Virtual reality applied on civil engineering education: construction activity supported on interactive models

Besides the constant updating of training in the new graphic resources available to engineering and architecture professions, and inwidespread and frequent use, the school should also adapt its teaching activities to the new tools of visual communication. In CivilEngineering, the capacity to visualize the construction, management and maintenance of buildings can be added through the use ofthree-dimensional (3D) models, which facilitate the interpretation and understanding of target elements of maintenance andconstruction and of 4D models (3D + time) through which the evolution of construction steps and deterioration of materials canbe visually demonstrated and understood. Furthermore, the possibility of interaction with the geometric models can be providedthrough the use of Virtual Reality (VR) technology. The text presents a new perspective of introduction an innovative technologyin school. The VR technology is used as a tool to create interactive applications as a part of a research work. The students involved in this research had to learn advanced software of geometric modeling and visualization and to explore the capacities of aVR technology system. Also, programming skills had to be adapted to establish the integration needed for the creation of virtualprototypes. Moreover, the structure of different kind of databases had to be studied and implemented, integrating diverse types ofinformation, needed to develop the interactive virtual model. The VR technology was introduced in school in order to prepare CivilEngineering students to consider this knowledge as an important support, later in professional activity, and also to facilitate thelink between engineering theory and its implementation. The VR applications were developed to be used in the constructionactivity.