Mohd Fairuz Shiratuddin

Design review is a process of reviewing construction design documents to ensure that they reflect the owner’s design intent, and are accurate in describing the owner’s desired building or facility. Information generation becomes more intensive as the design stage progresses. The use of valuable information during design review stage can lead to a more comprehensive and high quality design, and a building or facility that is constructible, and within the intended budget. However, in current design practices, valuable design review information is scattered, ineffectively placed, and is not used efficiently. The design review process will be more efficient if this valuable information is integrated and centralized. The author developed a framework to improve the design review process by incorporating a centralized repository of design review information and 3D CAD model, in an interactive Virtual Environment (VE). To develop the framework, the author used Action Research style where he identified and confirmed the design review problem area, promoted the potential solutions to the problem, and developed a prototype. In gathering and analyzing the data for the research, the author used the synthesis of three methods. They include review of literature, a case study (interviews with industry personnel and content analysis of design review documents), and dissemination of the author’s progressive findings in conferences, conference proceedings and journal publications. From his findings, the author developed the framework to improve the design review process by using information filtering based on context-aware concept, coupled with the benefits of a VE. The required design review information in the form of textual, numerical and geometric information is processed (queried, retrieved and stored). The author defined four contexts for information filtering: discipline-centric, task-centric, object-centric, and location-centric. IFTHEN rules are used to trigger the processing of the required design review information and present it to the design reviewer in a VE. A low cost 3D Game Engine is used as the enabling development tool to develop a work-in-progress (WIP) prototype design review application in a VE.

The research introduces methods of utilising 3D Game Engine that prevails in the First Person Shooter computer game into developing a usable real-world Walkthrough-VR application. The prototype is targeted at the lower-end of the computer consumer market whereby its operator are normally the home/office and desktop PC users. This technique is proposed as a solution to the limitation of the widely used low cost VR technologies namely Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) and 360” Panoramic View (based on Apple QuickTime VR). In achieving the main objectives, four methods were employed. The first was to find a suitable 3D Game Engine to developing the prototype application. The second was to find distinctive characteristics differences that are present in both FPS Game and Walkthrough-VR application. The third was to determine the added advantages that are present in the FPS Game that can be incorporated into and enhance the Walkthrough-VR application. Finally findings from the three methods were used a guide to develop the prototype. From the successfully developed prototype, it was concluded that by utilising the 3D Game. Engine technology the Walkthrough-VR experience was enhanced in terms of real-time realistic representation and good visual quality. It was proven that a good VR application could be developed using a lower cost desktop computer system where the users have the freedom to explore a visually engaging virtual environment with minimal PC requirement.