new layout

conﬁgurations. The following sections present: (1)

the designers’ series of events in the VE and (2) the

functioning of the VR application, including the link

between the VE and the scenarios.

Figure 5: The collaborative design VE scene for the use

case of the working space layout.

6.1 Designers Activities

In the application, the two designers propose multiple

layouts according to the relevant speciﬁcations and

norms. In this case, the problem is already deﬁned

and the designers focus on the creation or the modi-

ﬁcation of solutions. The designers focus also on the

creation or the modiﬁcation of evaluation according

to the solutions they have proposed.

Considering the design activities, the designers

need tool metaphors to interact in the VE. Thus, the

developers are able to implement several tools in the

application to move the objects, to navigate among

space conﬁgurations, to change the material, to check

the safety space between the furniture, to simulate the

different users’ heights, to add points of interest, and

to have a top view.

Before building the application, the developers are

able to attach the “supervisor” role to one instance of

the application to only allow one designer to select a

common object once the application is running. The

designer is then able to show the different space con-

ﬁgurations to the other designer. The collaboration

level 3 is activated.

Meanwhile, the service in charge of the space

management enables the developer to create an appli-

cation that let the users to switch between evaluation

and solution activities during the session, for exam-

ple, to iterate on the materials of the common object

and check the global harmony of the room.

By using the common object and collaboration

services, the developers are able to build an applica-

tion that let the “supervisor” designer switching from

one common object to another or to change the col-

laboration mode for the level 2.

At that point, both designers are able to select dis-

tinct design objects. Each designer performs activi-

ties on a different design object with the same goal

of proposing a new layout that takes into account the

anticipated workforce increase and the relevant spec-

iﬁcations.

The framework and the TNet3 component are able

to synchronize all modiﬁcations of the VE between

each instance of Unity.

6.2 Scenarios and VE Relationships

The following describes the step during which one

designer switches between conﬁgurations, while the

second evaluates the evacuation criterion.

Space and Tool Detection. The developers enable

each user to navigate between the three logical spaces

thanks to the second level of scenarios. The second

level of scenarios and the space service enable the de-

velopers to allow each user to navigate between the

three logical spaces : Problem, Solution, and Evalua-

tion. Each logical space contains a batch of dedicated

tools implemented by the developers. A sensor de-

tects that the user has selected the solution space, and

an effector activates the third level of scenarios (see

Fig. 6). In this way, the tool selection functionality is

activated enabling the user to pick the conﬁguration

tool. Simultaneously, the second user selects and ac-

tivates the tool to evaluate the safety distance between

objects.

S E

Waiting

Tool in

hand

S E

Exit

SOL_Space

Exit

PB_Space

Exit

EVA_Space

Activities

PB_subnet

2nd level

Activities

SOL_subnet

Activities

EVA_subnet

PB_Space

selection

SOL_Space

selection

EVA_Space

selection

S E

Level3 collaboration branch

Figure 6: Left: the space selection functionality is displayed

to the user. Right: the second level of scenarios that man-

ages the selection of the space. Since the space is selected,

the scenario activates the third level.

Depicting the Design Activities. The conﬁguration

tool is activated for the ﬁrst user, and the possible ac-

tivities are depicted in a branch of the third level of

scenarios, Solution Activities (see Fig. 7). The func-

tionalities of this level enable the user to modify the

conﬁguration of the object (e.g., a workstation). A

sensor detects the action, while another sensor dis-

GRAPP 2021 - 16th International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications

242

plays the activity over the user’s head to inform the

second user about this action. The position and the

active state of each workstation conﬁguration are syn-

chronized between the Unity instances.

EVALUATION

ACTIVITIES

Waiting

Activity

NewContent

Modif.Content

Use_Tool

button

pressed

Create_Inf

modif.

content

new

content

Add_Inf

Auto

Stop_Use

button

pressed

New

Modif.

button

pressed

new

active

modif.

active

Auto

Waiting

3rd level

Auto

button

released

SOLUTION

ACTIVITIES

Waiting

Activity

NewContent

Modif.Content

Use_Tool

button

pressed

Create_Inf

modif.

content

button

released

new

content

Add_Inf

Stop_Use

button

pressed

New

Modif.

button

pressed

new

active

modif.

active

Auto

Waiting

3rd level

Auto Auto

Figure 7: Up: the green user’s third level in the Evaluation

Activities branch is active. Down: the red user’s third level

in the Solution Activities branch is active. It has detected

the use of a solution tool to modify contents. Thus, the

token in the Modif. content place indicates that the user is

modifying the current mock-up. The transitions are colored

blue as they are activated but not triggered.

The scenario is thus able to discriminate between

the designers’ activities, their space, the tools in-

volved, and the creation or modiﬁcation of contents.

Finally, the three-level scenarios enable design itera-

tions on the same object for a level-3 collaboration.

In a customization context to meet the needs of an

industry, new VR tools and/or activities can be imple-

mented in the model. The developers are also able to

use only a speciﬁc part of the scenario to constrain the

users’ activities during a design session (e.g., adding

or deleting branches, transitions, etc.).

7 CONCLUSION

Our solution supports the development of VR collab-

orative design applications involving multiple design-

ers. The Framework implements scenarios and ser-

vices according to a theoretical collaborative design

model to drive the users’ activities in VR. In this pa-

per, only the functionalities of the Framework are de-

scribed and illustrated in a use case.

The collaboration is supported by two functional-

ities. The Framework works over the network by be-

ing implemented individually for each user. The VE,

the communications, and the scenarios are synchro-

nized between each instance of the Framework. Then,

the concept of a common object of design enables the

users to switch between types of collaboration. The

users are consequently able to work on the same ob-

ject or on different objects with the same goals.

Moreover, our solution meets the requirement to

personalize the applications dedicated to design. The

Framework enables the implementation of various de-

sign tools in VR without modifying the scenarios.

The functionalities to access the activities remain op-

erational independently of the design tools.

Presently, generic activities have been imple-

mented and the developers are able to personalize

the scenarios. However, a new functionality could

be implemented to enable the selection of the activ-

ities needed by the designers, the selection of each

user’s role during the design session, and the selec-

tion of restricted access concerning speciﬁc activities

according to the user’s role. At this point, an evalu-

ation of the use of the Framework is needed in com-

parison to other existing Frameworks. Moreover, the

concurrent edition of the same object is not yet man-

aged by our Framework and should be integrated in a

future version. The persistence of the scene and the

saving/loading are already implemented via the net-

work asset TNET3 but they need to be implemented

as functionalities in the Framework.

To conclude, our scenario-based Framework sup-

ports the development of various collaborative VR ap-

plications for design and can be upgrade to manage

more functionalities.

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