It is widely accepted that the prediction of building energy performance is strongly related to the occupancy parameters. Currently, existing buildings and laboratories are the main sources for collecting occupancy related data. However, using such data for predicting the energy consumption of future buildings can create a considerable amount of uncertainties. Recent studies show that Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) have the potential to generate design and context sensitive occupant-related data. However, extended observations (longitudinal data covering relevant spatial and temporal events) which are necessary for developing quantitative predictive models are impractical using conventional IVEs. To that end, the authors propose a Spatial-Temporal Event
Combining immersive virtual environment (IVE) with a controlled environment is a potential solution for analyzing human thermal experience during building design. Existing studies in this field have not adequately analyzed scenarios involving stabilized comfortable and uncomfortable temperature conditions using both thermal state votes and physiological responses, or the influence of the seasons. By combining IVE with a climate chamber, called mixed IVE (MIVE) in this study, experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that participants' virtual experience did not significantly alter their thermal experience compared to their in-situ experience. Response variables were the control temperature distribution, the thermal state vote (at temperature steps 18.3 ºC, 23.8 ºC, and 29.4 ºC), and physiological responses (heart rate and skin temperature). The results show that the first two response variables were not significantly different between the MIVE and in-situ settings (except for one case). Due to the heat development of the head mounted display device, the mean forehead skin temperature in the MIVE experiments was significantly higher than that in the in-situ experiments in most cases. However, such difference in skin 2 temperature did not seem to affect general thermal state votes. In addition, significant skin temperature differences at some locations were also observed between the MIVE and in-situ settings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.