BIM Navigation with Hand-Based Gesture Control on Sites

Building Information Model (BIM) technology combines a "virtual building" with extended information, removing the necessity to rely on imagination or experience to foresee the completed building. Viewing a construction project in 3-D includes spatial information that is difficult to convey in 2-D drawings and can reduce errors during construction. In addition to geometry, extended information - such as the properties of building components and the relationship between them - can also be included in models. However, 2-D drawings are still commonly used on sites. One main reason is that the manipulation of BIM models using a mouse is not intuitive and is often not appropriate in the site environment. This research focuses on developing an interactive interface for site workers to retrieve information from BIM models, allowing them to break through the limitations of 2-D drawings. The main feature in this research is a BIM viewer with Natural User Interface (NUI). The interface provides hand-based gesture control that allows BIM models to be navigated with ease. The main contribution of this research is to define gestures that are natural to users and to make the manipulation of BIM intuitive by fine-tuning the sensitivity between real movement and virtual movement. The next step of the research is to conduct a user test to validate the usability of our design.