Implementation of 4D Visualization as a Planning Tool in the Indian AEC Industry

B Kanagasabapathi, Non-member Dr K Ananthanarayanan, Member

The AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) industry is facing a tough competition. The conventional scheduling methods explain the progress of the work in the form of bar charts and network diagrams. It is very difficult to visualise the sequence of activities and the parallel occurrence of it. Visualization of the structure at stages of progress of the project will give an easy understanding of the progress of the project to the team members at different levels. Also the project manager can see the delay in the project, if any activity is suspended or otherwise, and thus can view changes in the project model if any of this activity is updated. 4D models will be useful for identifying the construction problems prior to construction and will play a crucial role in decision-making process. Thus, this tool of 4D visualization will be used for a better communication of the project that will help to visualize the construction. The main objective of this paper is to report on the development and implementation of a 4D tool in the Indian AEC industry linking both schedule as well as a 3D model of a generalised building or structure. A case study has also been taken to validate the developed model.
Keywords: 4D CAD; Visualization; Scheduling; Planning

INTRODUCTION The Indian AEC (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) industry is facing a competitive and tough time after it entered into the 21st century. With the complexity of building systems increasing while construction operations are being accelerated, the industry must have systems in place to improve documentation, coordination and communication both in the planning stages and as well as in the field. These challenges which today impact companies profit margin may in future dictate their survival in this increasing competitive market. One of the technologies developed to improve the coordination, communication of data, design and planning of construction of projects is four dimensional computer aided design (4D-CAD). This technology integrates the individual components of a three dimensional CAD model with scheduled activity start and finish dates assigned to its physical systems1. In Indian AEC industry, the current practices of construction project planning involve a number of methodologies/ techniques that model dependencies and sequencing of project activities. Some of the techniques are bar charts, CPM network diagrams, and time-chainage diagrams. However, these techniques do not provide any information pertaining to the spatial context and complexities of the project components. Therefore, to identify the spatial aspect of a project, users must look at 2D drawings and conceptually associate the components with the related
B Kanagasabapathi and K Ananthanarayanan are with the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras, Chennai 600 036 This paper was received on August 17, 2004. Written discussion on the paper will be accepted until January 31, 2005.

activities. This presents two practical limitations of the bar chart/CPM schedule. First interpreting the schedule can sometimes be cumbersome as typical schedules have hundreds or thousands of activities. Second, different project members may develop inconsistent interpretations of the schedule when viewing the bar chart/CPM schedule9. To overcome these shortcomings, a new approach of combining projectplanning tools with 3D-CAD models to convey the sequence of construction visually is proposed. Project managers consider workspace in the form of offices, accommodation and stage storage for materials as static space. The researchers have shown that 30% of non-productive time on site is due to lack of detailed and space planning. It was concluded that the lack of space planning of activities resulted in space conflicts, long journey paths, and unavailability of access to rooms, inefficient usage of time6. 4D-CAD modelling allows the exploration of what-if scenarios and can identify problems of space configuration in the early stages of project planning. 4D models display the progression of construction over time, sometimes dramatically improving the quality of construction plans and schedules12. The main objective of this paper is to report on the development of the 4D visualization model and to implement and validate the same in Indian AEC industry. The major impediment in the use of any new software is its non-familiarity. This paper attempts to reduce this effect, by way of developing a 4D visualization model in a user friendly way. 4D Visualization A 4D visualization model is the end result of linking components of a 3D-CAD model to assign construction 35

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schedule software. These activities represent the actual construction of building components represented in 3D model. The idea to link 3D CAD models to construction schedules was conceived in the period 1986-1987, when Bechtel collaborated with Hitachi Limited to develop the construction CAE/4D planner software. Later 4D CAD has widely been used in the construction design process and approached to solve the problems faced during the use of conventional methods, with 4D CAD modelling tools. Need for 4D Visualization Traditional construction planning tools, such as, bar charts and network diagrams, do not represent and communicate the spatial and temporal, or four-dimensional, aspects of construction schedules effectively. A strong need still exists for a comprehensive tool which allows architects, engineers and contractors to simulate and visualize construction sequences as part of an interactive experience. The 4D CAD model provides the basis for a common language between all parties and a representation of the schedule itself. Design and construction planning alternatives can be assessed realistically within the context of space and time. Simultaneously, modelling both the temporal and spatial aspects of construction intent can optimise and justify the decisions involved in the planning and design of projects. Representing the relationship between time and space provides a powerful mechanism to visualize and communicate design intent. Thus this will improve the Indian AEC industry radically well and will also allow project mangers to make decisions in the right point of time. 4D MODEL DEVELOPMENT Development of 3D Model The 3D model of the facility has been created using AUTOCAD. AUTOCAD is the modelling program used to convey the graphics elements of the project. This is a powerful tool in computer aided design for both 2D and 3D modelling that has the ability to create, store, and manipulate large amounts of graphic data. There are three basic object types used in creating 3D model that consists of wire frame, surface and solid objects. Solid objects are most useful in creating 3D building models and are made from a series of blocks that serve as representations of the building components. These blocks act as solid objects within the 3D model, their placement and manipulation give a true representation of spatial relationships. It can be shaded and rendered to view as original building. Development of a Construction Schedule The schedule for the project is developed using Microsoft Project. The computer scheduling was done using CPM. CPM based activity scheduling is capable of efficiently inputting and revising complicated relationships. The data concerning the duration of the individual activity, the start and end time of the individual activity, the precedence relationships among various activities in the project should be entered and saved with a base line. The activity name in Microsoft Project is similar as that of the appropriate block name of the 3D model in AUTOCAD. 36

4D Visualization Model 4D visualization model can be defined as any specific display of the model in 3D referring to particular instant for any construction project. The 3D model and the schedule are linked with the third party language called visual basic. Visual basic application package has been used considering the ease of object linking embedding (OLE) as its component model inherited within the package. The general architecture of the 4D visualization model development is shown in the Figure 1. IMPLEMENTATION AND VALIDATION OF THE 4D MODEL With the advancement in the microcomputer and the availability of personal computers in the project site offices and through internet facilities, it is decided that 4D model be developed and implemented on a Pentium machine. In order to implement and validate the performance of the developed 4D model in the Indian AEC Industry, a case study has been undertaken on an ongoing construction project. Building Description The project chosen for case study was the construction of a canteen building located at SIPCOT Industrial Park, Irungattukottai, near Chennai. The building consists of a dining hall, kitchen, storeroom, utility room and vessel washroom in the ground floor whilst the first floor has two guest rooms with attached water closets. Model Development The 4D model has been generated using the project documents, ie, bar chart schedule, 2D drawings etc provided by the general contractor. The 3D model was created in AUTOCAD in terms of blocks. Blocks of actual building entities were created. The blocks of temporary components of the building, such as, scaffolding, storage space for materials were created. The activities were entered in MS Project as the same name as that of the blocks in AUTOCAD. Figure 2 shows the user interface for data input to effect 4D visualization. The input data is the Microsoft Project schedule and the AUTOCAD file and a date in the format mentioned in order to visualize the progress of work as planned and as actual. The project is updated according to the progress on site. That is by communicating the activities that are completed on that particular time frame (for example day or week or fortnight or a month) through internet or through any other means of communication. In this paper, updating is based on weekly basis. By updating the project time to time, the delay has been visualised in AUTOCAD by comparing the planned progress and the actual progress. The sample screen input of the project schedule and 3D model of the building taken for case study are shown in Figure 3. During the actual construction of the project, the comments made by the site staff were also incorporated in order to make the model more realistic. 4D models are shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5 according to the time how the construction progresses and also the site space IE (I) JournalAR

Figure 1 General architecture of the 4D visualization model

utilization. This will help the project participants to identify the activities progressing virtually without inspecting the site. By overlapping the activities completed by the planned

progress and actual progress of work at site, it is easy for the project planners to know whether they are ahead of the schedule or behind the schedule in a project at any stages of

Select the MS Project file Select the AutoCAD file Select the data in mm/dd/yy

Browse Browse

Planned Progress

Actual Progress

Exit

Figure 2 User interface for data input to effect 4D visualization

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Figure 3 Sample screen input of the project schedule and the 3D model of the building taken for case study

(a)

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(b) Figure 4 Sample screen of 4D visualization (February 2004 and March 2004)

construction. The visualization of the 3D construction site status, the completed work and the status of the progressing work is displayed at any specified time. It assists construction planners in making crucial decisions by enabling visualization of the details of the work at any point time. Many construction firms carry out the plan alternatives regarding resource and material requirement manually. The information is not stored anywhere for the future purpose. Much of the time can be saved, if the information is stored in the computer and data can be retrieved as and when required. At the same time the planning of the construction process is also easy as compared to doing manually because of the above mentioned need for 4D visualization. Limitations of the 4D Model Through the case study, this paper has identified several limitations in the development and analysis of stages of the 4D model. Developing the 4D model involved categorizing the activities of the original schedule, creating 3D CAD models from 2D drawings, and creating relationships between the activities with the 3D CAD components in a 4D visualization application developed using visual basic. This process took several man-hours. But this experience of stepby-step process of building the model improves the expertise level design, construction and planning of a project. The current representation of building components is geometrybased, inaccessible and not customizable. The 4D models are Vol 85, October 2004

not hierarchical. For example a hierarchical model would enable users to work at the appropriate level of detail, ie, instead of either seeing all or none of the information users could now select the desired level of detail. As mentioned, the 4D model does not convey all the informations required to evaluate the schedule. Thus the 4D model does not alert users to the availability of float for the activities in the schedule. Furthermore, it is very difficult to convert AutoCAD files to a real-time 3D environment. CONCLUSION 4D CAD is a key topic getting wide acceptance in the AEC industry. This 4D visualization tool is useful for visualizing the construction process in sequence, and to decide on an alternative sequence for the quicker construction even before the actual construction starts. It will show the activities progressing according to the original plan and the actual progress. This 4D model enables even relatively inexperienced users to analyse and simulate alternative construction scenarios very easily. This type of visualization will help all the interest groups at various levels to visualize the progress of the project, virtually without inspecting the site. An additional advantage of this tool over the conventional scheduling networks is that this tool helps us to visualize the parallel occurrence of activities on a schedule. Through the case study, it was explicable that the 4D model is very useful in determining the correctness of the original schedule and to 39

visualize the progress of work . It is necessary that the Indian AEC industry stays abreast to these technological advances and employs them for the betterment of the building construction process. REFERENCES
1. B Akinci, M Fischer and K John. Automated Generations of Workspaces Required by Construction Activities. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, vol 128, no 4, 2002, pp 306-315. 2. K Ananthanarayanan and G Vanitha. 4D Visualization A Construction Management Tool. 2nd International Conference on Construction Technology, CONTEC 2003, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, October 13-15, 2003, pp 249-258. 3. K W Chau, M Anson and J P Zhang. Implementation of Visualization as Planning and Scheduling Tool in Construction. Building and Environment, vol 38, 2003, pp 713-719. 4. K W Chau, M Anson and J P Zhang. Four-Dimensional Visualization of Construction Scheduling and Site Utilization. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, vol 130, no 4, 2004, pp 598-606. 5. N Dawood, E Sriprasert, Z N Mallasi and B Hobbs. Development of an Integrated Information Resource Base for 4D/VR Construction Process Simulation. Automation in Construction, vol 12, 2002, pp 123-131. 6. M Fischer and J Kunz. The Circle: Architecture for Integrating Software. ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, vol 9, no 2, 1995, pp 122-133.

7. D Heesom and L Mahdjoubi. A Dynamic 4D Simulation System for Construction Space Planning. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Decision Making in Civil and Urban Engineering, London, November 6-8, 2002, pp 860-866. 8. V R Kamat and J C Martinez. Visualizing Simulated Construction Operations in 3D. ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, vol 15, no 4, 2001, pp 329-337. 9. B Koo and M Fischer. Feasibility of 4D-CAD in Commercial Construction. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, vol 126, no 4, 2000, pp 251-260. 10. K McKinney, J Kim, M Fischer and C Howard. Interactive 4D-CAD. Proceedings of the Third Congress on Computing in Civil Engineering, Anaheim, CA, June 17-19, 1996, pp 383-389. 11. K McKinney and M Fischer. Generating, Evaluating and Visualizing Construction Schedules with CAD Tools. Automation in Construction, vol 7, no 6, 1998, pp 433-447. 12. L Rischmoller, M Fischer, R Fox and L Alarcon. 4D Planning and Scheduling (4D-PS): Grounding Construction IT Research in Industry Practice. Proceedings of the CIB w 78 Conference, Mpumalanga, South Africa, May-June 2001, p 34-1. 13. H J Wang, J P Zhang, K W Chau and M Anson. 4D Dynamic Management for Construction Planning and Resource Utilization. Automation in Construction, vol 13, 2004, pp 575-589.

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