virtual building time building process real time

ECPPM Portoroz September 9-11 2002 Prof. Per Christiansson IT in Civil Engineering Aalborg University http://it.civil.auc.dk

Construction: Towards strict process specification or improvised yet

co-ordinated teamwork?

Panel Discussion

Per ChristianssonAalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

http://it.civil.auc.dk/

ECCPM. Portoroz, Slovenia. 9-11 Sept. 2002


Virtual Building TimeBuilding Process Real Time

The Project Management System (PMS) will integrate Virtual Building models, Site Process models, and external information containers. It will also manage matching and updating of the VB sub models as well co-ordination with building site activities. BPrt = Building Process real time, VBt = Virtual Building time to describe time points in life of Virtual Building (sub)models


Moore’s Law still valid


Knowledge Nodes support Knowledge Management

- Participants; number of, type (persons, agents

- Collaboration subject/context & Form of interaction; design, reviews, purchase, learning, brainstorm, negotiation, discussion,

- Communication content to support interaction; e.g. speech, sound, images, music, video, whisper, body language, 3D objects, control information;…..

- Meeting spaces and room definitions; physical, virtual, static, dynamic, mobile and combinations.

- Collaboration artefacts; communication channels, user applications, and information containers


Communication - New Players

Communication is supported by IT-tools. Artifacts may be project, organisations, software (also embedded).

Context is the building life cycle (from idea to re-cycling).


Dynamic Adapted ‘Knowledge’ Containers


Semantic Web

Semantic Web and RDF will help us integrate information/knowledge resources


The Virtual Building Model.

The virtual building contains all documentation of the building including drawings, models, documents etc. It will normally contain redundant information and temporal information describing discipline models and sub models of the building over time.


Knowledge Management Technology

From MetaKM, http://www.metakm.com/ , 'The knowledge management portal for practitioners, researchers, and solution providers.'


Better Knowledge Utilisation

Do you (your organisation) not know what you know?


Project relations

Better dynamic support to handle project information integration


Changes in Process Organisation

Dramatic changes in procurement philosophies, as a result of the internet (partnering model). Partnering model showing the stakeholders joining a

common project group with mutual goals (COWI A/S Denmark)

Nb of important decisions

Time

Higher quality processes &

products


Challenges

- Efficient description/capture of collaboration processes, contexts, and actors

- Virtual Building (with non-redundant meta model) with temporal parameter (and process descriptions)

- Efficient tools to handle temporal data (for process analyses,…)

- Semantically (meta) integrated web based information containers

- Design & implementation of new efficient User Environments (including virtual workspaces)

- Capture of physical construction as-built data


END


DIVERCITY Construction Planning

- VR based tools to organise and optimise the Construction site in 4D (Space and Time)

Project Model


Sequence Model. Contextual Design


Virtual Workspace

- VW is a set of interconnected design rooms that supports innovative (but also “classical”) design procedures.

- software and hardware Infrastructure supporting the design and construction process (access to relevant visualization and communication IT-tools)


DIVERCITY - Virtual Workspace


DIVERCITY - Virtual Workspace definition

'The Virtual Workspace, VW, is the new design room designed to fit new and existing design routines. VW may well be a mixed reality environment. The VW will host all design partners from project start with different access and visibility (for persons and groups) in space and time to the project, and will promote building up shared values in projects. The VW thus acts as a communication space with project information support in adapted appearances. VW gives access to general and specific IT-tools '


DESIGN REVIEW APPLICATIONS (PRODUCTS)

Lighting moduleLighting module

Thermal analysis Thermal analysis modulemodule

External Source

Virtual

Source

Listener

Local Sound

Adjacent Sound

Acoustic moduleAcoustic module


DIVERCITY GOALS

- To improve the process of building design and construction by enabling stakeholders(clients, architects, engineers, contractors, sub-contractors) to operate more efficiently and with better interaction

- Research and Develop a Distributed Virtual Workspace that:

Supports Continuous Design between different phases of the process (and different technical domains) by using a Model Driven (integrated) approach Allows multi-disciplinary project team members to share the same view about the project through a Visual representation

Supports Collaboration between geographically distant sites

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DIVERCITY GOALS

- bring important added value by integrating, into one seamless environment, recent breakthroughs in different (and for the moment separate) technological domains (global illumination simulation, multiresolution techniques, constraint based modelling, acoustics simulation, etc.)

DIVERCITY aims to develop a "shared virtual construction workspace" that will allow construction companies to conduct client briefing, design reviews, simulate what if scenarios, test constructability of buildings, communicate and co-ordinate design activities between teams. Both synchronous and asynchronous interaction will be emphasised in this software framework.

2/2


THE AEC SECTOR

- Complexity due to a high number of mostly small, and usually geographically distant, companies working on one single project

- A major industrial sector in Europé (7% of working population + 14% indirect jobs in related sectors)

- Stakeholders (clients, architects, local authorities, residents, etc.) have, on the basis of 2D drawings, different and incomplete understandings of the planned construction….

- Life cycle thinking and seamless transition of information and process between life cycle phases.

- Complexity due to a high number of mostly small, and usually geographically

1/3


DIVERCITY User Environment.

DIVERCITY

Application data container

DIVERCITY Data container -IFC+

Collab.

Application data container 'CAD'

Appl.


Appl.


Appl.

Collab. Collab.

Virtual WorkspaceVirtual Workspace

Acoustics

Lighting Simulations

Thermal

Analysis

4D building site

Building Model

(IFC,…)

Client briefing


Import Product of Model to Application

SPFfile

IFC C++generator

C++ classes

Divercity

CAD-Tool (ArchiCad)

Clent briefing PreCad


DIVERCITY Design Review Lighting example

- Interactive Radiosity

- Visibility Graph subdivision associated with light transfer links

- High shadows quality and optimised subdivision for real-time exploration (synchronous) (including object motion)

A C D

B


DIVERCITY - Methodology A) user requirements capture, user environment design and early prototyping;

B) implementation of DIVERCITY and end user alpha test (done within the DIVERCITY consortium) of basic functionality of the DIVERCITY products (applications);

C) continued implementation and end user beta tests/evaluations of basic functionality of integrated framework and DIVERCITY products;

D) final end user evaluation of DIVERCITY, and prototype refinement.


Contextual Design Conceptual Work Models

–Flow, structure representing communication and co-ordination necessary to do the work (roles, responsibilities, actions / communication topics, and spaces which in Divercity are regarded as project internal or project external memories and virtual/physical spaces);

–Sequence, showing the detailed work steps necessary to achieve user intents. Sequence models can reveal alternate strategies to achieve the same intent;

–Artefact, showing objects created to support the work;

–Culture, representing constraints on the work caused by policy, culture or values, formal and informal policy of the organisation, business climate, self-image, feelings and fears of the people in the organisation, possibility for privacy;

Physical, showing the physical structure of the work environment as it affects the work.


COWI EXPERIENCESDivercity is an example on a end-user co-defined developed workspace and, to our knowledge, one of the most coherent at the moment and might be the future platform for further plug-ins.

The pro-active end user involvement have made significant modifications to the software architecture as well as to the individual products.

The end-user involvement in the preparation and the planning of test scenarios contributed in ensuring that the VE will meet the requirements of the industry.

The IFC-standard which is a core component in the Divercity framework is progressively been introduced to the Danish construction industry. At the moment COWI is participating in a test of the standard on the new head-quarters for the National Broadcasting Company (DR)


Future Virtual Workspace features

Based on this definition, the future distributed workspaces will have the following features:

- The advanced administration tools for distributed personal, team, and project information repositories;

- accessibility to virtual building models and collaboration environments through wireless networked workspaces and low cost virtual reality environments;

- appropriate security levels for sharing the information over the inter/intranets;

- process and workflow management tools to support variations in working practices between different projects;

- definition and design of new ICT tools to support collaboration and communication with end-user.

Divercity has created a virtual workspace for construction, which includes some of the features listed above. The details of Divercity’s Collaborative Workspace are discussed later in this handbook.


DIVERCITY - RESULTS

- Applications integrated into a extendible framework.

- Framework based on Internet based client-server technology ( eViper).

- Methodology for efficient user requirements capture, user environment modelling and system development.

http://www.e-divercity.com


DIVERCITY WPs

1. User Requirements, Tests and Validation (82.5 months) [CIT]

2. Client Briefing Workspace Module (32 months) [USAL]

3. Design Review Module (91.4 months) [CSTB]

4. Construction Workspace Module (34.9 months) [VTT]

5. System Design and Integration (21.2 months) [CSSI]

6. Trials (30.8 months) [CIT]

7. Exploitation and Dissemination (10.5 months) [CIT]

8. Project Management (14.5 months) [CIT]


DIVERCITY Framework

LightinLightingg

tooltool

AcoustiAcoustic toolc tool

Thermal Thermal analysis analysis

tooltool

NetworkNetwork

Datawarehouse- structured data (IFC 2.x)- EXPRESS-based semantics

RenderinRendering g

engineengine

Optimization Optimization modulemodule

Geometry Geometry modelermodeler

ConstraintConstraintmanagermanager

Responsive Workbench

Immersive space

Desktop systems

virtual building time building process real time

Documents