Details of Research Outputs

In recent decades, the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry have been embracing prefabricated projects. Prefabrication shortened construction timeline, increased construction efficiency as well as reduced energy consumption. These superiority saved cost, promoted competitiveness and reputation for enterprises within the AEC industry. As building information modeling (BIM) drastically spread over the AEC industry, designers enjoyed the convenience of BIM application to improve the design quality and prefabricated rate of projects. However, the constructability of prefabricated projects is limited due to the gap between design drawings and fabrication drawings. As manufacturers usually involves in late design stage, there is lack of communication between manufacturers and designers. This situation may result in unreasonable design or unable to produce prefabricated components. Moreover, conceptual design of irregular architecture is becoming popular, the curved surfaces on the irregular buildings expand the difficulty to design and produce prefabricated components. Although with the aid of detailed 2D drawings manufacturers are able to fabricate components with high accuracy, the in-factory tested components could not able to guarantee inerrancy assembly process. In addressing these limitations, this paper proposes a conceptual workflow include several applications that integrate BIM and augmented reality (AR) so as to enable visualization of prefabrication design optimization and installation. To be effective, assembly modeling of project models as well as prefabricated component models is fundamental step. It is suggested that, the workflow requires a throughout involvement of AR in conjunction with labeling, tracking and sensing technologies. This visualized design workflow could eliminate the gap between project design and prefabrication design, facilitate communication and information exchange between manufacturers and designers, overcome the barrier of design prefabrication components for complex shaped buildings, and ensure an exactness installation.