Immersive VR versus BIM Platform Features for Effective AEC Team Collaboration
Bita Astaneh Asl, Andrea T. Huynh, Carrie Sturts Dossick · 2024
Building information modeling (BIM) and virtual reality (VR) are technology tools used by architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals for team collaboration. A prior study suggests that visualization, voice, implicit communications like facial expression and body language, team members’ presence during technical knowledge exchange, and use of tools like pointer and markup are factors affecting multidisciplinary AEC team members’ mutual understanding of disciplinary knowledge, referred to as shared understanding, to collaborate, find solutions, and make decisions. This paper presents a comparative analysis of BIM and VR platforms for AEC team collaboration based on features that can affect team shared understanding. While VR has features that can address the gaps in BIM platforms to support team collaboration, the current commercially available VR tools lack some features like capturing facial expressions and full body language that make each platform of BIM and VR unique and complimentary for team collaboration.