Proceedings of the 10th International conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality - CONVR2010

1. VISUALISATION OF SEMANTIC ARCHITECTURAL
INFORMATION WITHIN A GAME ENGINE
ENVIRONMENT
Pieter Pauwels
Ronald De Meyer
Jan Van Campenhout

2. Re-use / Interoperability through IFC
4D / 5D planning
AR / VR visualisations
BIM model
…
Virtual Environment
Building Performance
Checking

3. World Wide Web
Semantic Web

4. The Linked Open Data Cloud (LOD)
LOD – May 2007
Linked Data: Now what?
by Tom Heath: Presentation at ESWC2010.
http://videolectures.net/eswc2010_heath_ldnw/

5. LOD – Sep. 2010
Linking Open Data cloud diagram
by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch.
http://lod-cloud.net/

6. Government applications
E-commerce sites
LOD cloud
…
Digital Heritage archives
Search agents

7. UGent MultiMediaLab
http://multimedialab.elis.ugent.be/
Dr. Ir. Davy Van Deursen, Ir. Ruben Verborgh, Dr. Ir. Jos de Roo
Prof. Dr. Ir. Rik Van de Walle
UGent SmartLab
http://smartlab.elis.ugent.be/
Ir. Arch. Pieter Pauwels, Ir. Arch. Ruben Verstraeten, Ir. Arch. Tine Jonckheere
Prof. Dr. Ronald De Meyer, Prof. Dr. Ir. Jan Van Campenhout

8. Bring BIM into the Semantic Web
BIM

9. Example: „Intelligent‟ Virtual Environments
See video on: http://www.graphisoft.com/ftp/marketing/vbe/int/01/01.html

10. „Intelligent‟ Virtual Environments

11. 1. The quest for extra information
2. What virtual environment to use?
3. Bringing the information into a virtual environment

12. Bring BIM into the Semantic Web
BIM

13. It exists: upload!
http://ninsuna.elis.ugent.be/IfcRDFService

14. It exists: query!
http://ninsuna.elis.ugent.be/SPARQLEndpoint/

15. It exists: browse!
http://ninsuna.elis.ugent.be/rdf/page/ifc/
IFC2X3_TC1/ifcBuilding_36

16. 1. The quest for extra information
2. What virtual environment to use?
3. Bringing the information into a virtual environment

17. What Virtual Environment to use?
- Investigation of existing virtual environments
- Decision to build a new virtual environment relying on
existing game engine technology
- Investigation of existing game engine technology typically
used for visualisations in construction industry

18. An alternative Virtual Environment
1. Esperient Creator
2. 3DVIA Virtools
3. Unity3D
4. Quest3D
5. StoneTrip ShiVa

19. The best choice?
“None fits, each is possible”:
1. Relatively small differences in functionality
2. Limited level of information exchange with AEC / BIM tools
3. Importance of „side parameters‟: cost, development
support, usage statistics, etc.
=> Unity3D was our choice, BUT a more in-depth study AND
usage is to be considered

20. 1. The quest for extra information
2. What virtual environment to use?
3. Bringing the information into a virtual environment

21. Information exchange
Information modelling in BIM environment

22. Information exchange
routering of the model information
FBX
representation
BIM model
import
Virtual world
in Unity3D
export
Real-time
communication
export
IFC-to-RDF
Service
IFC
BIM model
representation
in LOD cloud
References to
LOD cloud
Enriched
BIM model

23. Creation of the virtual world

24. Implemented functionality
connecting FBX representation to the LOD cloud (1)

25. Implemented functionality
connecting FBX representation to the LOD cloud (2)
SELECT distinct ?s WHERE {
?s <http://multimedialab.organon.elis.ugent.be/ontologies/IFC2X3#tag> "175853"^^xsd:string .
?s <http://multimedialab.organon.elis.ugent.be/ontologies/IFC2X3#representation> ?o
}

26. Implemented functionality
basic user interface (1)

27. Evaluation
Main objectives achieved:
- Bring BIM information into the Linked Data cloud
- Easy visualisation of building models in a virtual environment
- Access BIM information and other information in the LOD cloud from
within a virtual environment
Further research needed:
- Further explore possible connections between building models and
information in the LOD cloud
- Improve the user interface for a more intuitive usage

28. Thank you
Pieter Pauwels
pipauwel.pauwels@ugent.be