The ability for personal computers to manipulate and present audio and video data in addition to the more traditional text and graphical based data is not new. Indeed, 'Multi Media' applications have been around since the early 1980s and by the end of that decade many were proclaiming multimedia as one of the most promising methods for manipulating information which combined computers, graphics and sound (Bowen D, 1994). By the beginning of the 1990s multimedia had come to the attention of the Construction Industry and many predicted great advances in the way in which the industry generated and used information. Many hypothesised that developments which allowed the combination of text, graphics, animations, audio, images and video would not only effect the way construction professionals performed their tasks, but would most probably change the very nature of the tasks they performed. During the 90s these hypotheses were given added weight with the emergence of the Internet and e-commerce as an international business medium. Indeed, the significance of multimedia technologies to the Construction Industry was identified by Aouad, Alshawi and Bee (1997) where it was ranked as an important development and was linked to improvements in communication and training. The aim of this project was to begin to measure the degree to which multimedia technologies were influencing the work of the Construction/Property Industries. This paper reports the results of a questionnaire survey that examined the current use of multimedia within surveying organisations. The paper concludes that, whilst there is some evidence that digital communication technologies are being used by the surveying profession, the majority of surveyors are still to be convinced of the benefits.

This item is no longer available.