Qualitative comparison of 2D and 3D perception for information sharing dedicated to manufactured product design

Collaborative design of manufactured products is based on expertise sharing and decision making. It is a cognitive process where expert information must be communicated to collaborators for efficient decisions. CAD tools remain widely dedicated to single user and do not ease the collaboration process. With new arising technology including 3D devices, one can imagine that complex 3D information will be more easily shared by designers. Indeed, even if virtual reality technologies are not new, one can observe that few use-cases are deployed within industrial processes. Here several use-cases are analyzed to classify the interest of 2D rendering respect to 3D rendering within cognitive information sharing. A first qualitative analysis grid is proposed. The success of technology deployment depends on the capacity for the technology to appear as natural for the processed action.