Virtual Reality and the Built Environment

This book was written for construction professionals such as architects, engineers, and planners and aims to give an insight into how VR technologies are presently being used to aid the planning and construction of our built environment. The author’s definition of VR is broad and covers everything from high-end immersive systems to the visualization of supermarket audit trails via bar charts. The main body of the book is 134 pages long and is divided into six chapters with 23 pages of tables and illustrations. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction to the VR medium (the virtual environment) and the VR system (the hardware) and then provides an overview of their historical development. At the end of this short chapter is a section that points out the different ways of storing, accessing, and optimizing computer model data. The second chapter touches upon some issues associated with the representation and viewing of scenes in VR applications. Chapter 3 looks briefly at several companies in the manufacturing and construction industry that have used computers for the visualization and simulation of proposed designs. Chapter 4 discusses several ways in which computer visualizations are being used as tools to communicate design proposals to different industries and, in the process, opening up new markets for 3D design professionals. Chapter 5 looks at how some city planners are not only using computers to assess the visual impact of proposed urban designs but also running simulations to investigate their wider economic implications. The book concludes with a brief discussion suggesting that design professionals could benefit from using VR technologies on largeand small-scale construction projects. Trying to comment on real-time interactive media via the printed page is not easy, but this book does communicate the breadth of jobs that computers are being used for in today’s visualization and simulation industry. However, I feel it would benefit from some sort of visual accompaniment such as a CD-ROM. There is a companion Web site to the book at www. buildingvr.com. This contains a brief overview of the book, also a 35-strong list of the Web address links that appear in its reference section, although six of these were broken at the time of writing. There are also links to external sites that will be of genuine interest to the uninformed construction professional or university student looking to learn a little bit about the present state of the computer visualization industry. Although the absolute beginner may find the use of buzzwords confusing as they are often left unexplained, Virtual Reality and the Built Environment does nevertheless contain some fascinating insights into the field of VR and will certainly be of some use to building industry professionals seeking a broad introduction into the subject.