Integrated application of BIM and eXtended reality technology: a review, classification and outlook

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector has been benefitted from the continuous development of innovative information and visualisation technologies such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). These techniques have been widely researched to address traditional challenges such as the lack of capabilities to cope with extensive project information, safety concerns and multitudinous uncertainty. These studies have different research purposes and have led to a variety of outcomes. To understand the state-of-the-art of these research outcomes and identify the gaps and challenges among them, an application-focused literature review is conducted and reported in this paper. Methodically, a classification method is proposed to examine the trend of developing various BIM-XR applications. The gaps, challenges, and future works are summarised and elaborated. This paper will enhance the AEC sector’s confidence in addressing the encountering problems associated with conventional project delivery and technological evolvement and make use of the lessons learnt from this study into the futuristic digital engineering practice.