[U26] - Cake Decorator

The inspiration for this project stemmed from our creativity and wanting to implement technology with hobbies whilst honing skills as well. We saw an opportunity to bring cake design into the digital age, allowing decorators to experiment and perfect their designs before ever touching a piping bag.

Our project allows you to interact with a realistic virtual cake and a comprehensive set of decorating tools. This immersive experience allows you to experiment with colours, sizes, templates and intricate designs in real time. By visualising every detail we can ensure that the final cake meets your exact expectations. Thus reducing guesswork and enhancing your creative confidence before transitioning to the physical decorating process.

The project was built using Unity to create an interactive and immersive experience. We started by building the wireframe, taking into account different tools used for cake decorating. Integration with Meta Quest 3 hardware was a critical step, the Meta building blocks enabled us to interact with the designs in a way that felt natural and seamless.

The journey was not without its challenges. One of the main hurdles was implementing the passthrough element of our project into the headset. This was quite difficult as we were unable to fully visualise our project. We're not used to working with Unity so we were learning as we go, this also slowed down most processes.

We were able to understand the fundamentals of Unity, a powerful game engine that became the backbone of our project. Creating visually pleasing designs was a critical goal, and Unity’s versatility enabled us to bring our artistic visions to life. We attempted to explore various aspects of design, from crafting realistic cake textures that responded to light and shadow. Unity’s robust rendering capabilities allowed us to push the boundaries of what’s possible in a virtual environment, ensuring that each element of our project was not only functional but also aesthetically compelling.

We learned a great deal about the potential and challenges of Mixed Reality (MR) and Extended Reality (XR) technologies. Additionally, we gained a better understanding of the specific needs and workflows of cake decorators, which informed the functionality and usability of the tool. Collaborating with users to refine the project highlighted the importance of user-centered design in creating intuitive and effective tools.