Integration of BIM and Immersive Technologies for AEC: A Scientometric-SWOT Analysis and Critical Content Review

Abstract

With the outset of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), every sector is escalating to get enrichment out of it, whether they are research- or industry-oriented. The Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry lags a bit in adopting it because of its multi-faceted dependencies and unique nature of work. Despite this, a trend has been seen recently to hone the IR 4.0 multitudes in the AEC industry. The upsurge has been seen in the usage of Immersive Technologies (ImTs) as one of the disruptive techniques. This paper studies the literature based on ImTs, which are Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) integrating with Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the AEC sector. A total number of 444 articles were selected from Scopus following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) protocol of reviewing the literature. Among the selected database, 64 papers are identified as the result of following the protocol, and the articles are divided into eight domains relevant to the AEC industry, namely client/stakeholder, design exploration, design analysis, construction planning, construction monitoring, construction health/safety, facility/management, and education/training. This study adopts both a scientometric analysis for bibliometrics visualization and a critical review using Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat (SWOT) analysis for finding gaps and state of play. The novelty of this paper lies in the analysis techniques used in the literature to provide an insight into the literature, and it provides directions for the future with an emphasis on developing sustainable development goals (SDGs). In addition, research directions for the future growth on the adoption of ImTs are identified and presented based on categorization in immersive devices, graphical/non-graphical data and, responsive/integrative processes. In addition, five subcategories for each direction are listed, citing the limitations and future/needs. This study presents the roadmap for the successful adoption of ImTs for industry practitioners and stakeholders in the AEC industry for various domains. The paper shows that there are studies on ImTs with or without BIM; however, future studies should focus on the usage of ImTs in various sectors such as modular integrated construction (MiC) or emerging needs such as SDGs.

Metrics development and modelling the mixed reality and digital twin adoption in the context of Industry 4.0

“…Addressing the limitations may facilitate the MRDT adoption process. Khan, Sepasgozar et al (2021) discussed the advantages, benefits and threats of immersive technologies. They conclude that the design sector benefitted most from the immersive technologies and presented more used cases and suggested that this type of technologies should be utilised in health/safety, facility/management and education/training sectors.…”

“…Low field of view (Borisov et al, 2018) Health and safety issues (Cai et al, 2015;Borisov et al, 2018;Wilson et al, 2020) Expensive hardware (Cai et al, 2015), (Alaiad and Zhou, 2017;Pal et al, 2018) Large space requirement (Lee et al, 2012) Security and privacy issues (Cai et al, 2015;Borisov et al, 2018;Wilson et al, 2020) High training cost (Khan et al, 2021) Completeness and accuracy of content offering (Cai et al, 2015) Lack of knowledge (Cai et al, 2015;Borisov et al, 2018;Wilson et al, 2020); Lack of trained workforce (Abrahamse and Lotriet, 2012) High processing requirements (Cai et al, 2015) Time consuming (Chang and Yang, 2010) Isolation caused by HMDs (Alaiad and Zhou, 2017) Interoperability of tools (Borisov et al, 2018;Abrahamse and Lotriet, 2012;Catal et al, 2019) Limited sample size for evaluating the MRDT from users' perspective (Alaiad and Zhou, 2017;Cai et al, 2015;Catal et al, 2019) Compatibility of system (Borisov et al, 2018;Abrahamse and Lotriet, 2012;Atwal et al, 2014) Lack of in-depth data (Borisov et al, 2018) Specific location or situation (Abrahamse andLotriet, 2012, (Cai et al, 2015;Borisov et al, 2018;…”

Differentiating Digital Twin from Digital Shadow: Elucidating a Paradigm Shift to Expedite a Smart, Sustainable Built Environment

“…The number of scholarly papers published on DT in Scopus also shows that academia and practitioner attention has risen, with a large increase in the number of scholarly papers indexed in Scopus and Google search in recent years (1536 in 2020). In order to learn from the VR literature, keywords suggested by Khan, et al [65] were used to identify themes covered previously. Figure 5 shows how the literature is fragmented and that many countries have contributed to developing virtual applications.…”

“…Figure 5a shows 12 main themes of VR technologies and their applications in the literature. The search keywords and content review are presented by Khan, Sepasgozar, Liu and Yu [65]. Applications in the VR dataset were mostly used for educational game and training, defect management, and design objectives.…”

“…Figure 4 shows themes that have emerged alongside DT in recent years, such as blockchain and deep learning. It also shows that one of the earliest applications of DT was in manufacturing.In order to learn from the VR literature, keywords suggested by Khan, et al[65] were used to identify themes covered previously. Figure5shows how the literature is fragmented and that many countries have contributed to developing virtual applications.…”