Advances in Engineering Advances in Engineering features breaking research judged by Advances in Engineering advisory team to be of key importance in the Engineering field. Papers are selected from over 10,000 published each week from most peer reviewed journals.
Advances in Engineering Software, Volume 55, January 2013, Pages 45-55.
Suyang Dong, Amir H. Behzadan, Feng Chen, Vineet R. Kamat
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, 2340 G.G. Brown, 2350 Hayward, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125, USA
Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816-2450, USA
Abstract
3D computer visualization has emerged as an advanced problem-solving tool for engineering education and practice. For example in civil engineering, the integration of 3D/4D CAD models in the construction process helps to minimize the misinterpretation of the spatial, temporal, and logical aspects of construction planning information. Yet despite the advances made in visualization, the lack of collaborative problem-solving abilities leaves outstanding challenges that need to be addressed before 3D visualization can become widely accepted in the classroom and in professional practice. The ability to smoothly and naturally interact in a shared workspace characterizes a collaborative learning process. This paper introduces tabletop Augmented Reality to accommodate the need to collaboratively visualize computer-generated models. A new software program named ARVita is developed to validate this idea, where multiple users wearing Head-Mounted Displays and sitting around a table can all observe and interact with dynamic visual simulations of engineering processes. The applications of collaborative visualization using Augmented Reality are reviewed, the technical implementation is covered, and the program’s underlying tracking libraries are presented.
Additional Information
As an effort to enable collaborative learning through 3D visualization, we introduce a open-source software program termed ARVita for collaboratively visualizing dynamic 3D simulated construction operations.Users sitting across a table can have a face-to-face discussion about 3D animations ‘‘laid on’’ the table surface. Interaction functionalities are designed to assist users in moving smoothly between the focus of shared workspaces. A live demo of ARVita can be found on the
authors’ website <http://pathfinder.engin.umich.edu/videos.htm>.
The current version of ARVita software and its source code can be found on the authors’website <http://pathfinder.engin.umich.edu/software.htm>