**4.1 Objectives**

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Two different software packages have been used in order to develop this new web-site application for teaching Descriptive Geometry: Flash® and Dreamweaver®. A very short

The software Flash® (Reinhardt, 2004) is a commercial application whose main objective is to generate animations for the web using vectors. The properties of the software fit very well with the development of the project. On the one hand vector graphics are used and secondly, there is a direct interaction of the user with the animations. Flash ® works creating vector illustrations, that is, mathematical representations of straight lines, curve lines, colours and positions. One advantage of the vector illustrations is that the quality of the illustration does not depend on the resolution. Another advantage is that they have the ability to be downloaded very fast as their weight is really small compared with other illustrations with equivalent map of bits. Every example developed for the web application does not weight more than 80 Kb which is very interesting for the students because they can

There is still another advantage for the students and it is that the licence is needed for the creation of the files, or the exercises in our case, but not for the visualization of the files. Flash compiles the executable file .exe or the file .swf that can be executed from the most known web navigators with just an open plugin available for most of them. The estimations are that 80 % of the computers can visualize Flash applications so that every documentation

The software Dreamweaver® (Lowery, 2001) is also a commercial application that provides the user with many tools that help very much in the activity of the design and the creation of web sites. With this kind of software the user is able to create very complex web sites, with thousands of pages, animations and sounds with very little knowledge on programming. In the development of this web site, the authors have used the Cascade Style Sheets (CSS) as they improve the web documents design and presentation. In general, the

Fig. 1. Different navigation systems a) lineal, b) hierarchical, and c) complete

explanation on their use is done in the following sections.

open them in an easy way, even with narrow band Internet.

developed using Flash can be easily used by any student any where.

**3.2 The software packages** 

**3.2.1 Flash** 

**3.2.2 Dreamweaver** 

The main objective of the web site is the on-line publication of tutorials for the Descriptive Geometry study. The potential users of the web site are undergraduate students of engineering and students of Descriptive Geometry in general (Rodriguez de Abajo, 2007; Rubio & Muñoz-Abella, 2011).

The tutorials are divided into theoretical resumes of the fundamentals of Orthographic Projection (Monge Projection) and a collection of exercises with animated step by step solutions, that helps the students to understand de course. The application presented here gives support to the master classes as intended, and also allows the utilization in the elearning process, or the distance learning, by those students who are far away from the teaching places.

As mentioned before, the application merges the use of two commercial software packages which allows first, the preparation of the animations of the exercises in light and easy-to-use files, and secondly, the organization of the contents in a very friendly web site.

Together with the animated 2D solutions of the exercises, the application shows the 3D animated solutions, that constitutes an original contribution to the web applications on the field of Descriptive Geometry teaching.

### **4.2 Structure**

The web site is divided into three parts: main page, theoretical concepts and solved exercises (Fig. 2).

The main page is the home of the web site and can be considered as the main entrance to the web application. In Fig. 3 a) and b) both versions in Spanish and in English are shown. In this first page, as can be seen, the objectives of the application are given. This page is intended also to give the instructions for the use of the application in a very short and easyto-understand manner. In the top and in the left side of the main page a set of buttons allows the navigation to the different pages and places of the site. Those at the top are the links to the theoretical resumes and those at the left side guide the users to the animated step by step solutions of the exercises.

The second part of the web site is devoted to the theoretical resumes of the Orthographic Projection. The resumes are organized in pages by sections with the fundamentals of the subject. So, there is a section or a page for the fundamentals related with the point, there is another one for the straight line, for the plane and so on. As mentioned before, the way to move from one section to another is making use of the buttons at the top of the page. An example of this theoretical part is shown in Fig.4.

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Fig. 3b. Main page of the application (English version)

Fig. 4. Example of the theoretical contents page: intersections concepts

buttons of the left hand side of the main page.

The last part of the web site is dedicated to the exercises, the most practical part of the site, and probably the most helpful part of the site for the students. It contains the animated solutions of the exercises. To get the solutions, the users have to use the aforementioned

#### Fig. 2. Scheme of organization of the web site


Fig. 3a. Main page of the application (Spanish version)

Fig. 2. Scheme of organization of the web site

Fig. 3a. Main page of the application (Spanish version)


Fig. 3b. Main page of the application (English version)


Fig. 4. Example of the theoretical contents page: intersections concepts

The last part of the web site is dedicated to the exercises, the most practical part of the site, and probably the most helpful part of the site for the students. It contains the animated solutions of the exercises. To get the solutions, the users have to use the aforementioned buttons of the left hand side of the main page.

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From Fig. 6 to Fig. 12 different snapshots of the animated solutions are presented. In each one, the part of the drawing corresponding to the current step is coloured in light colours (originally in orange in the application) while the previously drawn lines are represented in black. When a step has finished, a little arrow in the right bottom corner of the screen is illuminated in green, which indicates that the new step can start. In this way, the students can think or imagine, before starting the new animation sequence, how the solution will continue. The end of the proposed 2D exercise solution is shown in Fig. 12. In this snapshot,

Once the problems have been solved in the 2D option, all the exercises proposed in the web site are solved, for a better understanding and following the same steps which guided the 2D solution, but in a 3D animation. The example of the 3D animation of the same exercise is shown in the snapshots from Fig. 13 to 19. The 3D animated solution is a particularly interesting characteristic of the application because it helps the students to connect the 2D solutions of the problems, which are those they have to draw in pencil and paper, with the

In Fig. 13 the transformation of the 2D statement to the 3D one is shown. Fig. 14 to 19 show the snapshots of the 3D solution following the same steps than the 2D solution. In Fig. 19 the final drawing represents the solution in 3D which coincides with that obtained by 2D Orthographic Projection. The figures in 3D help the student to understand the main

every line represented during the previous step in now drawn in black.

real 3D problem.

concepts of each part of the subject.

Fig. 6. Explanation of the exercise statement

The explained application can be used by any student providing he knows the link and, as it was said before, the application is used by our students as a distance tool for their personal work, especially enhanced within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the reforms of the Bologna Process introduced recently in most of the European Universities. For the distance learning usage, the application is included on a platform in which the contact with students is done permanently through e-mail and electronic forums supervised by professors.
