Patent ID: 8589809

Claim:
A method of conducting a meeting between a plurality of people, the method comprising: providing a virtual conference room comprising: an avatar associated with each of the plurality of people attending the meeting, and a virtual display of a 3-D model of a manufacturing facility; receiving a query from one of the plurality of people attending the meeting directed to a characteristic of one or more objects depicted in the 3-D model; displaying one or more virtual objects included within the 3-D model on the virtual display, the one or more virtual objects responsive to the query; receiving a selection from a person of the plurality of people of one of the one or more virtual objects of the 3-D model, wherein receiving the selection of the object of the 3-D model comprising receiving a selection at a point within the 3-D model; providing information associated with the selected object of the 3-D model to each of the plurality of people attending the meeting, wherein providing the information comprises retrieving data from one or more databases containing physical structural and operational characteristics of a real world object represented by the virtual object; and displaying a knowledge view to each of the people attending the meeting, the knowledge view including navigational controls for added perspective of the virtual display, wherein the knowledge view displays physical interrelationships of objects associated with two or more model subsystems, each of the two or more model subsystems including one or more objects of a common type.