A Systematic Literature Review on 360° Panoramic Applications in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Industry

While the advancement of visualization technologies—virtual-reality, augmented-reality, mixed-reality, and extended reality—has long produced opportunities to create more realistic simulated environments to provoke and study natural human behavior, recent interest in applying 360° panoramic visualizations has been increasing across several disciplines due to these technologies’ lower costs, higher presence, and greater immersive-ness. However, the variety of applications of 360° panoramas (both images and videos) is limited in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) domain compared to other domains. This paper systematically presents an in-depth understanding of 360° panorama research trends and reveals the challenges and opportunities for future research in the AEC area. In particular, this systematic review analyzed eighty studies across two decades (2000-2022) to consider 360° panoramas’ application areas, methodologies, potential benefits, challenges, best practices, and future research directions for both AEC and non-AEC domains. Several prevalent application domains in AEC—namely architectural studies, construction education and training, construction visualization and progress monitoring, and cognitive analysis and human behavior in the construction industry—were identified. This paper indicates that 360° panoramas provide a higher sense of presence than conventional simulation methods (e.g., virtual reality). Moreover, pairing 360° panorama technologies with a head-mounted display significantly increases immersion when compared with other display options. Lastly, limitations of 360° panoramas, such as cybersickness and technical properties, are discussed. This paper is expected to shed light on the potential of these state-of-the-art technologies in the AEC domain, which can serve both academia and industry.