Adoption of Virtual Reality (VR) for Site Layout Optimization of Construction Projects

Abstract

Among the significant tasks of construction site management, site layout planning is a crucial activity that influences project success. Currently, the concept of an optimised construction site layout emerges as a result of executing tools and techniques that the construction project management discipline provides. Despite the plentiful existence of site layout techniques, the authors of this paper believe that the incorporation of virtual reality (VR) for jobsite organisation is a valuable and modern management phenomenon for optimal site layout planning. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to assess traditional practices for site layout planning and introduce the application of VR in construction jobsite organisations for site layout planning, collision detection, and evaluation of construction site layout scenarios. In this paper, two different construction jobsite scenarios for the structural phase of a construction are created and for optimisation purposes, Autodesk Revit software, SketchUp, and Lumion are used to develop the three-dimensional (3D) model. A VR headset is used for testing purposes of the proposed 3D jobsite organisation model. A descriptive case study is examined to describe the proposed organisational plan for the scenarios. In this study, a questionnaire survey has been chosen as one of the research instruments for data collection and evaluation purposes. It is found out that traditional 2D methods used in jobsite layout planning is easier to understand and less time consuming for users compared to 3D VR based jobsite layout organisation. On the other hand, results indicated that 3D VR based jobsite layout planning is more effective to comprehend by users and enhances the ability of collision detection. The results presented in this paper aim to provide industry professionals with a better understanding of the benefits and advantages of how VR technology can improve the effectiveness of jobsite layout planning compared to traditional practices.