Virtual Construction: Interactive Tools for Collaboration in Virtual Reality

Virtual technologies and game engines provide new possibilities for collaborative virtual design within digital building models. The current paper describes an approach, in which computer-aided design (CAD) models of buildings are transferred into a game engine based environment, where they can be reviewed and further designed collaboratively. Following a user-centered design (UCD) process based on interviews and iterative interactions with designers and architects, the prototype of Virtual Construction─a game engine based platform for collaborative virtual design meetings─was designed and implemented using Unreal Engine 4. The interactive tools developed can be used both in full immersive virtual reality and using traditional devices (e.g. laptop or desktop computers). Based on identified user needs, interaction techniques were implemented for moving, rotating, and aligning objects, adding and resizing shapes and objects, as well as moving and measuring distances in the three-dimensional (3D) building model. In addition, the communication techniques implemented based on user needs included synchronous features such as voice communication, text chat, pointing, and drawing, and asynchronous features such as leaving messages and feedback augmented with screenshots to exact virtual locations. Other implemented scenarios included different lighting scenarios, an evacuation scenario and crowdsourced voting between different designs.