The talk will focus on how virtual reality immersive environments have a great potential to improve the design processes specially when done in BIM. In the presentation I’ll talk about the research being developed in the Digital Living Spaces group of ISTAR-IUL on immersive virtual reality and augmented reality using BIM models. In our research we employ both self in-house and proprietary systems to visualize and interact with BIM data in virtual reality environments. We have developed a system - VIARmodes4BIM - that has a series of features enabling immersive navigation and natural multimodal interaction. It allows several users with different AEC specialties to preview and explore the building in full scale, at the same time, experiencing a strong sense of presence and interactivity while carrying collaborative design briefs. This experience allows the apprehension of the multiple disciplines of a project and its volumetric space. Designers can meet colleagues, other experts and stakeholders and use natural communication way (natural speech and gestures) to visualize, select and comment building elements of a BIM model in VR. Particularly, the embedded natural and multimodal HCI allows the interaction to be made by speech and gesture, which increases its usability and user satisfaction by making the interaction simpler and more natural. Simultaneously we have developed tools for mobile augmented reality experiences to be used during the design and built process. Arch4models enables to bond together physical and virtual representation modes by superimposing (or registering) them and aims at increasing the understanding of an architectural design, while at the same time allowing users to explore the building components.

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virtual reality,augmented reality,BIM