Integrative Simulation Environment for Conceptual Structural Analysis

Abstract

This paper introduces the integrative simulation environment (ISE) methodology and a proof-of-concept implementation, designed as modular and extensible approach for interactive structural simulation. The ISE methodology allows users to sketch, model, simulate, visualize, and augment data based on an immediate-mode paradigm where sketches are automatically turned into models, which are immediately passed to a simulation engine to be analyzed in order to have the results passed back to a visualizer, operating within the same display context that the initial sketch and model were created in. In other words, data can be acquired, defined, delivered, transformed, computed, visualized, and augmented throughout the entire integrative simulation process in a real-time loop, providing the user with an intuitive and interactive modeling interface. ISE as such provides a mechanism to conceptually study cause and effect relationships of design decisions, while allowing for real-time, context specific, digital content overlay onto as-built structures via an augmented reality technique.