Development of a Construction-Site Work Support System Using BIM-Marker-Based Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) in 3D has been proposed as a way to overcome the shortcomings of 2D drawings. In particular, marker-based AR is known to be more accurate in implementation, but it is not easy to use on construction sites because it requires more time and effort to create corresponding markers for information. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a building information modeling (BIM)-based AR construction work support system that can be applied to construction sites by automatically generating markers. The system algorithm consists of three modules. The first module classifies and groups the objects of the BIM-based 3D model by work order. The second is used to reconstruct the 3D model by groups and automatically generate the corresponding individual markers for each object. The third specifies the marker position and implements AR by automatically matching of 3D model objects to the corresponding markers. To verify this system, a case study was implemented by projecting the BIM-marker-based AR of a 3D model on an existing building. The results show that the developed system provides 3D models and work-related information in AR at the correct scale, size, and location.