A new virtual reality system allows architects, developers and their clients to view 3-D models of buildings in their intended shape, precisely where the buildings will be constructed. This provides a much clearer, realistic impression of the design. Researchers from Fraunhofer FIT will demonstrate the system at BAU Munich, a building & construction industry trade show, held from January 19 to 24, 2015.
Digitization is fundamentally changing the work processes in architectural design, planning and construction work. Increasingly, CAD drawings are transferred to a central 3-D Building Information Model (BIM). Here, all relevant data of a building are available in digital form and can be utilized in a wide range of planning and construction tasks. Utilizing available BIM data, real-time 3-D engines and special localizing sensors, Fraunhofer FIT’s system generates attractive visualizations of the planned building, as it would be seen from the user’s current location.
The hardware/software system, dubbed Auto AR, can be mounted on any car, whose location is determined with high precision. The location data is used to generate views of the digital building model that correspond to the current angle of view of the front-seat passenger in the car. Wearing a VR head-mounted display, the user can “immerse” in the model of the planned building. The car can take her/him to any desired position on the construction area.
“The virtual image of the building is superimposed with a centimeter precision. Architects, developers or future residents, thus, get a much better, realistic impression of the planned building in situ,” explains Dr. Leif Oppermann, head of the group Mixed and Augmented Reality Solutions of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT.
Moreover, the data can be recorded and played back at a later stage, also showing variations, and potentially running on different devices.
Auto AR provides the technology for a whole range of applications. One example is civic participation in large-scale construction projects. It is mandated by law in Germany and the public increasingly gets involved in it. On the other hand, civic participation tends to make the projects more complicated and, thus, time-consuming and expensive. Here, Auto AR might be used as a high-tech complement to the public display of paper documents, simplifying the communication between citizens, developers and public administration by supporting inspection by the public, as well as concrete and structured feedback early in the design and planning process.
