ARchitecture

Project Description

The course “Interactive Visualization” at TU Munich tasks the students with finding new ways to interact with and experience architecture digitally. The choice of platform ranges from desktop PCs to VR and AR and all of games, applications and everything in between is allowed, provided architecture is the main focus. Our project, ARchitecture, is a mobile, handheld augmented reality app built with Unity and Tridify, featuring a new take on architectural models.

First, a 3D model is digitally placed on a flat surface or in an architectural model of the building site. Users can, among other things, interact with the building by tapping on it, revealing extracted IFC information such as material lists or thermal capacity. To convert our BIM models into a Unity compatible format, we use Tridify’s conversion tool and Unity plugin. The interactive information system uses the Tridify plugin to query and filter IFC data. Another feature of the app is selectively hiding and showing building storeys, which again uses IFC querying to target the correct parts of the model.