Chapter Virtual Human-Building Interaction Experimentation Ontology (VHBIEO): A VHBIEO-Based Metadata-Driven Exploration

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) offers promise as a tool for building performance simulations, especially when considering human-building interactions in buildings or spaces still under design. However, the absence of standardized data protocols impedes the consistent sharing of VR-related experiments and findings. This makes advancing VR experimentation as a reliable method for studying human-building dynamics challenging. The authors introduced the Virtual Human-Building Interaction Experimentation Ontology (VHBIEO) to address the challenge. VHBIEO seeks to standardize experimentation details as a domain-specific ontology, enhancing their interoperability. It includes essential experimentation concepts and employs semantic web technologies to ensure machine readability. Moreover, it integrates an application view (APV) to tailor details to specific experiments. Using VHBIEO-based metadata, this paper presents a case study aiming to standardize experiments that validate thermal sensations in immersive virtual environments (IVE), encompassing experimental protocol, variables, design, and data gathering. By exploring the main characteristics of VHBIEO-based metadata, the authors discuss its potential to improve the reliability of human-building interaction research