Visualization of transportation projects has beenshown to be a very effective way of communicating information between interested project parties [1]. In reviewed applications, visualization has been used primarily for communicating information on the geometric design, or as photorealistic representations that place trasportation projects within their existing or envisioned built or natural context. A review of examples of transportation visualization also indicates that visualization methods are mostly application specific. This paper focuses on the use of visualization during the construction process of highway projects to facilitate collaborative decision-making on construction scheduling and traffic planning. For the visualization of construction scheduling and traffic planning a 4D technology that makes use of a comprehensive 3D project database is proposed. The same 3D database can be also used for the development of photo-realistic animations that can facilitate the dissemination of traffic measures information to the traveling public during construction. This approach has been used during the construction of a section of a large-scale highway interchange project in Dallas, Texas..
State-of-the-art construction equipment control technology creates the opportunity to implement automated and semi-automated object avoidance for improved safety and efficiency during operation; however, methods for constructing models of local objects or volumes in real-time are required. A practical, interactive method for doing so is described here. The method: (1) exploits a human operator's ability to quickly recognize significant objects or clusters of objects in a scene, (2) exploits the operator's ability to acquire sparse range point clouds of the objects quickly, and then (3) renders models, such as planes, boxes, and generalized convex hulls, to be displayed graphically as visual feedback during equipment operation and/or for making proximity calculations in an obstacle detection system. Experimental results indicate that bounding models can be created rapidly and with sufficient accuracy for obstacle avoidance with the aid of human intelligence and that humanassisted modeling can be beneficial for real-time construction equipment control.
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