AR Will Solve All of BIM’s Problems
The following article will explore why I believe Augmented Reality (AR) is the key piece of technology that will allow BIM to become truly useful in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) projects. It is based on academic research papers and reputable industry articles. I’m a final year civil engineering/business student at the University of Newcastle, a qualified civil/structural draftsman and currently developing simple AR and VR applications.
What is BIM?
(Skip to the next section if you’re comfortable with BIM)
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past ten years I assume you’ve heard of BIM. For the sake of clarity, I’ll briefly outline it here.
BIM or Building Information Modelling, at its core, is the accumulation and aggregation of all project data into one digital location. The location in engineering projects is generally the 3D model of the project.
What do I mean by data? Data only becomes useful when it’s converted into information. If this information isn’t easily accessible, sortable, viewable, logical and organised then it isn’t useful. This data includes the design from structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, architecture, landscape, safety, project management and environmental teams to name a few.
This is performed on a number of levels. The most basic level is a digital 3D model of the physical objects. This assists the construction team in visualising the project and requires the design data from each team to be placed into one single digital model (since generally each team uses their own software to develop their design).
The model is just the tip of the iceberg, you can then attach information to any part of the model. For example, any object can be tagged with materials safety data sheets, safety requirements for construction and ongoing maintenance, expected lifetimes and replacement schedules, costs and time based costs, quality assurance, logistics, sustainability requirements, acoustics and energy efficiency to name a few.
BIM usage in Australia is currently highly disjointed and inconsistent, but it is improving. There isn’t any government leadership (like there is in the UK) to help firms embrace and grow their BIM capabilities. Instead, firms have been required to learn on the fly and base standards on the UK developed versions.
This provides a sufficient overview of BIM for the scope of this article, although there are clearly many more functions available in BIM.
What is AR?
(Skip to the next section if you’re comfortable with AR)
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that allows digital objects to be overlaid on the real world. It is a very fast-growing field, particularly recently following the introduction of the AR development platforms from Google and Apple. This has massively increased the accessibility of AR tools for a huge number of mobile developers resulting in a surge of augmented reality applications in the Google and Apple app stores. Note that AR is not a new technology as it was first prototyped in 1968. However, with the advancements in battery life, shrinking computer size, improved cameras and sensors have now allowed this technology to be available in almost every smartphone built in the last two years.
AR is going to grow even faster in the future as the biggest technology firms like Google, Apple and Microsoft are all investing heavily and making it a serious priority for their future business models.
The easiest way to explain AR is to just show you. Watch this video which is a screen capture of my phone.
This is an app I developed that allows the user to place down a building at full 1:1 scale and then allows the user to physically walk through the building. This is a very simple implementation of AR. This is as basic as this technology gets.
AR is very similar to Mixed Reality (MR) where the digital objects can be interacted with. For more information about mixed reality check out the Magic Leap One.
Current state of AR
AR is currently split into two groups. The first is mobile AR. This is AR on your Android or Apple smartphone. Mobile AR cops a fair amount of flack and some of it is justified; input methods are difficult, it’s a tiny little screen that isn’t very immersive and everyone automatically thinks of Pokemon Go. But in the next few years, mobile AR will transition from smart phones into smart glasses that will solve all these problems and create many more opportunities.
The second group is high end AR devices such as the Microsoft Hololens or the Magic Leap One. These devices are very expensive (or not available yet), ugly and pretty bulky. But they showcase the possibilities of what this technology can achieve. Imagine having the full processing power of your desktop computer with all your engineering design software sitting on your head, ready to be accessed at any time.
My vision for the ultimate BIM/AR solution
Now that the background information is out of the way, we can get into the interesting stuff. I’ve researched a number of academic articles to provide reliable information on how AR can benefit the BIM process and can actually be the key element in realising BIM’s original goal of becoming a holistic location of project data.
The number one problem with this is that the information located in the BIM project isn’t available to workers when they need it. For example, imagine we are at a construction site where the ground floor reinforcement is being laid. Today all that information that the steel fixer needs is (generally) stored in a set of A1 drawings in the site office. These drawings have been pulled from a BIM model and then edited to adhere to a set of drawing standards that are understandable to the human eye. I know from my drafting days that this means that much of the information in the model is lost when it is transferred to a 2D drawing. It makes no sense to develop a digital model, filled with useful information that can improve safety, scheduling, project management processes and quality; and then we strip all that information out, simple because we have no better way. But it has to be done, because what’s the alternative?
At this time there is no practical way to make this model and all its information available to those who need it.
Research shows, that by giving a worker task-specific information he is better informed, and less distracted by other information, improving the quality of his work and reducing the chance of errors. In addition to this, many specialised workers only attend the site for a short period of time and then leave, meaning they have no understanding of the overall project context. By providing them with on-demand, context-aware information, they are empowered to make better decisions and improve efficiency.
It has also been proven that AR has the ability to implement BIM in such a way that information is more easily retrieved, reducing errors during assembly, communication improvements and problem solving improvements.
How do we achieve this? This is what I envision.
Each worker must wear an AR headset at all times on the construction site. This means that safety messages can be sent in real time regardless of the location of the worker (useful for large sites). The headset has access to the entire BIM project and all of its data.
But does the electrician care about what type of plants are being planted in the garden? Obviously not. Each worker is served only the information that is relevant to them.
How is this information served? It can be done in a number of ways. The first option is to digitally show them the 2D plans in front of their eyes (this might be helpful for introducing this to users uncomfortable with this new technology). The second option is to overlay the required design on top of the real world in 3D at full size scale. The electrician can see exactly where wires need to be located, which wires are required etc. It almost like a giant paint by numbers at this point.
The worker can also be served information about the project that affects them, such as other trades working in the area, expected timelines, ordering requirements, expected delivery times etc. Anything that can be included in the BIM project and project management software can be served to workers on-demand and be context-aware. For a simple example, as a worker walks toward a new concrete pour, the headset would show them a warning notification on the slab saying, “Keep Off — Wet Concrete”. Conversely, an AR headset could also cause safety issues if the information shown in front of the user blocks out too much of the real world. This will have to be managed. However, the safety benefits associated with the glasses outweigh these disadvantages as long as they are managed appropriately.
When materials are delivered to site each material has a digital tag on it which can be viewed through the AR glasses. The worker can then search for where that material is required on site, how to install it, safety issues and MSDS, all within their headset. Clearly this requires BIM implementation the whole way through the construction and delivery process and would suit a large vertically integrated business which can control all of its business processes in order to streamline them. While this would be very useful, much of this vision likely requires consistent and persistent internet access. In rural locations, high speed internet is patchy at best and this will need to be fixed unless a local data storage and processing option can be developed.
AR can assist with quality assurance testing too. This technology is still brand new, but once refined it could mean that a quality check could be almost completely performed by an inexperienced worker on site with an experienced worker at a remote location overseeing and reviewing the process. By using machine vision, image matching and AR, a camera can be used to automatically detect errors in the constructed object.
This can result in real time quality assurance checks taking place in the background while the object is still being built. This can result in huge reductions in rework, since errors are detected immediately, and not after a designated checking process, which may take place after the installation of other dependent elements.
Issues with this vision
This system that I believe will revolutionise construction, isn’t realistically possible yet. There are still a few obstacles standing in the way. For engineering, the location of objects must be 100% accurate 100% of the time. This requires depth sensors, GPS, infrared sensors so that the headset knows exactly where its located on a job site. I doubt you’d find any company that would guarantee the tracking of their AR device to this level yet. But this is a technical issue that will be solved.
The software also doesn’t exist yet. To be able to pull on-demand, context-aware information from a BIM model doesn’t exist yet. The ability to provide locationally aware safety warnings implemented inside a project management software doesn’t exist yet, because we’ve never been able to do it before. I liken the development of AR software to the development of the touch interface for smartphones. Touch screen phones existed well before the iPhone came to market, but they were rubbish. Apple was the first company to make an easy to use touch screen experience. Currently, AR software is difficult to interact with, and there isn’t an accepted way to interact with it. With time, trends will emerge that will set standards for the industry and break down this barrier.
The processing power required to make this vision happen cannot currently be put into something that can be worn comfortably for 8–12 hours a day in 40 degree heat. But advancements in computing are always happening and it’s only a matter of time before this is possible. The benefit of working on site means that a helmet must be worn, which means there’s more room for compute power to be stored in locations on the helmet, as long as the weight is kept down for worker comfort.
There are also the issues associated with implementing the AR headsets into the worksite. This includes education for workers on how to use the headset safely and convincing workers that this change is beneficial and required.
Conclusion
The above article explores the evidence that I believe makes augmented reality the key piece of the puzzle that will transform BIM into the beast it was always dreamed to be. By making context-aware information available to workers on-demand, we are able to improve safety, quality and efficiency while reducing errors.
What do you think?
Is this just a pipedream?
Do construction companies think this will provide tangible results?
Is this level of information even necessary?
