Abstract
Abstract: This paper demonstrates the potential of Piece based Construction Information System (PCIS) as a visualization tool for technical cooperation, collaboration, and communication by literally aligning the points of view of architectural, engineering, and construction methodology. There exists complexity during actual construction or assembly wherein the sequence is mostly always confused and this leads to wastage of time, material and manpower. PCIS, the pictorial database, as a decision-aid tool provides information in a sequence that is often forgotten or missed in construction. PCIS has three components. The first is an anatomical model, functionally organized according to ASTM UNIFORMAT II. This programmatic standard means the model can be sequentially constructed and deconstructed according to a standard work breakdown structure (WBS) that is tailored to the requirements of almost any building. The second component of PCIS is a dataTHEATER that surrounds the anatomical model. The theater sets up a combination of two-dimensional data planes that can be hypergraphically accessed to view layout dimensions, details, and specifications. The third part of PCIS is the dataWORLD with cameras fixed to the intersections of its latitudes and longitudes. The cameras attached to the dataTheater and dataWorld control the visual display of the pictorial information (Figure 1). A software engine polls the cameras and publishes the images into a set of directories as files that are accessed by the hypergraphic interface. The information visible to these cameras can be changed through a standard survey matrix (SSM).