From BIM to VR Integrating immersive visualizations in the current design process

Abstract

This paper presents a system that allows immersive visualizations to become a natural and integrated part of the current building design process. It is realized through three main components: (1) the Oculus Rift-a new type of Head Mounted Display (HMD) directed at the consumer market, (2) a real-time rendering engine supporting large Building Information Models (BIM) that is, (3) implemented as a plug-in in a BIM authoring software. In addition to provide details regarding the implementation and integration of the different components in our system, we present an evaluation of it from three different perspectives; rendering performance, navigation interface and the ability to support fast design iterations.