Simulacion

Proceedings of the 2011 Winter Simulation Conference S. Jain, R.R. Creasey, J. Himmelspach, K.P. White, and M. Fu, eds.

COLLABORATIVE VISUALIZATION OF SIMULATED PROCESSES USING TABLETOP FIDUCIAL AUGMENTED REALITY Suyang Dong Vineet R. Kamat University of Michigan 2350 Hayward Street, Suite 2340 G.G. Brown Building Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA ABSTRACT In typical scenarios of construction planning,engineers communicate ideas primarily using paper based media (e.g. drawings) spread across table surfaces. Even though the traditional communication approach offers convenient interaction among participants, the media used are cumbersome to handle. Moreover, they present static information that cannot reflect the dynamic nature of a jobsite. These limitations can be somewhat overcome by computerbased virtual environments. However, the convenience of interactive collaboration among participants is lost. This paper introduces tabletop fiducial Augmented Reality to bridge the gap between paper based static information and computer based graphical models. A software named ARVita is developed to validate this idea, where multiple users wearing Head-Mounted Displays and sitting across a tablecan observe and interact with visual simulations of planned processes. The applications of collaborative visualization using Augmented Reality are reviewed, and the technical implementation of ARVita is presented. 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION Dynamic Simulated Construction Activity Visualization

Traditional visualization media used in construction planning include drawings, scheduling bar charts, sandtable models, 3D CAD models etc. However none of them are capable of effectively conveying information on every aspect of the project, e.g. 2D/3D models do not reflect temporal progress, while scheduling bar charts do not demonstrate corresponding spatial layout. Numerous studies are conducted on linking 3D CAD models with the construction schedule, so as to exploit the dynamic 3D nature of theconstruction engineering at the project level. These kind of visualization techniques are well known as 4D CAD, where based off of original planned sequence, individual CAD components are added to the target facilities as time advances. At the project level, 4D CAD model proves its value in minimizing misinterpretation of the project sequence by integrating the spatial, temporal, and logical aspectsof construction planning information. (Koo & Fischer, 2000) Unlike project level visualization techniques where only major time-consuming processes are animated, operation level visualization represents explicitly the interaction between equipment, labor, materials, and space. (e.g. laying bricks, lifting columns). Operations level visualization is good at elaborating details such as themaneuverability of trucks and backhoes in excavation operations, the deployment of cranes and materials in steel erection etc. Such tasks require careful and detailed planning and validation, so as to maximize resource utilization as well as identifying hidden spatial collision and temporal conflicts. Therefore operations visualization can help engineers in validating and verifying operational con-978-1-4577-2109-0/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE

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Dong and Kamat cepts, checking for design interferences, and estimating overall constructability. (Kamat & Martinez, 2003) VITASCOPE (acronym for VIsualizaTion of Simulated Construction OPErations) visualization system is designed for articulating operation level construction activities. (Kamat & Martinez, 2001) Firstly, it defines a comprehensive andextensible authoring language for depicting modeled processes along a time line. The VITASCOPE language is an abstract layer to make the visualization engine (VE) independent of any particular driving processes (e.g. a specific simulation system). Incoming operation events and data generated by simulation model, hardware control, or real-time sensor can be documented in the way of conforming to...