Editorial: nD applications

摘要

The expansion of 3D CAD modeling has been a significant innovation and trend in construction research and industry. With the further development of BIM, cutting-edge approaches, which manage information from many more dimensions during a construction project life-cycle, have evolved. For example, two further steps past 3D modeling are: adding the dimension of time to demonstrate temporal evolution of the construction process and the dimension of cost to demonstrate cost accumulation and overruns. nD modeling integrates a variety of technical perspectives including quality, safety, environmental protection and other information for every stage of a project life-cycle. An nD model allows dynamic and virtual analysis of scheduling, costing, stability, sustainability, maintainability, and evacuation simulation, which provides a transparent and comprehensive management tool allowing all stakeholders to work cohesively and efficiently. This special section provides a collection of papers which provides the state-of-the-art review, inspiring framework and case studies in integrating BIM models and other information technologies for different nD applications. Our aim is to present recent developments in research and practice of BIM and nD modeling in a variety of projects and applications. Totally, 5 papers are included in this special section.