CIFE 2002-03 Seed Project: Developing iRoom visualization technologies to balance cross-disciplinary decision factors

Research Performed by: Calvin Kam

Faculty Advisor: Martin Fischer

Proposal

Project Proposal (PDF 646 kb)

Presentation at the Technical Advisory Board (PDF 814 kb, integrated for single-screen display)

Progress Presentations

The Bay Street Test Case (PPS 9,634 kb, customized for 3-screen presentation)

Conventional and Proposed Decision Making based on the Bay Street Test Case (PPS 4,128 kb)

Summary

Coming up with project alternatives and being able to effectively describe, explain, and evaluate them are influential in Architecture/Engineering/Construction decision making. Our research takes the "Bay Street" project as our test case, and studies how the CIFE iRoom may be used for describing cross-disciplinary decision factors pertained to specific project alternatives.

The CIFE iRoom constitutes of three front-projected smartboard displays, which are connected to three PC computers that are interlinked by an event-heap.

We developed various application scenarios based on the "Bay Street" test case, in which unforeseen site condition had caused substantial schedule delay and the project executives were using the CIFE iRoom to communicate their acceleration proposals to the decision makers. There were two engineering problems:

(1) How to describe and explain product, process, organization, and cost decision factors that are interlinked with one another in a project alternative?

(2) How to evaluate project alternatives against functional requirements, incorporate "what-if" predictions, and come up with new alternatives for further description, explanation, and evaluation?

To date, we have come up with application scenarios and enabled the CIFE iRoom to support real-time cross referencing among:

• one/multiple 4D model(s) from one/multiple view port(s) (Common Point Technogies)
• a project schedule (Microsoft Project)
• a cost estimate (Microsoft Excel)
• a CIFE iRoom date slider (aka time controller)
• an organization/process model (Vite SimVision)
• a product model (AutoDesk Architectural Desktop)

Real-time cross referenceing among two different 4D models, a project schedule, and a date slider is one of the various application examples that we developed based on the Bay Street test case.

Our work in developing the CIFE iRoom infrastructure and extending the CIFE application suite contibuted to the description and explanation of a project alternative. However, to support further evaluative tasks and "what-if" predictions, we found that the project alternatives were highly coupled such that they hindered the creative and efficient manipulation of product/process/organization options embodied in a project alternative. Such inflexibility undermined the efficiency and value of creativity during the decision-making process. To address this setback, we look into ways in which we synthesize heterogeneous options and information in support for decision-making tasks. We are currently developing an extensible relationship structure that has the potential to flexibly integrate project options (product/process/organization) with decision factors (cost/time/precedence relationship/functional requirements). At the same time, we are designing an "executive dashboard", an interactive decision network, which orients CIFE iRoom decision making.

Project options involve an array of product, process, and organization choices. Our test case illustrated that once options are coupled into an alternative, it would be cumbersome for one to decouple individual options for evaluations or predictions, and thus undermines the value of creativity and interactions in AEC decision making.

Current CIFE iRoom and Related Links

CIFE iRoom Documentation (Sep 2002)

Excelon XML Upload to the CIFE iRoom (this link is active only when the Excelon server is running)

Related CIFE iRoom Papers and Presentations

Current iRoom Links from the Computer Science Department

CS Interactive Workspaces Project Overview

Event Heap Server/Client Download from Computer Science

Prior Links of Relevance

Previous CIFE iRoom Documentation (10/2001)

Previous CS Interactive Workspaces Project Overview (6/2000)