Data in civil engineering can help us advance understanding of people's activities, our environment and the operation of infrastructure. Visualisation methods are developing that allow us not only to interact with data and designs in three-dimensions but also to consider the passing of time.
But while visualisation is developing as a science, it faces huge challenges to catch up with the proliferation and availability of high fidelity data. The ability to visualise and explore data is needed so we can reveal connections in our interactions and environments and make better use of this partially hidden resource.
This special issue of Civil Engineering brings together a series of papers that illustrate how visualisations can now be used in civil engineering. They address connected issues of our time: urban and building design, transport and flood risk.
The first paper by Pensa et al. (2014) is a great introduction to the topic, demonstrating the power of visualisations to not only illustrate the results of projects, but also how data exploration and interaction can support planning.
It describes how a group of interdisciplinary experts interacted with three-dimensional visualisations of the benefits, opportunities, risks and costs of four different European road transport strategy case studies. The visualisations gave the experts and stakeholders a common language to communicate and analyse the complex interactions and influence their choices and decisions.
The second and third papers by Box et al. (2014) and Kara et al. (2014) demonstrate how dynamic visualisations of road traffic – in this case in Southampton, England and Strasbourg, France – can be used to improve the design and operations of our roads, and also help network managers quickly identify and respond to incidents.
Traffic micro-simulations of vehicle movements and their interactions with each other at intersections are now commonly applied by engineering and planning practitioners, but also act as a mechanism to communicate complex designs to non-technical audiences and stakeholders.
The fourth paper by Coupe et al. (2014) combines the dynamic simulations of pedestrians with road vehicles at the New Oxford Circus junction in London, UK. The three-dimensional animations of buildings with architectural rendering, coupled to dynamic pedestrian and vehicle movements and interactions make it hard to spot the difference between the visualisations of the final design and the actual project after construction.
Our fifth paper by Li et al. (2014) describes the use and benefits of building information modelling (Neath et al., 2014; Sibert, 2013; Vernikos, 2012) and its associated visualisations during the design and construction of the Tottenham Court Road station redevelopment project in central London.
Interacting with the designs in three-dimensions while also considering time and sequencing – the fourth dimension – significantly benefits the project programming, construction and logistics on site. The continued development of four-dimensional building information modelling is now one of the most important trends in the construction industry.
The sixth and seventh papers by Clarke et al. (2014) and Evans et al. (2014) deal with flood risk and flood incident management. After the recent torrential deluges in the UK this past winter, the UK visualisations of flood risk from the modelled 1 in a 100 year storms seem all too familiar.
The drive for higher performance, more efficient buildings is dealt with by the final paper of this special issue by Patlakas et al. (2014), which visualises environmental conditions in buildings.
We hope you enjoy this special issue and that the papers inspire you to search for data that – through visualisations – can help you understand and overcome challenges in your work, advancing designs and the communication of your ideas.
