Visual and behavioral data analysis in immersive virtual environments for enhancing construction safety, planning, and control

With recent advances in Building Information Modeling (BIM), Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have many synergistic opportunities for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. Moreover, a combination of VR technologies with biometric sensors or motion trackers enables new ways to improve construction safety, planning and controls. The overall objective of this study is to improve construction safety, planning, and control by leveraging the emerging VR and AR technologies. The first aim of this study is about leveraging VR technologies to understand workers' cognitive behaviors in the presence of construction hazards. The second aim leverages VR and AR technologies in remote inspection and improve human interactions in immersive virtual environments through advances in computer vision and motion tracking technologies. Additionally, the output of this research can be used to potentially reduce rework and effectively assist practitioners in utilizing VR technology for virtual assembly and inspection applications. This thesis concludes with discussion on future applications in construction that can branch out to two future studies.