Using Panoramic Augmented Reality to Develop a Virtual Safety Training Environment

Safety training has a direct impact on the prevention of construction accidents, and increasingly dynamic and complex working conditions require that construction workers and professionals acquire the safety-related knowledge they need to make safety conscious decisions. Currently, virtual modeling methods—such as building information modeling (BIM)—provide the means for visualizing the associated safety conditions present during construction projects and for simulating real working environments for safety-training purposes. However, these models use unrealistic computer-generated simulations of a construction environment and therefore do not provide a full depiction of real-world environments in terms of time, physical space, and material properties. One of the emerging technologies that can address this limitation is panoramic augmented reality. In this paper, 360° panoramas are used for visualizing complex situations on real construction sites, and these panoramas can be augmented with different layers of safety-related information. Panoramic augmented reality creates highly realistic and detailed representations of real construction sites while giving users a sense of immersion. These features enable 360° panoramic augmented reality to become a strong tool for developing training materials specifically for construction safety. In such an environment, construction workers and professionals are capable of navigating within the data-rich environment of a real construction project to observe and identify the safety challenges present in various circumstances. This paper describes the technical development of a virtual safety training environment using a panoramic augmented reality technique. The process of generating the panoramic experience, the techniques for augmenting the captured panoramas with different layers of safety-related information, and the resulting safety training platform are explained in detail. Additionally, this paper presents a pilot study to illustrate the hazard identification training within the proposed platform.