Enabling Rapid and Reusable Visualization of Construction Operations Using Simulation and Game Engines

Meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals will require the fast, efficient, and economic development of physical infrastructure systems using innovative construction means and methods. However, the fragmented nature of the construction industry prevents the ready testing and analysis of the impact of such untried methods on the construction site, especially regarding their potential impact on the rest of the construction site system. This can discourage the adoption of innovative methods in the construction industry. This paper presents a solution that enables the rapid testing of novel construction methods in virtual environments by integrating discrete event simulation (DES) and visualization using game engines. Tight coupling between the simulation and visualization engine to enable seamless data transfer between the two will enable the simulation model to consider spatial impacts on operations planning. Simultaneously it enables the simulation engine, ConStrobe (Construction Operations Network Simulation for Time and Resource-Based Evaluation), to communicate commands to visualize the sequence of activities under study. The developed framework, titled Vita3D, is implemented using the Unity game engine, and a case study demonstration of an earthmoving operation that needs to be optimized is presented to showcase the advantages of the developed framework. This framework also enables the use of smart construction objects for visualization that significantly reduces modelling effort through their reuse, thereby enabling the rapid development of construction operations simulation and 3D visualization.