Monthly Archives: September 2014

3D MOVE demonstrated at Crossrail young engineers event in London

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On Thursday the 25th September 2014, Dr Maxwell Mallia-Parfitt, Ed Norman (EPSRC summer placement student) and Professor Jennifer Whyte demonstrated the Mobile Visualization Environment (3D MOVE) to 400 young engineers from Crossrail in Westminster.

This event showcased the University’s research capacity and engineering research in this area. The 3D MOVE is a mobile version of the University of Reading’s CAVE facility, which enables a group of users to stand within a 1:1 scale simulation of built environments, in this case Whitechapel station – part of the Crossrail network.

Ed Norman’s contribution was essential to this demonstration, both in preparing models and scripts, as well as liaising with young engineers and senior directors from Crossrail. His work over the last 10 weeks has driven our software capabilities to new heights and has enabled many new features not seen before in immersive virtual reality. His work, funded by the EPSRC, will continue to be used for future demonstrations as well as strengthen research output from the Design Innovation Research Centre.

Pictures from the event:
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BIM technology showcase

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The Design Innovation Research Centre is hosting the next Thames Valley BIM Hub meeting on the 6th October 2014.
Dr Chris Harty will give a short introduction and overview to BIM-related research currently underway in the School of Construction Management and Engineering, followed by demonstrations by seven technology providers to show the capabilities of their products.

Visit the BIM CAVE: Dr Maxwell Mallia-Parfitt
Dr Mallia-Parfitt will be giving visitors the chance to experience total immersion within a BIM model. In the BIM CAVE (Collaborative Automatic Virtual Environment) graphics are projected in stereo onto three walls and the floor and viewed with active stereo glasses equipped with a location sensor. As the projector screens form a room-sized environment, it is possible to have multiple users stand within one-to-one scale recreations of BIM and CAD models, which enables collaborative discussion, viewing and navigation of the model in real-time.

Only small groups can visit the CAVE at any one time, so places really are limited.

To book your place please email: Julian@secbe.org.uk

There is no charge for this event. If you book but are subsequently unable to attend, please let us know.

Technology, Strategy and Business Models Workshop

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The latest in the series of ‘Technology, Strategy and Business Models’ workshops was held at Cass Business School, City University London from 2-3 September 2014. Dr. Sunila Lobo presented her work on her thoughts regarding the potential for co-creating and capturing value in the complex business ecosystem of construction megaprojects; so firms in ‘loosely coupled networks can share complex and usually un-codified knowledge and co-evolve their capabilities to create more value and improve efficiency’ (Williamson and De Meyer, 2012). These workshops are organized by the business models group at CENTIVE, Cass Business School and are for junior faculty across Europe to present their work and receive feedback from the community. Senior faculty also present their leading edge work and the sessions are highly interactive. Participants from France, Austria, Switzerland, and the UK attended.

This 2-day workshop was preceded by a meeting called ‘Better Business Models’ on the 1st of September 2014, to update senior faculty on work carried out since the December 2013 conference on Business Models and to discuss next steps regarding research on business models. Dr. Sunila Lobo updated this senior group on work being carried out at the Design Innovation Research Centre, on behalf of Prof. Whyte.

For more information, please contact s.lobo@reading.ac.uk.