Building Information Modeling-Based Virtual Reality System for Four-Dimensional Progress Simulation and Construction Safety Training

In recent years, BIM models have been regarded as a necessary item to be delivered in engineering projects. The owner's demand for BIM is no longer limited to the model itself, and further requires the subsequent application of BIM, of which 4D simulation is the most common extension application. Construction safety in AEC industry is an important issue. In practice, the planning of construction safety must be carried out in advance. That is, the occupational safety planning of the project should be taken into consideration at the design stage. In this way, the chance of reducing construction hazards can be greatly reduced. This research integrates BIM and virtual reality to develop “4D Progress Simulation” and “Occupational Safety Training Simulation” System to present the 4D simulation of the construction process in an immersive way. Through the immersive visual effects, the construction sequence and details of each activity in the 4D simulation can be clearly presented, so as to facilitate the identification of key construction problems and object conflicts in the process. In addition, designers can use the simulation system to check the occupational safety precautions and possible hazards during the construction process due to the immersive nature of immersive VR. An actual project is used for case studying to test the applicability of the system developed by this research. The results show that the simulation system developed by this research can indeed assist the engineers to grasp the construction sequence and construction details at the design stage. It can also prevent possible construction hazards in advance.