Integrating Augmented Reality into Building Information Modeling for Facility Management Case Studies

Abstract

The management of complex information flow can be a crucial aspect of Facility Management (FM). Because of the increasing complexity of the present-day building projects, FM activities, for example, maintaining a building facility or a system, normally involve enormous human multitasking across different knowledge domains. Lessons learned from the present successful FM instances manifest that the FM teams are increasingly interested in applying more viable technologies to achieve the effective management of massive information. Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology is one of the promising approaches, as it forms a platform for the users to manage the information of a facility and leverages virtual digital representations as a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle. Nevertheless, the fully immersive environments produced by BIM still lack the capability of mapping a virtual world into a real world, or vice versa. Augmented Reality (AR) is emerging as an advanced visualization which is possible to bridge the gap. It enables the demonstration of BIM context into the real world, and is envisaged to effectively improve the way of how information is displayed. Meanwhile, the virtuality-toreality changeover from BIM to AR is conductive to a better understanding of information about a facility from the human perception perspective. The objective of the study is to explore that the merging of AR with BIM is a way for improving the information search and management in FM applications. This chapter firstly brief what is FM and how it is generally implemented. Followed by the state-of-the-art review of BIM/AR aided FM research, the chapter then proposes the viability of integrating BIM and AR and demonstrates its efficacy of processing complex onsite information based on four BIM+AR case studies. Finally, the chapter discusses the technological transferability issues in terms of deploying more and more BIM+AR scenarios in the prospective FM process.

Virtual reality simulation of highway bridges as a teaching tool in engineering

“…If the students get information through personal experience and according to Edgar Dale's con of experience, "after two weeks the human brain tends to remember 10% of what is read, 20% of what is heard, 30% of what is seen, and 90% of simulations or personal experience", more research on the actual relation between VR simulation and personal experience could solidify VR as a valid method of teaching. Wang et al showed that using VR for memorization showed an 8.8% improvement overall in recall accuracy using the VR [12]. VR has great potential for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction industries, as a person can experience realistic firstperson situations without having to care about injuries [13].…”

Digital twin-driven intelligence disaster prevention and mitigation for infrastructure: advances, challenges, and opportunities

“…The core of XR implementation is its detailed 3D model, which also requires information on the surrounding environment (Sampaio and Martins 2014). BIM is a multi-dimensional (3D space, 4D time, 5D cost, and ND applications) model information integration technology; therefore, the combination of BIM and XR will be more helpful in promoting the application of XR technology in infrastructurerelative fields (Wang et al 2015). Because of the high-fidelity and implantable characteristics of XR, it is likely to be applied to the planning of infrastructure disaster avoidance systems.…”

Benefits and Challenges of Integrating IoT, VR & AR in the BIM-based Facility Management Process: Literature and Case-based Analysis

“…When integrating BIM with augmented reality, there are five advantages to FM: intelligent error diagnosis, visual operating instructions, state perception, building performance monitoring, and portable path instructions. Figure 14 illustrates the application areas and benefits of BIM + AR in FM [38].…”

“…In this case study [38], the application of AR in facility management was studied to the MRI room in the health care project located in Perth. The model of the room was prepared using BIM Application, then they set the locations of virtual reality visualization equipment on different patches of the room, the hidden tubes model was installed in the shape, the air conditioning units were represented, and the MRI equipment was located in the model, as shown in Figure 15.…”