Application of a Visualization Technique for Safety Management

Safety training and management are among the constant tasks of project management on any construction site. A review of literature on the causation model and improvement factors for safety confirms that construction accidents can be preventable with consistent safety management and effective communication between managers and workers. One limitation of traditional safety management, however, is that workers may not be efficiently informed of hazardous locations and safety-related issues. In that respect, any technology that facilitates the analysis of safety and communication would have potential benefits in improving safety management. In this paper, application of the D⁴AR model (4-dimensional augmented reality) model, wherein a 4D as-planned model is superimposed on safety site photographs, and a visualization framework for site safety management are introduced. Visualization of safety acts as an effective communication tool to facilitate interactions between workers and managers and brings beneficial spatial information on and cognition of safety education and training. The proposed model is applied to an ongoing building project and the preliminary results are presented.