Architectural, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry has been using 4D construction models (graphical illustration of the construction of a 3D building design with time as the 4th dimension) for many years to improve an existing construction schedule by identifying inconsistencies and out of sequence activities; reducing missing activities; and improving the ability to communicate construction plan information. In practice, majority of the AEC industry has been using a personal computer based monitor to view and analyze these models. A study on investigating the potential benefits and challenges of using an immersive 3D virtual environment to view 4D models proved that by interactively generating construction schedule in the immersive virtual environment, the construction professionals were able to identify design, constructability, sequencing, and interdisciplinary interfacing issues which resulted in the construction professionals being able to develop a plan that resulted in a 28% savings to their original schedule. The major shortcoming of these immersive virtual reality systems was the Building Information Models (BIM) had to be converted to a specific format before they can be visualized in the immersive virtual environments. This study is an attempt to address the shortcomings of the previous version of the BIM CAVE which had the control over the camera views for achieving an almost seamless immersive virtual environment by developing a new BIM CAVE application which synchronizes timelining of 4D construction sequence in BIM CAVE. The new BIM CAVE setup is run by a custom built application that makes use of the .Net API (Application Programming Interface) of the commercially available BIM application, Autodesk Navisworks 2012. The objective of this research is to investigate the effectiveness, potential benefits and challenges of timelining the 4D construction sequence in BIM CAVE developed at Texas A&M University by using a qualitative research methodology called phenomenological study. The findings of this research specify that timelining the 4D construction sequence in BIM CAVE has many potential benefits like better spatial perception which increases confidence of construction professionals over the schedule, better sequencing of construction activities, better communication of schedule, evaluating constructability issues, and training the work force. Thus, this research concludes that timelining the construction in BIM CAVE is effective over visualizing 4D construction on a single screen with some limitations mentioned in this research.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) model contains information about structural, architectural, MEP (Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing) and other numerous components of a building. Among these components, MEP constitutes about 50% of the project cost, and its design is relatively more complex because of the limited headroom available to locate these components. The coordination of these systems involves locating and routing several subcomponents in a manner that satisfies different types of constraints. The earlier version of BIM Computer Aided Virtual Environment (CAVE) did not have provisions to show the overhead components of a BIM model. Conventionally, models had to be tilted to visualize the overhead components. The process of tilting the models to look up is considered counterintuitive. Some of the popular CAVEs developed by leading Universities have a screen on top to show the overhead components but they have a major shortcoming with them. The BIM models had to be converted to a specific format before they can be visualized in the CAVE environments. This study is an attempt to address the shortcomings of the previous version of the BIM CAVE by suggesting a prototype setup with a 55" LCD screen on top of the existing three vertically placed LCD screens. The addition of one more screen on top increases the vertical field of view, that is, the extent to which the user can see vertically in a BIM model. The new BIM CAVE setup is run by a custom built application that makes use of the .Net API (Application Programming Interface) of the commercially available BIM application, Autodesk Navisworks 2012, to control the camera views for achieving an almost seamless semi-immersive virtual environment. The main objective of this research is to validate the effectiveness of the new setup suggested by using a qualitative research methodology called phenomenological study. Semi-structured informal interviews were conducted with the subject matter experts (SMEs) who are experienced in the field of BIM to know about the differences in the user experience after adding a screen on top of the earlier BIM CAVE setup. The main idea behind this qualitative research technique is to develop an understanding of how the SMEs perceived the idea of looking up to see the overhead components of the BIM model. This thesis explains the steps followed to develop the modified BIM CAVE setup in detail and findings of the qualitative study to know about the effectiveness of the suggested new setup.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an emerging technology that utilizes 3D graphical representations to improve communication, collaboration, and data exchange. Immersive Visualization Environment (IVE) is another promising technology that enhances the 3D graphical representation to achieve a higher level of a sense of presence. The connection between the BIM technology that utilizes the 3D graphical representation and the IVE technology that enhances the 3D graphical representation has led many professionals to visualize BIM in immersive environments. This study is an attempt to overcome a systematic issue presented by available immersive visualization systems. The problem is that in order to visualize an information-rich BIM model from a commercial BIM application in an immersive visualization environment, the BIM model needs to pass through a tough conversion process and loss a large amount of its information. This research study utilizes the Application Programming Interface (API) of a commercially available BIM application to develop an immersive visualization environment. This approach was applied on Autodesk Navisworks software by developing a software program that utilizes Navisworks' API to control Navisworks' camera angle and generate an immersive visualization environment. A prototype of the approach was built in the Department of Construction Science at Texas A & M University and named BIM CAVE Prototype. The overall goal of this research was to prove that it is possible to transform a commercial BIM application into an immersive visualization system. A phenomenological study was utilized by interviewing subject matter experts from the construction industry. The intent of this effort was to explore and develop a phenomenological understanding of how research participants perceived the BIM CAVE system. The results show that the BIM CAVE can be considered an immersive visualization environment because it contains a majority of the immersive visualization environment features. However, a variety of technical limitations must be overcome before it can be called a fully immersive and functional visualization environment. Moreover, even though this investigation was to some extent successful, this research approach needs to be tested on other commercially available BIM applications before generalizations are made.