Understanding pre-construction simulation activities to adapt visualization in 4D CAD collaborative tools

International audiencePre-construction phase is very important in construction project life cycle. It enables minimizing risks, waste and overheads, maximizing productivity and reliability during construction phase, and to design more accurate and feasible schedules. The collaborative use of 4D CAD models and simulations appears to be an innovative solution to support many of simulation activities during this phase. But the visualization adaptation to business requirements of actors remains a challenging issue. This paper presents the pre-construction collaborative simulation activities and describes a method aiming at adapting visualization in 4D collaborative tools. A formula for ranking visualization modes and related metamodels are also proposed