Virtual reality applications for the built environment: Research trends and opportunities

With its advanced capabilities of immersive and interactive visualization, virtual reality (VR) has been advocated to facilitate design, engineering, construction, and management for the built environment. Substantial efforts have thus been devoted to VR-related applications in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry over the last decades, resulting in a vast, diverse, and fragmented body of knowledge. The objective of this research is to systematically gain an in-depth understanding of research trends as well as reveal challenges and opportunities for future research in the area. To achieve this objective, this research explores the state-of-the-art in VR applications for the built environment by a mixed quantitative-qualitative review method. A total of 229 journal articles are collected using a structured data acquisition approach from Scopus and then fed into a bibliometric analysis to construct science maps. By doing so, the main research outlets, articles, and themes of this research field are quantitatively identified. Subsequently, an in-depth qualitative discussion is presented to provide deeper insights into the challenges and opportunities of main research topics. Furthermore, future research directions are proposed as follows: 1) user-centered adaptive design, 2) attention-driven virtual reality information systems, 3) construction training systems incorporating human factors, 4) occupant-centered facility management, and 5) industry adoption. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by synthesizing the state of the art of VR technology for the built environment and exposing its research needs, which can serve both academia and industry in terms of promoting VR applications for the built environment. •A mixed literature review of VR application for the build environment was conducted.•A bibliometric analysis was conducted to depict science maps of VR application.•Research topics and trends are revealed through bibliometric analysis for later discussion.•A qualitative analysis was performed to clarify research challenges and opportunities.•Five potential research areas are identified in the field of VR for the build environment.