Remote indoor construction progress monitoring using extended reality

Abstract

Construction Progress monitoring noticed recent expansions by adopting vision and laser technologies. However, inspectors need to personally visit the job-site or wait for a time gap to process data captured from the construction site to use for inspection. Recent inspection methods lacks automation and real-time data exchange, therefore, it needs inspection manpower for each job-site, the health risk of physical interaction between workers and inspector, loss of energy, data loss, and time consumption. To address this issue, a near real-time construction work inspection system called iVR is proposed; this system integrates 3D scanning, extended reality, and visual programming to visualize interactive onsite inspection for indoor activities and provide numeric data. The iVR comprises five modules: iVR-location finder (finding laser scanner located in the construction site) iVR-scan (capture point cloud data of job-site indoor activity), iVR-prepare (processes and convert 3D scan data into a 3D model), iVR-inspect (conduct immersive visual reality inspection in construction office), and iVR-feedback (visualize inspection feedback from job-site using augmented reality). An experimental lab test is conducted to verify the applicability of iVR process; it successfully exchanges required information between construction job-site and office in a specific time. This system is expected to assist Engineers and workers in quality assessment, progress assessments, and decisionmaking which can realize a productive and practical communication platform, unlike conventional monitoring or data capturing, processing, and storage methods, which involve storage, compatibility and time-consumption issues.