Digital Planning Using Building Information Modelling and Virtual Reality: New Approach for Students' Remote Practical Training under Lockdown Conditions in the Course of Smart Building Engineering

The worldwide Corona pandemic has severely restricted student projects in the higher semesters of engineering courses. In order not to delay the graduation, a new concept had to be developed for projects under lockdown conditions. Therefore, unused rooms at the university should be digitally recorded in order to develop a new usage concept as laboratory rooms. An inventory of the actual state of the rooms was done first by taking photos and listing up all flaws and peculiarities. After that, a digital site measuring was done with a 360° laser scanner and these recorded scans were linked to a coherent point cloud and transferred to a software for planning technical building services and supporting Building Information Modelling (BIM). In order to better illustrate the difference between the actual and target state, two virtual reality models were created for realistic demonstration. During the project, the students had to go through the entire digital planning phases. Technical specifications had to be complied with, as well as documentation, time planning and cost estimate. This project turned out to be an excellent alternative to on-site practical training under lockdown conditions and increased the students' motivation to deal with complex technical questions. [For the full proceedings, see ED623149.]