A Virtual Reality Framework for RC Building Design and Construction Cooperation

With the advance in computer technology, virtual reality (VR), which allows users to explore and interact within three-dimensional (3D) virtual environment, becomes affordable and begins to play a vital role in various engineering practices. By establishing 3D VR models, engineers are able to sense, examine, simulate and evaluate their design works and identify inconsistency between design and construction to ensure work quality. Building a 3D VR model is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Hence, it is important to develop an effective approach to relax the aforementioned limitation for rapid prototyping VR models. In this paper, we propose a framework that correlates engineering design process and World Wide Web technology to generate Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) models. An information system for the design and construction of reinforced concrete (RC) building structures has been developed to demonstrate the versatility and robustness of the proposed framework.