BENEFITS OF THE POTENTIAL IMPLEMENTATION OF AUGMENTED REALITY TO THE CONSTRUCTION PROFESSION

The nature of construction revolves around the level of drawing details (LOD) as a platform of communication which supports the levels of decision-making between different stakeholders in a project. This affects different areas within a project – Design, Engineering, Commercial (Cost and Change Management), Health and Safety and Programme. Recently, Building Information Modelling/Management has evolved to Virtual Design in Construction (VDC) to cater for the constraints in 2D drawings. An example of a VDC interactive technology is Augmented Reality (AR), a partially immersive technology which is in this period, known to be already ubiquitous. However, its implementation is not fully adopted with the lack of studies about exploring a BIM Powered AR User Interface (UI) /User Experience (UX). Deliberately, this paper aims to introduce how the AR functionalities will be able to aid Quantity Surveying (QS) students with their issues in Quantity Take-off tasks from drawings. Due to time constraints and the complexity of developing a prototype the study is limited to the responsiveness, visualisation and communication between QS students and QS lecturers. A prototype was intentionally developed to highlight the relevant features for an AR mobile application which can be suitable for understanding Quantity Take-off considering Standards, Construction Technology, and Materials. An overview of the findings was formulated from related studies and from perspectives of a chosen semester of QS students from a private university using formative usability testing. Therefore, serving as a guide for future research to consider the benefits and usability of AR specifically for Construction Professionals.