This project addresses improving students' ability in three-dimensional (3D) visualization in courses now under development. Courseware for these courses has application in multiple disciplines and as such enhances the possibilities for student and faculty cross-discipline interaction and collaboration involving Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Architecture, Economics, and Interactive Media Technology. The focus of the project is the creation of a completely computer mediated environment, where students can work on their designs and problems, communicate with each other and others more distant, and receive courseware at the workstation. The innovative aspect of this project is that it is interdisciplinary and that it is being designed from the beginning in a comprehensive manner to provide the format for the perpetuation, replication, and dissemination of the project in a continually upgradeable hypertext format that allows for the combination of Distance Learning and Internet browsing. Computer-based tools are being used to provide conceptual organization and structure to laboratory work and to establish unbreakable links between the lectures and the laboratory. The major equipment being used to nourish the growing use of visualization and analysis software in the laboratory includes four high-speed graphic workstations, a software and hardware system that links computer monitors in the teaching environment, and one video production workstation with supporting peripherals. The increased scope of 3D visualization in the interdisciplinary courses made possible by the equipment in this project will serve as the catalyst for increasing the scope and effectiveness of 3D visualization in other disciplines as well.
