CleaVR: Collaborative Layout Evaluation and Assessment in
Virtual Reality
Yun Suen Pai

Keio University Graduate School ofMedia Design,
Yokohama, Japan 223-8526
yspai1412@gmail.com

Megumi Isogai

NTT Media Intelligence Laboratories
Japan
isogai.megumi@lab.ntt.co.jp

Benjamin I. Outram

Keio University Graduate School ofMedia Design,
Yokohama, Japan 223-8526
benjamin.outram@gmail.com

Daisuke Ochi

NTT Media Intelligence Laboratories
Japanochi.daisuke@lab.ntt.co.jp

Benjamin Tag

Keio University Graduate School ofMedia Design,
Yokohama, Japan 223-8526
tagbenja@kmd.keio.ac.jp

Hideaki Kimata

NTT Media Intelligence Laboratories
Japankimata.hideaki@lab.ntt.co.jp

Kai Kunze

Keio University Graduate School ofMedia Design,Yokohama, Japan 223-8526
kai.kunze@gmail.com

Figure 1: CleaVR system showing a participant using gesture-based controls (a), first person viewing (b), and collaborative
assessment with multiple users (c)ABSTRACT
Layout planning is a process often used in architectural interior design, for factory production plans, and so on. We present CleaVR, asystem that provides the user with an immersive virtual reality system that accurately visualizes the layout plan in three dimensions
as shown in Figure 1(a). The user is able to freely orbit around thedesign to observe it in every angle for an accurate evaluation andassessment. The implemented gesture recognition system meansthat no physical buttons are required, allowing a complete immersion with intuitive controls. These controls allow the user to panaround the environment, pinch to pick and place objects, as well
as swiping the view to switch into first person view, as shownin Figure 1(b). With our system, architects, engineers, designers,and even sports analysts may approach their targeted environment
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SIGGRAPH ’17 Posters, July 30-August 03, 2017, Los Angeles, CA, USA© 2017 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5015-0/17/07.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3102163.3102186

through a multi-user, multi-view tool with full control of the virtualenvironment purely by intuitive gesture controls.

CCS CONCEPTS• Computing methodologies → Virtual reality; • Hardware→ Sensor devices and platforms;

KEYWORDS
collaborative virtual reality, layout planning, orbital navigation
ACM Reference format:
Yun Suen Pai, Benjamin I. Outram, Benjamin Tag, Megumi Isogai, Daisuke
Ochi, Hideaki Kimata, and Kai Kunze. 2017. CleaVR: Collaborative Layout
Evaluation and Assessment in Virtual Reality. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH’17 Posters, Los Angeles, CA, USA, July 30-August 03, 2017, 2 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3102163.3102186

1INTRODUCTION

Typically, layout planning requires the users to gather around todiscuss about the design of the floor plan with documents showing
the two dimensional or top down images of the design proposals.
However, this lack of visualization causes inconsistencies amongSIGGRAPH ’17 Posters, July 30-August 03, 2017, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Figure 2: CleaVR applied in sports formation planning
designers, engineers, or architects, further increasing the time andeffort required to generate a feasible design. Furthermore, they do
not get real-time updates on the design as well as a first person perspective, both which are extremely important yet severely lacking
in conventional layout planning tools. There has been several workthat addresses layout planning [Ibayashi et al. 2015; Stoakley et al.
1995], yet they require physical controllers or buttons, only caters
to a fixed point of view with limited functionalities for the users, orcan only facilitate a single participant. With our system, architects,
engineers, designers, and even sports analysts may approach theirtargeted environment through a multi-user, multi-view tool withfull control of the virtual environment purely by intuitive gesturecontrols.

2IMPLEMENTATION

We developed the CleaVR system around the idea of a virtual reality(VR) environment with motion gestures. To achieve this, the Oculus
Rift Development Kit 2 head mounted display (HMD) was used todisplay the virtual content. Hand motion was tracked by the Leap
Motion sensor which was mounted on the Rift. This sensor provides an even wider 150°field of view which is suitable for gesturerecognition. Powering these devices is a computer running an Intel
Core i7-6700 clocked at 3.40Ghz and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 980
graphics card for VR rendering. The Unity engine was used forthe development of the virtual environment. To facilitate multiple
users, Photon’s cloud-based networking was used to instantiate
each user who joins the same environment. Remote Procedural
Calls (RPCs) was used to sync the position and rotation of all thevirtual objects across the network. All of the behaviors of the virtual content was coded with C# programming. This includes thenetworking aspect, positioning of the objects, manipulation of eachobject, toggling between the orbital and first person view, Leap’s
gesture recognitions, and VR output.

3USER EXPERIENCE

Our system provides the user with an accurate visualization andrepresentation of the environment and provides them with complete control over all of the virtual objects present. Compared toprevious work, our system improves on three key aspects that areusually not the focus of other work, yet is extremely important;the absence of physical controllers or buttons that can disconnect

Pai, et al.
the immersion in VR, multiple perspectives for a full environmental manipulation, including multistory buildings, and facilitatescollaboration with other users as shown in Figure 1(c), while simultaneously providing the complete set of tools for each user inthe shared environment. It is also worth mentioning that orbital
viewing in different perspectives provides the user with a higher
degree of control when determining features like lighting condition,
open plan privacy, emergency escape routes, and so on.
Due to an intuitive use of gesture recognition, such as pinchingof pick-and-place operations, right arm for panning the center pointof the orbital view, and swiping across the screen to switch perspectives, arm fatigue can be minimized. This is a common issue when
implementing gesture recognition, especially in VR that typicallyrequires the user to constantly have both hands raised and visible. In
our system, gesture is used sparingly since no form of navigation or
locomotion is assigned to gestures, whereas both forms of viewing
are assigned to head movement. The use of this system is diverseand can be extended not only for interior based layout design, butalso for formation planning in sports. Past research in this field
has mainly focused on first person view for sports simulation andrarely on formation planning [Miles et al. 2012]. Figure 2 showsthat the user may pick and place players around the game field
for strategizing formations, with a swipe gesture to pass the focus
between each player to get every perspective of the game field.
The new formation then can be viewed in action in an overview
mode. This system is particularly useful for sports that require 3D
formations, like synchronized swimming and aerobatics.

4CONCLUSIONSThe proposed CleaVR system provides the user with an immersive
an intuitive VR-based environment that facilitates the collaborative
nature of layout planning. Since each user is provided with thefreedom and tools to manipulate and view the environment in multiple perspectives, this naturally brings the interaction with virtual
content to a new level that is rarely provided, such as the ability toview and interact in multistory environments with gestures. The
potential application of the system has also been demonstrated in
sports formation planning, proving that it is a useful tool in variousfields. In the future, this system will be further improved so thateach user can actually see other avatars’ arm movements as well,instead of just the objects being picked and placed.

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