DYNA JOURNAL ENGINEERING

Key words:

impresión 3D, realidad aumentada, visualizadores de mallas 3D, maquetas, percepción espacial, 3d printing, augmented reality, 3d mesh viewer, mock-ups, spatial perception

Article type:

NOTA TECNICA / TECHNICAL NOTE

Section:

TECHNICAL NOTE

The use of cartographic representations for the relief representation is frequent in engineering projects. The interpretation of the relief, therefore, is a competence to be developed by the engineers. This paper assesses the potential of four 3D technologies (two digital and two tangible) for the improvement of spatial perception: augmented reality, 3D mesh viewers, digital terrain models printed in 3D and mock-ups built by stacked sections. A workshop was conducted with engineering students in which they obtained a statistically significant increase in their ability to interpret the relief of 6.19 points, measured by the Topographic Map Assessment test, higher than that obtained using traditional 2D representations (2, 22 points). Participants believe that tangible models help them to understand the concepts of contour lines, maximum slope line and longitudinal profile better than digital versions.

Keywords: 3d printing, augmented reality, 3d mesh viewer, mock-ups, spatial perception.