4D-CAD

4D CAD - Distributed interactive 4D project management tool

Short Abstract:
With 4D-CAD we provide a multi user visualization and planning tool, which enables architects to plan and visualize their building over time and space and give them the opportunity to share their decisions with other participants in real time.

 

Project leaders: Project members:
       
  • Prof. Dr. Bernd Fröhlich
  • Dipl.-Ing. Hans-Friedrich Pabst
  • Kristin Bachmann
  • Benjamin Brombach
  • Erich Bruns
  • Franz Coriand
  • Alexander Kleppe
  • Kai Riege

Infrastructure

Our project environment is divided in two main parts. The first part is an application to create and edit a Gantt chart. In this application it is possible to create tasks, change their properties and interact with the second part of the environment: the VR framework. The tasks of the planning process – shown as simple bars in the Gantt chart – are visualized in the VR framework in 3d mono or stereo as parts of the building. The advantage is that both parts are independent of their location. So, with the possibility of multiple users we provide, one could imagine a scenario two architects working at different locations on the same project by manipulating the Gantt chart, while a third person (e.g. the client) is watching the canvas to see the results as a virtual building.

 

The architecture of our framework

Communication

To reach that state, we’ve done some basic implementations, including the development of a data model in the VR framework, representing the Gantt data structures (e.g. ’task’, ’project’), and some methods to handle the various geometries of the building. We also implemented some communication modules, which took the task of transferring the data from the VR ramework to the Gantt chart and vice versa.

 

Expanding GanttProject

To improve the VR visualization’s as well as the Gantt chart’s functionality we also implemented some techniques adding necessary features for such a distributed setting described above. So, for instance, each task now has three modes to visualize the status of its building process (non-visible, wireframe (under construction) and full visible) and there are controls in both the VR visualization and the Gantt chart to play the whole planning process as a virtual movie. Both features improve the planner’s ability to navigate through the planning process and find the best way to build the building. Other improvements are the visualization of building resources (e.g. cranes and excavators) in both the VR framework and the Gantt chart and a cost calculation in the Gantt chart.

The whole 4d-CAD framework was developed to serve as a prototype and provides a basis for further research in distributed 4d-CAD systems.

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