Building Information Modelling and Virtual Reality Laboratory

The Virtual Reality Laboratory is used for BIM based integrated/collaborative design and large scale optimization/decision making for water, energy and infrastructure management.

It is supported by a cloud computing environment (OpenStack/CometCloud-based high performance computing clusters) and a serious gaming system (3D projector, glasses and helmet supported by UNITY3D software).

Equipment

Name	Make/Model	Details
Private Cloud Computing Infrastructure	STONEPC-1210	The private Cloud computing environment includes High Performance Computing pool (for closely coupled computing tasks, e.g. Parallel Finite Element Analysis etc.), High Throughput Computing pool (for loosely coupled / distributed computing tasks, e.g. large scale energy related simulation/optimization/prediction etc.), Web Service based Contents Management environment and various Cloud computing middleware and services. The facility can provide 200+ CPU cores, about 1 Terabit shared memory, 10+ Terabit storage and 10 Gigabit main Internet connection speeds; if it needs. It includes 18 computing nodes, and 3 management nodes (used for Web Portal and interfaces purpose), and 2 dedicated high specification PCs for IPD and Virtual Reality facility (interfacing directly with Cloud Computing facility). This private Cloud will provide fundamental computing support for large scale engineering modelling, simulation, optimization and life cycle big data storage.
Touch Wall	92” – 2 x 2 (46” near seamless displays) Interactive video wall. 2 units high x 2 units wide including “daisy chain boards” & true Multi touch overlay. (UT92/IVW/IR/20T)	A 92” high quality multi-touch wall and supporting computing infrastructure to provide 3D/nD BIM based IPD (Integrated Project Delivery) using universal shared single model for building / infrastructure. The solution is suitable for the delivery team working at any stage during building/infrastructure life cycle, when clients, contractors, designers and other stake holders come together to finalize the design/refurbishing/construction conceptual model via the interactive communication with the “digital models”.
Virtual Reality Environment	Digital Projection M-Vision Cine 3D;	a whole set of 3D glasses and special Hamlet devices, a high end 3D projector, and a Kinect based computer game system (sensors and etc.) with necessary accessories. The developed applications combine BIM with Unity 3D computer game system, which working together with 3D projector / helmet / glasses can help users to merge themselves into a 3D virtual environment, to “feel” the building / infrastructure design / management to explore more feasible design / maintenance alternatives; the solutions also work for smart phones, where a hybrid (virtual and real) environment can be built to conduct BIM directed emergency evacuation and facility management.