1. CE 597 – VAR for A/E/C
Term Paper Presentation
Instructor: Presented by:
Dr. Philip S Dunston Srinivasa Nookala

2.  To review the current and potential
applications of VR/AR in the construction
industry
 To quantify the advantages and limitations of
all the applications reviewed
 To explore processes by which emerging
technologies can be introduced into
construction organizations

3.  Limited to the applications of VR/AR in the
design phase of the construction of buildings
 Design applications were found to be at a more
advanced stage due to the fact that computer
visualization and modeling techniques have always
been an important part of building design

4.  Virtual Reality (VR) - Technology, which
allows a user to interact with a computer-
simulated environment that is primarily
presented visually, but may also incorporate
other sensory experience (e.g., aural, haptic). It
is also a medium, which is interactive, spatial,
and real-time (Whyte 2002).
 Desktop VR
 Immersive VR

5.  Augmented Reality (AR) allows the user to see
the real world, with virtual objects
superimposed upon or composited with the
real world.
 AR supplements reality, rather than completely
replacing it.
 Some researchers define AR in a way that
requires the use of Head-Mounted Displays
(HMDs)

6.  Four technologies are considered very crucial
for VR (Durlach and Mavor 1995; Burdea and Coiffet 1994):
 The visual displays that immerse the user in the
virtual world and that block out contradictory
sensory impressions from the real world;
 The graphics rendering system that generates the
ever-changing images;
 The tracking system that continually reports the
position and orientation; and
 The database construction and maintenance system
for building and maintaining detailed and realistic
models of the virtual world.

7.  VR forms a natural medium for building
design as it provides 3D visualization, can be
manipulated in real-time and can be used
collaboratively to explore different stages of the
construction process.
 With VR techniques, direct manipulation and
interaction with models is possible
 VR is used to communicate ideas from
designers to clients by generating walkthrough
models to test the design in a more direct
manner.
 Visualization can be used to model the
construction sequence in order to simulate and
monitor site progress

8.  Superscape: Early PC based VR packages
 Difficult to import large-scale 3D models from CAD
into Superscape.
 Construction scheduling (Bouchlaghem et al. 2005).

9.  VRML: Virtual Reality Modeling Language
(VRML)
 International standard for 3D modeling (VRML‘97
— ISO/IEC 14772)
 VR model built from CAD data of the house type
translated into VRML and assembled in an authoring
tool (Bouchlaghem et al. 2005)

10.  CALVIN: Collaborative Architectural Layout via
Immersive Navigation (CALVIN) - prototype system
that applies the idea of providing multiple perspectives
for collaborative design (Leigh 1996)
 User interaction with objects is limited in CALVIN.
 CALVIN has a very limited form of persistence.

11.  VR and VE - benefits and potentials of both
technological and psychological capabilities in
creating engagement, interactive and
immersive learning experiences for the people
using these technologies.
 VR has a lot of potential market demand,
primarily in the Healthcare sector, where they
develop physical mockups of patient rooms
before they are actually constructed.

12.  AR - combination of virtual object(s) with real
scene(s), giving the user the ability to take
advantage of the surrounding environment as
so-called ―background and make decisions
based on virtual objects superimposed over
that real background.
 AR aids general visualization tasks.
 Database containing information about a building's
structure - AR might give architects "X-ray vision"
inside a building (Azuma et al. 1997).

13.  VRAM (Virtual Reality Aided Modeler) - test
bed for three dimensional user interface (3DUI)
techniques
 Better navigation, orientation, and modeling within
virtual (architectural) environments.
 Overlay the virtual environment in the real
environment and can be used to access the impact of
the decisions made during the design phase of the
construction project, especially during building
renovations, remodeling etc.

14.  ARGOS (Augmented Reality through Graphic
Overlays on Stereo video) - makes images
easier to understand during difficult viewing
conditions.
 Virtual lines and objects could aid navigation and
scene understanding during poor visibility
conditions, such as underwater or in fog

15.  One of the most basic problems currently
limiting AR applications is the registration
problem.
 The objects in the real and virtual worlds must
be properly aligned with respect to each other,
or the illusion that the two worlds coexist will
be compromised.

16.  VR/AR technologies
 costly
 high maintenance
Find wide use in
 movie entertainment,
 educational institutions,
 military purposes and
 research laboratories.

17.  The framework of different types of projects
provides a first step towards more
differentiated understanding of VR
applications within the construction industry.
 It can be used as a starting point for exploring
patterns of use of other generic technologies
within this project-based construction sector
and should be tested in future work.

18.  Interaction between design, engineering and
construction firms and their IT suppliers also
requires further study.
 Further study is also required of the role of
intermediary organizations in adapting
technological capacity of the construction
sector to the rate of change in the production of
generic technologies.