A Framework for Design Review in a Virtual Environment

Design review is a process of reviewing construction design documents to ensure the owner s design intent is reflected, and the owner s desired facility is accurately described. As the design stage progresses, the generation of information becomes more intensive. In current design review practices, valuable information is scattered , thus not efficiently utilized. Studies have shown that the effective use of information during design and design review leads to a more comprehensive and high quality design, a facility that is constructible, and within the intended budget. As such, the author developed a framework for design review process in a Virtual Environment that incorporates 3D CAD model, a centralized information repository, and the filtering of design review information based on context-aware concept. The four contexts of information filtering are discipline-centric, task-centric, object-centric, and location-centric; which led to only the relevant information (textual, numerical and graphical) being presented to the reviewer. A design review prototype software application was developed using a low cost 3D Game Engine as the VE development and enabling tool.