Undergraduate Research Report: Isabel Li on Insight XR
We're so pleased to provide undergraduate research opportunities! This past semester, Isabel Li worked with Elnaz Tafrihi on InsightXR, a project which aims to provide accessible, remote co-design in architectural contexts through mobile AR experiences. Read about Isabel's experience below!
This semester I worked with Elnaz Tafrihi on InsightXR, a project which aims to provide accessible, remote co-design in architectural contexts through mobile AR experiences. This is a project which is further along in its development, and is currently at the prototyping stage. The final prototype will allow users to view three-dimensional design iterations, as well as annotate and evaluate these designs. This spring, I focused on researching and testing methods for the backend development of InsightXR to produce a more efficient and portable prototype.
During this project, I familiarised myself with InsightXR's existing codebase, as well as Amazon Sagemaker and various Jupyter Notebook extensions. I explored different methods of running, connecting, and adapting the existing backend to be compatible with the project's frontend, and reported these findings to Elnaz. I was able to work with Elnaz in parallel as she presented her own progress on the frontend and other parts of the research project. Ultimately, I collected information and tested different possible options to deliver cost-efficient performance for the InsightXR program using AWS, refactoring, etc.
It was a great experience for me to delve into a project in the thick of its tool development phase, and to work with relatively different tech stacks to what I typically use. It's been exciting to work in the space of making the design process more accessible and functional for remote teams, and preview the prototype in action. I also appreciated having access to Elnaz's previous work and being able to trace the path of such a long-running research project; this really opened my eyes to the different processes which lead up to the final product development. I'm immensely appreciative of Elnaz's collaborative spirit and mentorship throughout this research fellowship.