NASA SUITS

RISD DesignAR’s user interface design focuses on simple and clear visuals that allow for quick access to the main functions astronauts need to perform while in space. The user interface allow the user to checkout the map for navigation, gives out warning messages for communication, allows users to get their vital information.

A 3D rendition of Magritte’s Painting, La Vengeance, in VR. There is nothing more challenging than recreating the works of Surrealist painters in 3D, as surrealism is meant to depict illogical, unrealistic scenes.

For this project, I am on the programming team, in charge of the Navigation component. This means that the app has to work at the NASA test-site in Houston under dim lighting, where the 'astronaut' can select two locations on the map and be able to follow the arrows to arrive there. Since NASA didn't provide us with any real data to work with, I invented solution to the challenge of AR‐GPS navigation by integrating real life GPS data with Unity’s built‐in NavMesh Agent.

I hand-painted a height map and created a terrain that the Nav Mesh agent uses to navigate from point A to point B. Inside the interface, it looks like a straight line that rests on the environment ahead of us. My teammates Kienan and Viola integrated GPS data with my scripts.

Recovered footage from the HoloLens of NASA evaluator testing our SUITS’ team’s navigation portion of the software.

Initially, I thought that I would have to write my own path-finding algorithm but after knowing that we have no data about the test-site but a bird-view, and that we cannot use Azure for locations, I realised that we could use Unity's built-in navigation algorithm by using NavMesh agent.

Another huge challenge is getting Unity and MRTK set up on my MacBook. Setting up DuoBoot and windows 10 on my computer took way longer (and crashed way more frequently) than I had expected it to.

Recovered footage from the HoloLens of NASA evaluator testing our SUITS’ team’s navigation portion of the software.

On the final test date, my teammates who were able to make it to the site were able to integrate my Navigation project into the main project, and were able to hook up the GPS data with my code and navigation between sites!

There aren't always existing solutions out there, sometimes it takes a very long time to do research, to try out methods, but the trial and error is always worth it and is part of learning!