International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, ICCCBE, Weimar 10. 2004
This paper presents a new design environment based on Multi-Agents and Virtual Reality (VR). In this research, a design system with a virtual reality function was developed. The virtual world was realized by using GL4Java, liquid crystal shutter glasses, sensor systems, etc. And the Multi-Agent CAD system with product models, which had been developed before, was integrated with the VR design system. A prototype system was developed for highway steel plate girder bridges, and was applied to a design problem. The application verified the effectiveness of the developed system.
A Multi-objective Model for Optimizing Construction Planning of Repetitive Infrastructure Projects
(2004)
This paper presents the development of a model for optimizing resource utilization in repetitive infrastructure projects. The model provides the capability of simultaneous minimization of both project duration and work interruptions for construction crews. The model provides in a single run, a set of nondominated solutions that represent the tradeoff between these two objectives. The model incorporates a multiobjective genetic algorithm and scheduling algorithm. The model initially generates a randomly selected set of solutions that evolves to a near optimal set of tradeoff solutions in subsequent generations. Each solution represents a unique scheduling solution that is associated with certain project duration and a number of interruption days for utilized construction crews. As such, the model provides project planners with alternative schedules along with their expected duration and resource utilization efficiency.
A comprehensive framework of information management system for construction projects in China has been established through extensive literature survey and field investigation. It utilizes the potential information technologies and covers the practical management patterns as well as the major aspects of construction project management. It can be used to guide and evaluate the design of the information management systems for construction projects in order to make the system to be applicable to a wide variety of construction projects and survive the changes in project management.
Current disaster management procedures rely primarily on heuristics which result in their strategies being very cautious and sub-optimum in terms of saving life, minimising damage and returning the building to its normal function. Also effective disaster management demands decentralized, dynamic, flexible, short term and across domain resource sharing, which is not well supported by existing distributing computing infrastructres. The paper proposes a conceptual framework for emergency management in the built environment, using Semantic Grid as an integrating platform for different technologies. The framework supports a distributed network of specialists in built environment, including structural engineers, building technologists, decision analysts etc. It brings together the necessary technology threads, including the Semantic Web (to provide a framework for shared definitions of terms, resources and relationships), Web Services (to provide dynamic discovery and integration) and Grid Computing (for enhanced computational power, high speed access, collaboration and security control) to support rapid formation of virtual teams for disaster management. The proposed framework also make an extensive use of modelling and simulation (both numerical and using visualisations), data mining (to find resources in legacy data sets) and visualisation. It also include a variety of hardware instruments with access to real time data. Furthermore the whole framework is centred on collaborative working by the virtual team. Although focus of this paper is on disaster management, many aspects of the discussed Grid and Visualisation technologies will be useful for any other forms of collaboration. Conclusions are drawn about the possible future impact on the built environment.
In this paper, a circulation-type society is expressed by recurrent architecture network described with multi-agent model which consists of the following agents: user, builder, reuse maker, fabricator, waste disposer, material maker and earth bank (see Fig.1). Structural members, materials, resources and monies move among these agents. Each agent has its own rules and aims, regarding structural damages, lifetime, cost reduction, numbers of structural members and structural systems. Reasonable prices of members (fresh, reused, recycled and disposed) can be optimized by GAs in this system considering equal distribution of monies among agents.
The purpose of this research is to develop the method to retrieve a building name from the impression of the building. First, the images of the building are registered as database by the questionnaire. Next, the images of the objective building are compared with the degree of matching in image databases, and the building with high synthetic matching degree is retrieved. This system could get a good retrieval result. Moreover, image processing was done, and image databases are trained by neural network from the amount of characteristics of the image, and the retrieval system by image processing was examined.