Matevž Dolenc

Measuring the potential of augmented reality in civil engineering

Recently building information models have substantially improved the explicit semantic content of design information. Information models are used to integrate the initial phases of project development. On the construction site, however, the designs are still mostly represented as line-based paper drawings or projections on portable displays. A generic technology that can integrate information and situate it in time, place and context is augmented reality. The specific research issues addressed are (1) does augmented reality have a potential use in civil engineering, (2) how big - in comparison to other technologies - is this potential and (3) what are the main barriers to its adoption. The generic research issue was to develop a methodology for evaluation of potentials of technology. A prototype was built. It was tested on a real construction site to evaluate the potential of its use using the action-research method. A set of structured interviews with potential users was then conducted to compare the prototype to conventional presentation methods. Using this methodology it has been found out that augmented reality is expected to be as big a step as the transition from 2D line drawings to photorealistic 3D projections. The main barrier to the adoption is immature core virtual reality technology, conservative nature of construction businesses and size of building information models. Well-formed digital models, such as BIM, are a prerequisite for construction AR.Augmented reality can contribute to the understanding of project documentation.Construction AR needs to be developed in parallel with conventional methods.Construction AR can help better understand construction 3D models.

Re-using Engineering Tools: Engineering SaaS web application framework

While early days of structural analysis (and other engineering) software have been dominated by self-developed and self-maintained programs and applications, most of these tools have lately been abandoned in favor of out-of-the-box commercial software packages, usually due to the inability to cope with the advancements in the computer industry from both software and hardware perspective. Even though the computational engines of these software tools and applications are still sound, the pre- and post-processors are outdated and not suitable for the modern engineering use. On the other hand, the last decade offered simple, intuitive, effective and widely accessible services of the modern web resulting in the fusion of services blurring the boundaries between desktop computers, laptops and other consumer devices. Consequently, more and more applications are developed as web services, moving from desktop environment to the browser. This paper presents the architecture, development and deployment of the web application framework that can transform console standalone tools into fully functional web applications. The framework was developed following the principles of the service-oriented architecture using cloud computing guidelines and the software-as-a-service model of deployment. The use of modern web programming principles and techniques provides the ability to use the framework on a wide range of consumer devices while the underlying high performance/throughput computing system ensures scalability, flexibility and performance. Last but not least, two case applications utilizing the proposed framework are presented.

A Toolbox and Web Application for the Seismic Performance Assessment of Buildings

A software tool, known as a PBEE toolbox, for the seismic performance assessment of buildings, which was developed in Matlab in conjunction with the software framework OpenSees, and a web application for the prediction of approximate IDA curves are presented in this chapter. Although, in its present version, the PBEE toolbox supports only simple nonlinear models, its capabilities exceed usual software tools for computational simulation, since it enables seismic performance assessment of buildings with various procedures and adopts an open-source philosophy so that it can be easily extended or modified to suit specific user requirements. The capabilities of the PBEE toolbox and the web application, which involves the response database of a single-degree-of-freedom system with a quadrilateral force-displacement relationship, are demonstrated by means of an assessment of the seismic response parameters of an eight-storey reinforced concrete frame, using incremental dynamic analysis, progressive incremental dynamic analysis, approximate incremental dynamic analysis, and the N2 method. It is shown that, for the case of the presented example, all the methods produce similar results, although each method has some advantages and some disadvantages.

Innovative Computing Environment for Fast and Accurate Prediction of Approximate IDA Curves

A web-based methodology for the prediction of approximate IDA curves, which was recently developed within ICE4RISK project, and demonstrated with the web application (http://ice4risk.slo-projekt.info/WIDA), is briefly summarized in this chapter and its applicability is presented by means of an example of a four-storey wall-equivalent dual system. The proposed methodology consists of two independent processes. The result of the first process is a response database of the single-degree-of-freedom model, whereas the second process involves the prediction of approximate IDA curves from the response database by using n-dimensional linear interpolation. The web application utilizes a response database of IDA curves, which was calculated for thirty ground motion records and the discrete values of the six parameters, which describe the period, damping and the force-displacement relationship of a building’s pushover curve. The web application enables quadrilinear idealization of the pushover curve, including strength degradation. Structural collapse capacity can therefore also be estimated. Very good agreement between the computed and the approximated IDA curves was observed if the error is measured in terms of peak ground or spectral acceleration which caused selected limit state.

Parametric Studies for the AEC Domain Using InteliGrid Platform

Parametric studies play a vital role in science and engineering in general. They usually consist of a number of repetitive, independent calculations that are therefore easily parallelized. Scientists and engineers involved in this type of work need a computing environment that delivers large amounts of computational power over a long period of time. Such environment is provided by the InteliGrid project testbed. The paper introduces the InteliGrid platform and provides a detailed description of the demonstrated IDA parametric studies and its execution on the InteliGrid testbed as well as benchmark analysis of the benefits provided by the deployed Condor high-throughput computing system.