Publications / 2020 Proceedings of the 37th ISARC, Kitakyushu, Japan

Improving Construction Demonstrations by Integrating BIM, UAV, and VR

Kun-Chi Wang, Ren-Jie Gao, Sheng-Han Tung and Yuan-Hsiu Chou
Pages 1-7 (2020 Proceedings of the 37th ISARC, Kitakyushu, Japan, ISBN 978-952-94-3634-7, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

In recent years, building information modeling (BIM) has been widely used to create animated simulations for engineering demonstrations. On-site engineers often employ animations generated using a BIM system to explain the current project status to their managers, so that the managers can grasp the actual project status. However, the fidelity of the terrain models built using BIM is relatively low, and the modeling process is labor-intensive. These factors negate the advantages of BIM. To overcome these problems, in this study, images of an engineering site are captured using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and are subsequently used to generate a landscape terrain model of the area surrounding the engineering site by means of image comparison and GPS positioning techniques. The terrain model and the BIM main simulation model are integrated to present the actual site condition. In addition, to further enhance the realism of the integrated model, this study introduces the integrated model into the virtual reality (VR) environment to present the construction site. The manager can check the construction progress of the project easily without having to visit the project site. To test the feasibility of the proposed method, it is applied to a bridge construction project. The results indicate that the aerial photos captured using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can be converted into point cloud models and mesh segmentation models. Both types of models can be imported and integrated into BIM software. However, if other renderings (such as Lumion) or VR software (such as Fuzor) are to be used for further animation production, the photos captured using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can only be converted into mesh segmentation models before importing them for use in subsequent applications.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling; Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; Virtual Reality; Construction Demonstrations