Han, B and Leite, F (2021) Measuring the impact of immersive virtual reality on construction design review applications: Head-mounted display versus desktop monitor. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 147(6): 04021042, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Head-mounted display (HMD)-based virtual reality (VR) applications can potentially facilitate various visualization-intensive tasks in the construction industry, such as design and constructability review. However, the lack of quantitative validation on the theoretical benefits of VR has impeded its industry implementation. This paper designed four construction design review-related tasks and performed user tests with 24 construction engineering novices and 24 industry experts. Participants were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, performing four tasks via HMD-based VR or desktop-based VR, respectively. Experimental results and statistical analysis show that users' performance was significantly enhanced by the HMD in detecting design errors and planning for construction sequence. The scale of performance improvement varied from 18.22% to 59.01%. The implementation of HMD-based VR applications should be intentional because its benefits are only significant in specific use cases. The intellectual contribution of this paper includes quantifying the impact of HMD to the tested VR applications and developing the technology assessment framework. Meanwhile, the findings from this paper can facilitate the implementation of effective VR applications in the construction industry.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction sequence; design review; head-mounted display; human-involved experiment; performance comparison |
| Index terms: | design error, statistical analysis, construction engineering, virtual reality, performance improvement, constructability, implementation, construction industry, technology assessment, experiment, validation, visualization |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, professional development, performance measurement, design practice, construction integration, engineering methods, contractual arrangements, innovation and technology management, data science, professional practice, data collection methods, virtual reality |
| Topics: | Procurement, Information Management, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Quality Management, Digital Applications, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here