Experience the dougong construction in virtual reality

Dougong is a unique culture in Chinese traditional architecture. In University, the Architectural students usually use video, pictures, and even handmade craft to learn the knowledge and culture about Dougong. However, making these complicated Dougong components by hands requires a lot of facilities. To solve these problems, this paper builds a learning application using Virtual Reality (VR) technology, where students can master how to construct Dougong by interacting with the virtual models. In addition to learning module, the application creates a simulated scene showing students the great charm and design ideas of ancient Chinese buildings. The comparison experiments indicate that the students learning via VR-based application identify more Dougong components and their placement than those learning via conventional teaching.