Interactive Highway Construction Simulation Using Game Engine and Virtual Reality for Education and Training Purpose

In a construction project, cranes are usually involved in the mobilization of materials and equipment. Therefore, a well-planned crane movement on a construction job site increases the efficiency of construction operations. This is especially the case when a crane is being operated from the material storage place to the workspace in a highway construction project, because the time allowed for such movement is typically tight, as constrained by the vehicular traffic on the highway. To explore the use of construction simulation in facilitating people's understanding of construction processes, this paper presents a crane movement simulation from the site storage location to the beam erection location in a highway construction project on the Interstate 94. This simulation was modeled in the Unity 3D game engine and visualized in a CAVE virtual reality environment. CAVE is an immersive virtual reality environment where projections according to different view angles of a scene are projected onto different walls of a space. The purpose of this simulation is to help people plan crane routes during the construction planning phase. The objectives of planning the crane routes are minimizing crane trip length and trip time so as to minimize interruptions to the highway traffic, save construction costs, and achieve more sustainable construction operations. The simulation was tried by 72 volunteers. A survey of these volunteers showed that 95% of them understood crane operations after trying the simulation, compared to 35% before trying the simulation, and 80% of the responses agreed that such simulation helps people conduct construction planning.