CRII: Cyberlearning: Mobile Computers to Enhance the Building Industry and Education

建筑业一直受到批评，因为与其他行业相比，它的生产率落后，而且每年由于互操作性而浪费数十亿美元。该行业面临的部分挑战是，建筑物不能通过物理原型来测试性能，这使得每一座新建筑都是同类建筑中的第一座。为了帮助规划独特的设计，项目团队通常创建关键空间(医院病房、审判室等)的物理或虚拟现实(VR)模型。为项目决策提供信息。虽然物理模型确实支持直观的探索，但对于快速测试“假设”设计替代方案来说，它们可能是具有挑战性的。虽然虚拟现实模型可以快速考虑各种设计方案，但它们只能模拟物理空间的导航，这可能会扭曲虚拟现实用户对设计的理解。这项CRII研究旨在利用增强现实(AR)同时实现纯物理样机的物理探索好处和VR样机的快速设计概念实验好处。类似于电视转播的美式橄榄球比赛中的黄色“先下”线，AR允许用户看到叠加在真实空间之上的虚拟内容。移动信息技术(IT)，包括智能手机、平板电脑和头盔显示器(HMD)，将与现有的建筑信息模型(BIM)内容一起使用，以支持基于AR的设计和可施工性审查会议。行业参与者将根据他们所关心的项目，使用所产生的技术来查看和修改房间布局。研究参与者的感知和可观察的行为将被记录和分析。这将有助于更好地理解AR在生成项目决策时如何促进(或潜在地阻碍)行业从业者的设计理解。最终，这个项目将为未来的研究人员和实践者提供一个重要的资源，他们需要对提供特定人类利益的技术的使用进行战略性规划。这项工作的PI已经与亚利桑那州凤凰城的设计和建筑公司合作。这些公司将为即将到来的项目共享BIM内容，这些内容将被导入Unity游戏引擎，并使用Vuforia链接到打印的基准标记，以便实现AR注册。这种开发方法将允许将相同的AR环境导出到所研究的每个基于Android的移动IT设备。一旦所有AR设备都为审查会议做好准备，行业参与者将试验打印基准标记的放置。每个标记将代表一个建筑元素，以允许修改设计。当参与者使用提供的移动IT查看标记时，他们将看到相应的全尺寸AR模型。这种案例研究方法将允许PI在自然和现实的背景下探索设计审查过程，同时测试AR可视化作为研究干预。活动前和活动后的问卷将被用来收集参与者基于感知的反馈，而视频和音频记录将为随后对观察到的行为进行分析提供文件。研究人员假设，尽管从技术上讲，所有设备都将显示相同的AR环境，但AR仍将支持(或阻碍)不同参与者的设计理解。由于这种差异可能会影响决策，因此将使用现有的与施工相关的框架(概念产品/过程矩阵模型或CPPMM；以及DEEPAND框架：描述、解释、评估、预测、替代、谈判、决策)来具体衡量设计理解的影响，以评估设计和可施工性审查会议。

The building industry has been criticized for lagging in productivity compared to other industries and for wasting billions of dollars annually due to interoperability. Part of this industry's challenge is that buildings cannot be physically prototyped to test performance, making every new building a first-of-its-kind. To help plan for unique designs, project teams often create either physical or virtual reality (VR) mockups of critical spaces (hospital patient rooms, courtrooms, etc.) to inform project decisions. While physical mockups do enable intuitive exploration, they can be challenging for quickly testing "what-if" design alternatives. And while VR mockups allow for quick consideration of design alternatives, they can only simulate navigation through a physical space, which can skew the comprehension of a design by VR users. This CRII research aims to use augmented reality (AR) to realize, at once, both the physical exploration benefits of purely physical mockups and the rapid-design-concept-experimentation benefits of VR mockups. Similar to the yellow "first-down" line on televised American football games, AR allows users to see virtual content superimposed on top of a real view of a space. Mobile information technologies (IT), including smartphones, tablets, and head-mounted displays (HMD), will be used with existing Building Information Model (BIM) content to enable AR-based design and constructability review sessions. Industry participants will use the resulting technologies to view and modify room layouts based on their project concerns. The perceptions and observable behaviors of the research participants will be recorded and analyzed. This will contribute to a better understanding of how AR may facilitate (or potentially hinder) design comprehension among industry practitioners when generating project decisions. Ultimately, this project will provide a critical resource for future researchers and practitioners who need to strategically plan for the use of technology that affords specific human benefits.The PI on this work has partnered with design and construction companies in Phoenix, AZ. These companies will share BIM content for upcoming projects, which will be imported into the Unity game engine and linked to printed fiducial markers using Vuforia in order to enable AR registration. This development approach will allow the same AR environment to be exported to each of the Android-based mobile IT devices explored. Once all AR devices are prepared for the review sessions, industry participants will experiment with the placement of printed fiducial markers. Each marker will represent a single building element to allow for design modifications. When participants view the markers with the provided mobile IT, they will see a corresponding AR mockup at full scale. This case-study approach will allow the PI to explore the process of design review in a natural and realistic context while testing the AR visualization as a research intervention. Pre- and post-activity questionnaires will be used to collect perception-based feedback from the participants, while video and audio recordings will provide documentation for subsequent analysis of observed behaviors. The investigator hypothesizes that, even though all devices will technically show the same AR environment, the AR will nevertheless enable (or hinder) design comprehension differently for different participants. Because such differences may impact decision-making, the design comprehension impacts will be specifically measured using existing construction-related frameworks (Conceptual Product/Process Matrix model, or CPPMM; and the DEEPAND framework: Description, Explanation, Evaluation, Prediction, Alternatives, Negotiation, Decisionmaking) for assessing design and constructability review sessions.