Color Schemes on 4D Models in 4D Construction Management Tools

Four-dimensional models, which are 3D models with an added dimension to represent schedule information, have become an important tool in representing construction processes. These models usually rely on colors to represent the different construction statuses, such that when an ideal color scheme is used, engineers are able to understand the model and identify the potential problems more easily. However, up to this point, little research has been conducted in this area. his research presents a systematical procedure to determining the ideal color scheme for a 4D model. I named this procedure SEUT as an acronym for the three major steps: (1) Selection of color scheme, (2) Examination of color scheme, and (3) User Test. This procedure can be performed iteratively to obtain the ideal color scheme, which would fit a model according to its construction purposes. To verify the proposed procedure, an example case with two iterations was tested and the ideal color scheme for six construction statuses of a 4D model for plant construction found after examining ten color schemes and testing by 58 users during two iterations. hrough the user tests, the results show that the SEUT procedure can effectively find an ideal color scheme for presenting 4D models. The logical thinking has been testified and may be extended in familiar applications which involve time and colors. For future work, developers of 4D tools can choose to freely apply the color scheme developed in this research or use the SEUT procedure to develop more color schemes to meet their own needs.