Virtual Reality in Design, Construction and Operation

The vision of the project is to enable quick and exact communication of design intent and engineering information based on BIM and advanced reality capture with Virtual Reality (VR), thereby improving the overall communication between stakeholders, reducing misinterpretations and ensuring that client requirements are met.
Engineering projects are characterized by collaboration between multidisciplinary parties and iterative processes and are highly dependent on the quality of communication between the different actors. In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has presented a great advance in research, development and utilization. VR technologies can greatly benefit the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry and its supply chain in terms of providing capacity to improve communication and data visualization.
The advances and development in computer and display performance experienced in the last decade have made technology accessible to everyone, as the price of hardware and software has rapidly declined. In parallel to this development, the AEC industry has experienced a huge rise in the number of projects executed using Building Information Modelling (BIM), providing ready access to structured project data.
The vision of this project is to enable quick and exact communication of design intent and engineering information based on BIM and advanced reality capture with Virtual Reality. Thereby improving the overall communication between stakeholders by reducing misinterpretations and ensuring that client requirements are met. The aim is to make VR a valuable aid in the communication of design intent in COWI's projects and to promote innovation by exploring improvement potential and advance academic research in applied VR in AEC projects.
A valuable asset in achieving the vision is the project partners’ expertise. COWI brings AEC project and BIM experience, Aalborg University brings VR research and methodical approach, and BIM Equity VR brings VR technological experience and development competence. Through the project, Aalborg University, and society, will gain knowledge on the meaningful implementation of VR technology in a real life setting. COWI will gain a jumpstart in using VR technology in practice and a guide for further implementations in future projects, and BIM Equity VR will gain knowledge, which supports their product development and showcases their platform.