An Interactive Approach to Collaborative 4d Construction Planning

The use of 4D simulations within the construction field is growing, however, its application when carrying out true collaborative planning has not yet been fully realised. It is postulated that 4D models are currently utilised as a planning review tool, rather than integral to the initial construction planning process and do not fully support multidisciplinary collaborative construction planning by the various teams involved. Targeting this problem, a novel approach of interactive definition through a distributed environment is proposed, thus allowing interactive collaboration to create the construction plan and the subsequent 4D simulation directly from the unique 3D model. Based on a review of current approaches, a detailed comparison of current 4D creation methods and recent research initiatives, the interactive definition method is proposed and developed. This approach supports the planning process by providing a unique 3D model input, which can be manipulated using effective user-system interaction leading to comprehensive simulation item definition. The provision of this capability through a local and wide area network provides a collaborative planning workflow thus supporting collaboration and social interaction. Incorporating this rationale, a prototype system named 4DX has been developed as a distributed collaborative 4D based planning environment and used for the verification testing of the method. The findings of the preliminary testing shows the proposed approach and prototype achieves distributed real-time collaborative 4D construction planning, and can subsequently achieve a robust plan and full 4D CAD simulation.