Real-world applications of BIM and immersive VR in construction

Abstract

The integration of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) has many applications within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industries. In this context VR is often highlighted for its ability to convey scale and details, especially when compared to non-immersive visualizations. However, despite being an active area of research, there is currently a lack of real-world studies exploring immersive VR in a construction-oriented context. In addition, there are still technical challenges and barriers for an efficient integration, such as rendering performance and interoperability issues. This paper addresses these issues by investigating the use of immersive, single- and multi-user VR within the openBIM ecosystem. The contribution is two-fold: (a) an in-depth presentation of algorithms and technical details of a multi-user VR application for immersive visualization of large and complex BIMs and (b) an evaluation of this VR system on several real-world construction projects. In all cases the VR visualization has been directly realized from the design teams IFC-models and the multi-user sessions has been performed both co-located as well as fully remote. The results show that multi-user VR improves communication, understanding, and collaboration, and by letting staff with knowledge and experience from construction production review the project in VR, design errors and constructability issues can be identified and resolved before reaching the actual production stage. Moreover, the use of VR is helpful regarding sequencing and planning, and to identify alternative design solutions.