These aspects are shown to increase efficiency, timeliness, and profitability of construction through effective collaboration and communication. This research develops a 3D-based crane evaluation system (3D-CES) which designs, verifies, and simulates 3D visualization of mobile crane operation not only to support the selection of the most efficient crane operation, but also to plan the crane lift schedule during crane lift studies based on identification of safety and productivity aspects. Existing tools have not yielded strategies which support informed decisions to select the most suitable mobile crane operation (e.g., the cycle time of the crane lift) among several alternatives. Modular-based heavy industrial projects, which involve a large number of lifts on congested and/or dynamic site layouts, require not only the design and selection of efficient mobile crane operations, but also rapid and accurate responses to design changes in the planning stage of the project to ensure successful project completion. The methodology is tested on a case study in order to illustrate its effectiveness. The spatial analysis, meanwhile, is used to monitor and maintain sufficient clearances between existing obstacles and the crane body configurations in order to prevent potential collisions during crane operation design. The rotation analysis is applied for calculating the angles describing the orientations of mechanical elements in the crane system by reading the coordinates of the crane location and pick and set points of the object (module) to be lifted. The methodology is developed based on two types of interactive analysis: (1) rotation analysis to build 3D visualization for the motions of crane body configurations and (2) spatial analysis to detect potential collision errors in order to design collision-free crane operations. This approach integrates 3D visualization with mathematical algorithms based on “What if” scenarios, facilitating the design of collision-free mobile crane operations for a large number of lifts in congested areas. Corresponding to the design of reliable crane operations, this research proposes 3D visualization-based motion planning for mobile cranes. The successful completion of modular-based heavy industrial construction projects is reliant upon safe and efficient crane operations, where the degree of safety and efficiency has a direct impact on project productivity.