BIM-VR Design Evaluation System for the Formation of Preferred Building Exterior Models

Abstract

Background The study proposes a new system to find a preferred exterior design of a building using VR. It allows survey respondents to create the most favorable building design model by combining exterior elements in an evaluation system. The researcher can save time and effort by not making as many models as combinations of exterior elements of a building. Furthermore, the survey respondents do not have to spend much time reviewing the models before choosing their preferred model. Methods This system consists of three parts. 1) Modeling building elements in BIM authoring software_(Autodesk® Revit®) and importing them into a game engine_ (Unreal Engine 4) to integrate different types of exterior elements. 2) Developing two modules to replace the materials and shapes of the exterior elements in the game engine with 'material change' and 'model show/hide' menus. 3) Creating a user interface for respondents to choose the types of exterior elements and compose a preferred exterior design model. Results Through a survey, the proposed system was assessed regarding preferences of the survey respondents and compared to an existing design evaluation system that also utilizes VR. The survey results found that the proposed system preferred to the existing system when there are relatively many exterior element types. Conclusions After the exploration of the existing evaluation method, in this study a progressive system to evaluate architectural design was proposed. While retaining authenticity, a survey questionnaire can be included simultaneously within the same system. It is hoped that a more advanced and tangible system will be developed so that this evaluation system can be used in actual architectural assessment plans in the future.