Current Issue : October - December Volume : 2015 Issue Number : 4 Articles : 4 Articles
Background: The emerging Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction\n(AEC)/Facility Management (FM) industry promotes life cycle process and collaborative way of working. Currently, many\nefforts have been contributed for professional integrated design/construction/maintenance process, there are very few\npractical methods that can enable a professional designer to effectively interact and collaborate with end-users/clients\non a functional level.\nMethod: This paper tries to address the issue via the utilisation of computer game software combined with Building\nInformation Modelling (BIM). Game-engine technology is used due to its intuitive controls, immersive 3D technology\nand network capabilities that allow for multiple simultaneous users. BIM has been specified due to the growing trend\nin industry for the adoption of the design method and the 3D nature of the models, which suit a game engine�s\ncapabilities.\nResults: The prototype system created in this paper is based around a designer creating a structure using BIM and this\nbeing transferred into the game engine automatically through a two-way data transferring channel. This model is then\nused in the game engine across a number of network connected client ends to allow end-users to change/add elements\nto the design, and those changes will be synchronized back to the original design conducted by the professional\ndesigner. The system has been tested for its robustness and functionality against the development requirements,\nand the results showed promising potential to support more collaborative and interactive design process.\nConclusion: It was concluded that this process of involving the end-user could be very useful in certain circumstances\nto better elaborate the end user�s requirement to design team in real time and in an efficient way....
Looking at the ways in which players interact with computer games (the gameplays), we perceive predominance of character centered\nand/or micro controlled modes of interaction. Despite being well established, these gameplays tend to structure the games\nin terms of challenges to be fulfilled on an individual basis, or by thinking collectively but having to microcontrol several characters\nat the same time. From this observation, the paper presents a complementary gameplay in which the player is urged to face\ncollective challenges by designing character organizations. The basic idea is to make the player structure and control group of\ncharacters by defining organizational specifications (i.e., definitions of roles, collective strategies, and social norms). During the\ngame, commanded by the player, artificial agents are then instantiated to play the roles and to follow the strategies and norms as\ndefined in the organizational specification. To turn the idea into practice, the paper proposes an abstract architecture comprising\nthree components or layers. This architecture is materialized in a proof of concept prototype that combines the Minecraft game\nserver, JADE agent platform, and MOISE+ organizational model. Variations and possibilities are discussed and the proposal is\ncompared to related work in the literature....
Massive procedural content creation, for example, for virtual urban environments, is a difficult, yet important challenge. While\nshape grammars are a popular example of effectiveness in architectural modeling, they have clear limitations regarding readability,\nmanageability, and expressive power when addressing a variety of complex structural designs. Moreover, shape grammars aim\nat geometry specification and do not facilitate integration with other types of content, such as textures or light sources, which\ncould rather accompany the generation process. We present procedural content graphs, a graph-based solution for procedural\ngeneration that addresses all these issues in a visual, flexible, and more expressive manner. Besides integrating handling of diverse\ntypes of content, this approach introduces collective entity manipulation as lists, seamlessly providing features such as advanced\nfiltering, grouping, merging, ordering, and aggregation, essentially unavailable in shape grammars. Hereby, separated entities can\nbe easily merged or just analyzed together in order to perform a variety of context-based decisions and operations.The advantages\nof this approach are illustrated via examples of tasks that are either very cumbersome or simply impossible to express with previous\ngrammar approaches....
A LearningManagement System (LMS) is a system which acts as an integrated platformfor the management of the learning process\nused to facilitate the process of communication between students and instructors. Although LMS is considered an important\nelement in learning, most students do not utilise the system to its fullest extent, finding itmore convenient if the activities carried out\non the system are done outside the system. These factors have contributed to the issues as to why LMSs are not being used effectively\nand efficiently.With the accelerating pace of information technology, educational institutions should attempt to revolutionise their\nteaching techniques. Furthermore, combining gaming concepts can potentially increase the LMS�s usability level helping to foster\nhealthy competition among students and increase their interest in their daily learning. With regard to this objective, a prototype\nwas developed as a proof of concept. The prototype is a web-based software and can be accessed via the Internet at all times. The\nteacher monitors the students� performance through the analysis of test results or tutorials conducted by the system. In conclusion,\nthis study will present the modules that have been built into the system that could improve the overall process of education....
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