Keywords: education, geometric modelling, visual simulation, virtual reality.

A Virtual Reality application in construction-training domain was developed. The virtual model serves as a didactic tool for Civil Engineering students of disciplines concerned with buildings construction. Geometric Modelling and Virtual Reality techniques are used on the visual simulation of construction processes and to define user-friendly interfaces in order to access construction information, which could prove useful to civil engineering professionals. The construction of a double brick wall is the case studied [1]. The wall is defined as a 3D geometric model formed with the several components needed to construct it. Using the wall's virtual model it is possible to show, in an interactive way, the sequence of the construction process and observe, from any point of view, the configurations in detail of the building components. This is a didactic application in the construction processes domain of great interest to civil engineering students.

The wall's virtual model was developed within the activities of a research work: Virtual Reality in Optimisation of Construction Project Planning - POCTI/ 1999/ ECM/ 36300 [2], ICIST/FCT now in progress at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon. The main aim of the research project is to develop interactive three-dimensional models where students can learn about planning construction activities by means of the visual simulation of its development.

As a first step, a prototype was developed that serves as a didactic tool for civil engineering students of disciplines concerned with building construction. The study case is a common external wall composed with two brick panels. The selected construction component focuses different aspect of the construction process: the structural part, the vertical panels and the opening elements. The 3D model of the wall was defined using the AutoCAD system, a computer-aided drawing system common in civil engineering offices. To create the virtual model, first all building elements of the wall must be identified and defined as 3D models. Structural elements (demarking the brick panels), vertical panels of the wall and two standard opening elements, were modelled. In order to provide, later in a virtual space, the simulation of the geometric evolution of a wall in construction, the 3D model must be defined as a set of individual objects, each one representing a wall component. Next, the wall model was transposed to a Virtual Reality system based on a programming language oriented to objects, the EON system [3].

The Virtual Reality system should allow the manipulation of the elements of the wall model according to the plane prescribed for carrying out the construction. To define the construction process animation, the all process was decomposed in 23 phases following the real execution of this kind of element in the work on site. The programmed animation simulates the progression of the wall construction. For each construction step the correspondent geometric model is shown. In this way, the virtual model simulates the changes that really occur while the wall is in construction in a real work place. By manipulating the camera with zooms over the model, all configuration details that the components of a real wall must present can be observed.

While the animation is in progress, a box text is presented in the display. It contains construction information about the step in exhibition. The text includes the number, the activity description and the material specification and quantification concerned to each phase. The virtual animation presents, below the visualization area, a toolbar. The set of small rectangles included in it shows the percentage of construction up to the step visualized. To exhibit the next phase the user must click in any part of the model. To go back to an anterior step the user must click over the corresponding rectangle in that progression toolbar.

Using the developed virtual model, allows students to learn about construction planning of a specific situation in the space provided by the virtual environment. This communication is then oriented to teaching construction techniques by means of virtual environments. It is expected that the implementation of the prototype will be able to contribute to support teaching disciplines concerned with civil engineering. Another objective in creating these kind of virtual applications is to show in which way new technologies afford fresh perspectives for the development of new tools in the training of construction processes.

1

P.G. Henriques,d A.Z. Sampaio, "Interactive Project Planning in Construction Based on Virtual Reality Technology", IKM - 16th International Conference on the Applications of Computer Science and Mathematics in Architecture and Civil Engineering, Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar, 6, 10-12 June 2003.

2

P.G. Henriques, A.Z. Sampaio, "Project Program: Virtual Reality in Optimisation of Construction Project Planning", POCTI/1999/ECM/36300, ICIST/FCT, Lisbon, Portugal, 1999.

3

"Introduction to Working in EON Studio", EON Reality, Inc., 2003.

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