Publications / 2021 Proceedings of the 38th ISARC, Dubai, UAE

Establish a Cost Estimation Model for Pre-Sold Home Customization based on BIM and VR

Sheng-Han Tung, Kun-Chi Wang and Ping-Yu Yu
Pages 243-247 (2021 Proceedings of the 38th ISARC, Dubai, UAE, ISBN 978-952-69524-1-3, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

The customer has the opportunity to participate in the space planning of the house when the customer purchases a pre-sold house, which is called a custom modification. The advantage of providing custom modification is that the design of the house can be customized based on the client's living habits. Because the spatial and equipment layout has been specifically designed according to the client's requirements before the handover of the house, the possibility that the client asks to remove compartments and equipment at the decoration stage can be reduced, which can avoid the waste of time, construction materials, and monetary cost. Therefore, the trend of purchasing pre-sold home is increasing. However, when the construction firms communicate with the clients about the modification, they typically use 3D images to present the interior layout of the houses; therefore, the discussion mostly has to depend on imagination. Moreover, when the clients ask for the modification of compartments or styles, the construction firms are unable to immediately present the new style and calculate the price of the modified house. This causes the clients to have difficulty in immediately deciding the style they want, leading to low communication efficiency. The building information modeling (BIM) is the technology of using networked construction data to construct a 3D virtual model of buildings through digitalization and parameterization, thereby presenting the appearance, interior design, and configuration of ancillary facilities. The 3D virtual model also stores the information of various building elements and can clearly present the interior spatial layout and compartments, allowing salespersons and clients to understand the sizes of equipment and space. Therefore, the clients' efficiency of making decisions regarding custom modification can be increased. Although studies have used BIM to perform quantity takeoffs to assist in custom modification, in this approach, engineers still used a third-person perspective to determine the modified components and materials and present the modification plans to the clients. The produced effect still differs from that obtained when the clients personally be present in the house (i.e., from a first-person perspective). Although the third-person perspective enables easy examination of the appearance of the BIM model, examining the interior components of the model remains difficult. It easily causes deviation or errors in quantity takeoffs. Therefore, this study suggested combining BIM with virtual reality (VR). That is, the VR technology was used to present the BIM model from the first-person perspective, while the model's ability of information storage was retained. This can enable clients to rapidly understand the layout of interior space and instantly examine the modified style, and the BIM model can be used to assist in determining the difference in quantity takeoffs before and after the modification. Thus, the communication efficiency between the construction firms and clients can be enhanced.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling; Virtual Reality; Cost Estimation; Pre-Sold Home Customization