Live Data Visualization of IoT Sensors Using Augmented Reality (AR) and BIM

Recently, the integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology and Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) technologies during the operation and maintenance phase has been increasingly adopted. There has also been a surge of interest in the exploitation of Internet of Things (IoT) for constructed facilities, in the form of wireless networks connecting physical objects (e.g., sensing devices, facility assets, equipment, etc.). Recent IoT systems offer data management and visualization solutions. However, to improve issues such as safety and indoor comfort conditions for facilities, most of the existing IoT deployment do not benefit from the enriched digital representations of BIM and its graphical visualization capabilities. Although the integration of sensor data with BIM models has been investigated in academia, storing such real-time data in a standard and structured manner remains to be further investigated. This research aims to visualize live environmental data collected by IoT agents in the AR environment built upon existing BIM models. In our case study, the environmental data, such as indoor air temperature, light intensity, and humidity are captured by sensors connected to Arduino microcontrollers. Sensor reading are then stored in the BIM model and visualized in both the BIM platform and the AR application in a real-time manner.