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CONVR2011, International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality, 2011

CONSTRUCTION AIDs: Augmented Information Delivery

Dermott McMeel, Dr

Architecture, University of Auckland

d.mcmeel@auckland.ac.nz http://dermottmcmeel.wordpress.com/

Robert Amor, Associate Professor

Computer Science, University of Auckland

trebor@cs.auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~trebor/

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the potential delivery of design information to construction sites through

smartphones and tablet computing devices. There continues to be an increase in the complexity of Building

Information Models (BIMs), which are capable of representing a variety of building aspects. This can encompass

physical models, construction models as well as thermal and energy models. Despite the wide spread adoption of

computing by architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industries over the last thirty years, and notable

attempts to deliver information digitally (Fu et al. 2006), this sophisticated data continues to be abstracted topaper drawings for information transfer. In this paper we review test cases in data delivery that appropriate the

good enough methodology found in contemporary computing culture. Augmented Reality (AR) tools are used as

a vehicle to deliver information, which provides insights into the resistances and opportunities that AR and mobile

computing might present within design and construction. In this project we adopt the good enough doctrine that

resonates with contemporary digital media. Using AR techniques (GPS, LLC tags, markers etc.) we rethink the

delivery of information direct to location through smartphones and handheld tablets. Our project chooses not to

replicate sophisticated BIM functionality such as collision detection, 4D time management or programmatic

interrelations that has been explored elsewhere, for example in Plume and Mitchells A Multi-Disciplinary

Design Studio using a Shared IFC Building Model (2005). Rather, following suppositions from the good enough

phenomenon, it potentially supports the provision of good enough information to a critical mass of participants.

It interrogates notions of information densification and localised delivery, which are shifting the contemporary

landscape of consumer computing. Finally it presents observational evidence that points to opportunities and

resistance that AR may offer within design and construction.

KEYWORDS: Augmented Reality, Smartphones, Mobile computing, Communication, Construction, Design,

BIM.

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