Application of virtual and augmented reality techniques during design and construction process of building projects

Research regarding Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) as support tools of visual managment of design and construction for building projects has increased notably in recent years. However, most of these investigations present applications that improve the management of the project in a single phase or aspect, leaving aside the generation of value throughout the entire project. This article presents a brief review of the current state of VR / AR technologies, proposes the application of the Lean philosophy trough VR / AR applications in the different phases of the life cycle of a building project, and also shows several applications in real cases in which encouraging intial results were obtained. The proposed applications proved to be efficient to improve the communication between the different stakeholders, improving the understanding of the project, giving reliability to the decision making process, foreseeing errors, decreasing negative iterations and avoiding the time delays generated by the lack of an adequate visualization of the project. Finally, some recommendations about the nomenclature and standarization of the development level of the VR/AR applications are provided.