Introduction

Project Summary

This Open Educational Resources for the advanced level of architectural and interior design students who learn in-depth knowledge and skills of computer-aided visualization software.

This digital textbook will be the second book of a series entitled “Tutorials of visual graphic communication programs for interior design” (see the addons). The author will develop a total of twenty-two chapters to teach practical graphic presentation techniques for architectural presentations. The carefully selected nine graphic communication software and technologies based on the author’s industry experiences will be valuable learning material for designers.

The contents of this book are focusing on 1) practicing architectural diagramming using Adobe Illustrator and DepthmapX, 2) drawing hybrid digital perspectives with Wacom tablet and Corel Painter Essential or iPad and Procreate, 3) creating organic shape in 3D and parametric furniture modeling with Autodesk Revit and SketchUp, 4) generating real-time and photo-realistic rendering using Lumion, and Adobe Photoshop, 5) producing walk-through animations and practicing Virtual Reality via Lumion, and Adobe Premiere Pro for improving presentation graphic quality. Students will learn these techniques by following step-by-step tutorials.

This book is included multiple exercises for the reader’s practice. After completing the tutorial with user practice, the readers can apply comprehensive techniques and knowledge to their design projects.

Objectives

First, this book will be the primary textbook for ARTID 569C Advanced Studies in Interior Design: Visualization Techniques. ARTID 569 is for interior design seniors and graduates, and it is an optional class. Students who want to improve their visual communication techniques seek advanced software knowledge before graduating from the program. Frequently, in this type of tech class, students rely on the instructor’s demonstrations during lectures for acquiring knowledge. Our students build their tutorials from various resources such as textbooks from the library or YouTube videos that the instructor informs. However, students have struggled because sometimes students lost the steps because of the multiple steps required to follow. Moreover, textbooks are expensive, and typically, a coursebook deals with only an application. Besides, YouTube videos include unnecessary information like commercial advertisements. These separated educational resources of information often cause students confusion and frustration. Thus, this book provides unified tutorials and accessible textbooks to cover the selected advanced-level applications.

Second, this textbook is intended for learning nine applications that promote students’ visualization techniques and knowledge. Many other books that teach software skills cover an application for readers, and the information is for a broad target reader. However, this book’s readers will easily and comfortably find the relevant information in this digital book. The nine applications were carefully selected based on the author’s practical experiences and discussion with faculty members in the department. The nine applications are Adobe Photoshop: an industry-standard raster graphic editor for rendering retouch, Adobe Illustrator: a vector graphic editor for diagramming; Adobe Premiere Pro: a timeline-based video editor for walk-through video, DepthmapX: visual and spatial network analysis software, Corel Painter Essential: a raster-based digital art application, Autodesk Revit: a building information modeling software, Sketchup: a 3D modeling computer program, and Lumion: 3D rendering and visualization application.

Lastly, this book supports various learning experiences. The first is to complete a famous architecture by following the tutorial. The second purpose is to provide exercises based on tutorials that practice for student’s design projects. The open-access book consists of twenty-three chapters, including text-based step-by-step tutorials and screen-captured images with directions. The author will use Iowa State University Digital Press. This free digital resource is for instructors who teach visualization classes, and the resource can be a supplement resource for design studio instructors. Additionally, design students will follow the instructors’ demonstrations in the lectures, and the students can practice the techniques after the lectures.

Students learning outcomes

The tutorials in the book can have positive impacts on students’ learning by 1) providing unified digital lecture contents to learn the advanced level graphic communication applications for interior design and architecture students, 2) offering free and readily available materials with texts and images, 3) supporting various examples and demonstrations that easily apply for their current and future projects.

Affordability of the teaching contents

The book will help students’ finance because they are free with Creative Common. Whenever students need application information, the tutorials will be available without paying for the textbook ($40 to $70). The course aims to learn nine applications. Typically, a textbook for only one application and contains lots of detailed information. Not all readers need all the information for their projects. However, the book delivers essential and necessary information based on the author’s various experiences in different interior design and architecture firms from local, national, and international.

Pedagogical strategies

The book’s primary pedagogical strategy is to ease students’ software learning in lectures and apply the information to their future design projects. Some students struggle with learning technical knowledge because of the amount of information that students must follow the instructor’s demonstration. The detailed step-by-step texts and screen-captured image-based tutorials can help students who missed steps in lectures. Some students learn lecture contents reasonably well in class, but students cannot apply the information to their design projects. Thus, the examples and students’ self-learning exercises will help them how to apply the techniques to their design projects.

Image credit information.

This Open Educational Resource contains multiple images from external resources. The author tried to gather image license information and authorship. If removal of images from this resource is needed, please contact the author, yongyeon@iastate.edu. Thank you.