IMPROVING CONSTRUCTION TRAINING THROUGH GESTURE-ENHANCED VIRTUAL TRAINING: A PILOT STUDY

摘要

The purpose of construction training is to prepare students of technical and practical competence to implement best practices in the construction industry. To this end, traditional field trips and case studies are limited due to cost and safety concerns as well as the lack of a "learning-by-doing" environment. Motivated by the recent development in human-computer interaction, this research presents a virtual training approach enhanced by gesture recognition technology. In such a virtual simulation, students can exercise hands-on by interacting with a virtual construction scene in order to enhance their learning experience. The virtual environment can be used to present construction operations with complex technical, spatial, time-constraints, and logistics and to provide students with hands-on interaction with project objects. To prove the concept, a 3D virtual training exercise was developed. This exercise presents a realistic 3D virtual construction site and allows students to navigate around the project and to observe the scene using hand gestures. This paper also discusses the hardware and software used in this pilot study.