3D design through Virtual Reality: A Case Study Report

VR as a technology is making waves in the education sector. You may have seen brands such as ClassVR, providing a wide variety of VR and Augmented Reality (AR) content for STEAM subjects, however there are very few VR apps to help design students to immerse themselves into a design challenge. Gravity Sketch tackles this problem by providing design students with the opportunity to design, build and present their work in an infinite, 3D space. 

Imagine students not just sketching ideas on paper but stepping into their creations, exploring them in a fully immersive virtual space and collaboratively designing alongside their classmates and present concepts. Gravity Sketch isn’t just any 3D modelling tool, it’s a ‘gateway’ to an infinite canvas where ideas come to life. Paired with its augmented reality 'passthrough' mode, you can view a 3D model at a 1:1 scale in the real world. It’s designed to complement existing workflows rather than reinvent them, letting users import 2D images and moodboards, and export models to various CAD programs. 

For students and teachers, this provides a seamless integration into current projects, making it an ideal choice for the classroom. Gravity Sketch is a one of a kind software and we at Mesh Training are actively bringing the experience into schools through our in-person, standardised and bespoke courses. 

To provide some context about how Gravity Sketch can be used into your curriculum, here’s a brief case study of a bespoke session we held for Leicester Grammar School’s Year 12 design and technology students. 

Our goal was simple: to provide students with a fun, hands-on and immersive learning experience to ignite their creativity, collaborate with their peers and show them a new way to tackle a design challenge. Aligned with their project brief to ‘design a 2-bed detached bungalow and surrounding garden overlooking a picturesque valley’, we designed a bespoke training syllabus to provide all attendees with a strong foundation of Gravity Sketch skills, in the context of their project. Matched with the student’s timetable, we ran three, in-person training sessions on a weekly basis, guiding students (and staff!) through the fundamental Gravity Sketch skills ensuring they built a basic sense of autonomy to complete their models by session three.

For many students, this was their first time using VR so we started with the basics, inducting them on how to safely use and set up the VR headsets. Once everyone was comfortable, we dived straight into Gravity Sketch, creating simple line drawings and shapes in the 3D space, an entirely new experience that quickly had them hooked. We also covered essential skills like scaling objects and adding colours, setting the stage for weeks 2 and 3.

In the second session, we stepped up the complexity. Students began mapping out the exteriors of their bungalows, using Gravity Sketch's precision move tool and importing reference images and their pen to paper sketches from Gravity Sketch’s online portal, LandingPad. The key objective of this session was to emphasise collaboration through Gravity Sketch’s Collab Room feature, which allowed students to work in groups within the VR space. This mirrored real-world design processes, demonstrating valuable skills in teamwork and communication.

The final session was all about refinement and presentation. Students used advanced tools like the smart move gesture and added mannequins to explore user interactions within their designs. This session allowed students to polish their models, add final touches, and learn how to take screenshots for their portfolios and project submissions.

One student’s favourite aspect of the software included ‘being able to put your designs in space, annotate them and make them really big’.

Another student highlighted ‘I really liked the fact that I could use my hands to move and make my design instead of using a computer’

If you’re interested in bringing Gravity Sketch into your classroom, here are some tips from the team to help you get started:

• Start with the basics: ensure students are comfortable with their headsets and VR first by gradually introducing the technology to them through simple tasks that do not last more than 5-10 minutes. We’d recommend starting with simple line drawing challenges and wireframe sketches. 

• Encourage collaboration: utilise Gravity Sketch Collab Room features as much as possible to foster collaborative workflows that mimic real world scenarios.

• Take regular breaks: As much as students may want to sketch for hours on end in VR, it’s highly recommended that they work in 10-15-minute stints, especially during the first few sessions. Regular breaks will also help maintain student focus and prevent fatigue.

• Get in touch with the team: not only do we provide a fleet of headsets for your students to use and come to your school, we also create bespoke workshops aligned to your curriculum or student projects, ensuring you and your students make the most of your time with us and consistently learn with industry specific contexts and design briefs.