Tag Archives: VR

ICCCBE Conference

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The International Society for Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (ISCCBE) 2014 Conference in conjunction with the 2014 CIB W078 conference has just concluded in Florida, and was attended by Dr Dragana Nikolic and Dr Maxwell Parfitt. ICCCBE is a leading forum in the area of information technology in civil and building engineering. It is organized by the ISCCBE and is run bi-annually.
Dr Parfitt presented his work at the conference on Visualization of Built Environments using a Mobile Immersive Visualization Environment (3D-MOVE).

A video of the presentation can be viewed here.
For more information, please contact Dr Parfitt.

EPSRC Vacation Bursary

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Following the success of our summer placement students last year [1] [2] we have recruited another student, through the EPSRC Vacation Bursary program, to help develop software to support user interaction within the Fully Immersive Virtual Environment (the CAVE).

Ed Norman, a 3rd year MEng student studying Artificial Intelligence, will join the Design Innovation Research Centre team for 10 weeks this summer to work on Digital Model Interaction: Towards a virtual reality toolbox for BIM data interaction.

3D MOVE Frame Assembly

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The carbon fibre and 3D printed framework to support our 3D MOVE (Mobile Visualisation Environment) screens was tested this week to see how easy it was to assemble by two people.

The frame is about 8Kg when assembled, thanks to the adoption of composite carbon fibre tubes and 3D printed brackets. It encompasses a volume of 2.8 x 2.8 x 2.1 meters, which is the same as our existing CAVE in the Visualisation and Immersive Technologies Centre (VIT-C).

The time-lapse video below shows Dr Maxwell Parfitt and Andy Sears (EPSRC Summer Research Placement Student) assembling the 3D MOVE frame for the first time in under 6 minutes.

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CONVR 2013 – 13th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

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Laura Maftei, Dr Dragana Nikolic and Dr Maxwell Parfitt spent 2 days at the CONVR 2013 conference in London last week. The conference was informative, with presentations from around the field of Virtual Reality, including; Applications of Augmented Reality in Construction, New Techniques for gathering Building Information Models using both LIDAR and Photogrammetry, Applications of Multi-Agent Simulations for Crowd Analysis and Automatic Analysis of Safety Breaches using BIM.
There were great opportunities to network and discuss current research through meetings and break-out sessions with leading academics, industrial collaborators and senior members of the construction industry.

3D MOVE (Mobile Visualisation Environment) 3D Printed Parts

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To rapidly realise the low cost lightweight framework to support our 3D MOVE (Mobile Visualisation Environment) screens, 3D printing has been used to print custom durable parts to join different thickness’s of Composite Carbon Fibre tube.

The time-lapse video below shows a 27 hour 3D print run which produced the rear right bracket, printed upside down at the rear of the printer, the rear tube interconnect, printed vertically at the front of the printer and some miscellaneous parts used for calibration.

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Using 3D printing technology has allowed for quick design modifications at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional subtractive manufacture processes, whilst maintaining the parts strength and quality.

Working paper published on Immersive Visualisation of BIM

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We have published a new working paper by one of our summer placement students Ben Dalton, who recently finished working with the Design Innovation Research Centre as part of a 6 week UROP project (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme), on Immersive Visualisation of Building Information Models. His research was to investigate and produce efficient work-flows, for conversion of 3D CAD and BIM data, for use with the University of Reading’s fully immersive visualisation systems, the CAVE environment.The working paper series is designed to rapidly disseminate findings to industrial partners, and to ensure that the latest research contributes to ongoing policy debates. You can read the full paper on our website.