Publications / 2015 Proceedings of the 32nd ISARC, Oulu, Finland

Fabrication of BIM CAVE 2: Challenges in Handling 9 Screen Walls

Julian Kang, Jaeheum Yeon, Swarochisa Kangregula
Pages 1-5 (2015 Proceedings of the 32nd ISARC, Oulu, Finland, ISBN 978-951-758-597-2, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

The Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), first introduced in 1992, is a projection-based Virtual Reality system that surrounds the viewer with 4 screens arranged in a cube. Those who are surrounded by large screens, displaying the viewer-centered images of a 3D computer model, could gain a certain level of feeling that they are actually walking in the model. As Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology has been widely utilized in the construction industry, especially during pre-construction coordination meetings, one may wonder if construction professionals would be able to better review the Building Information Model if they were able to bring the model to the CAVE system. However, the computer application for the CAVE system is developed with OpenGL in a Unix platform, and therefore does not recognize many file formats that the construction industry is using for BIM. It would take a significant amount of time to convert the BIM data file to a 3D model that can be recognized by the CAVE application. One may also experience the loss of information in BIM while the data file is getting converted. To review the Building Information Model in the CAVE system without converting data file format, a research team at Texas A&M University developed a Computer Aided Virtual Environment for BIM (BIM CAVE) using a commercial BIM application in 2011. The BIM CAVE is consisting of 3 video walls creating a semi-circular space, and 3 computers assigned to each video wall. One video wall is made of four 46-inch screens, and in total, 12 screens consist the BIM CAVE. We use Autodesk NavisWorks to handle the geometry of a 3D model and associated information. The camera location and its aiming direction in the NavisWorks model are controlled by a plug-in computer application our team developed on top of NavisWorks. The plug-in application synchronizes the camera location in the NavisWorks model across 3 computers in real time as the user is handling the center computer to walk through the model. Although the BIM CAVE is using 12 46-inch screens to build a video wall, users can still see the objects beyond the edge of the video wall, which hinders them from experiencing a full sense of presence in the BIM CAVE. To help users get a full sense of presence in the BIM CAVE, we are currently fabricating a new BIM CAVE using 9 computers and 9 video walls, consisting of a total of 36 46-inch ultra-narrow LED displays. Synchronizing the camera location and its aiming direction across 9 NavisWorks models created unprecedented challenges in terms of handling a rotational matrix in the plug-in computer application. This paper presents the nature of the problem we experienced and how we handle this challenge to fabricate a new BIM CAVE with 9 computers and 36 monitors.

Keywords: BIM, CAVE, Advanced Computing