Over the past three years, we have grown an amazing community of professional designers, artists, and students. We work closely with the community to further develop Gravity Sketch to better fit their workflows. Every day we speak with customers and users to gain insights and a better understanding of how they work, what motivates them and what we can do better as a team.
As we expand our focus into the collaborative space and workflows which include a variety of roles from designers, to engineers, to clients; we are reaching out to key community members to gather insights and feedback. We are sharing some answers from a few typical questions we ask in our sessions, we are calling this the Five Questions series.
Today we are sharing answers from Alex Hodge – Industrial Designer (@lxhodge on Instagram)
How did you first discover GS and what drew your attention?
I discovered GS while exploring the VR software section of Steam, and before that hadn’t considered using VR for any kind of 3D CAD work. The ability to view 3D designs at a 1:1 scale is what initially drew my attention, as this is the biggest disconnect with non-VR CAD software and the real world. Often it’s not until you physically prototype the design that you get a sense of scale, but with GS you can achieve this instantly and at any time during the design process which leads to much faster iterations.
How did you integrate GS into your workflow?
I’m still experimenting with the most efficient way to integrate GS, but the exciting thing for me is that it’s made me completely rethink my design process, as with some projects it’s possible to skip the traditional pen-and-paper stage and go directly from the brief into creating 3D concepts in GS. From here I can use the model for visualisations to sign off, or as reference data for more traditional CAD software.
What excites you about remote virtual collaboration (co-creation) in this current work climate?
Because I live in New Zealand, the majority of my clients live overseas. Co-creation will allow me to present models at a 1:1 scale for review and give clients a way to see the finished result months before they usually would. It allows me to collaborate with other designers in a way that would not have been possible before.
Where do you feel Co-creation could have the biggest impact in the entire design process?
Being able to peer review and check designs in VR with team members throughout the whole design process, rather than just during physical prototyping, allows much faster iterations and design cycles which will hopefully reduce overall project times.
What words of wisdom would you share with people who are considering diving into VR design for the first time?
Try it. It’s the most powerful sketch software I have. I think there will be a point in the near future when doing CAD work on a 2D screen will be a strange concept. We have the technology available to us right now to create 3D models in a 3D space, and I believe this will be the future in the industry.
