The Evolution of Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality has come a long way in recent years, many Architectural firms have invested in Virtual Reality technology, further utilizing their Design Models. The benefits are numerous, and in some cases surprising. When I first introduced VR into our office in 2014 I want to create a buzz around this technology by having all levels of staff experience VR. My thoughts were to utilize this visualization tool as a design validation tool, having our clients virtually experience the space to gain a better understanding of the design intent, and that worked well, I think most design firms utilize VR for this reason.

What I didn’t expect was the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the Project Managers.

Project managers really enjoyed walking through the digital model of their project, they would inspect crucial design area’s and after experiencing the space was able to make improvements and minor tweaks to further improve the design.

Jump to 2018 where Virtual Reality has progressed to the next level, multi-user VR.

In the past Virtual Reality has been a single user experience, no one else was able to interact with you directly within the VR environment. That has now changed, Virtual Reality companies like IrisVR have developed Multi-User platforms where numerous people in a variety of locations can come together in a VR environment to engage and discuss the design.

What a great opportunity to bring together people who are engaged in an international project, working together across great distance.

I recently set up a test of IrisVR’s Prospect (Multi-User platform), so I contacted Sam who is a IrisVR Customer Experience Associate to set up a challenge for him. I contacted my colleagues in Sydney, Australia, San Francisco USA and Stuttgart, Germany and had Sam, who is located in New York to set up a live demo for me.

Here’s some of the feedback I received.

“In general, the experience has me more enthusiastic now more than ever of what VR can do to transform how we think about and approach collaborating!”

“This was an exciting moment when I was able to 'dial in' using Virtual Reality goggles combined with bluetooth headphones to both review and speak directly with the team. The computer wifi was able to keep up comfortably with the call and actions during the review process.”

“The VR Meeting worked really well and it was very responsive. Super easy to set up.”

“You can talk with the other attendees, see where they are looking at, where their hands are and also what they are pointing at.”

“It certainly felt like we were in the same room together.”

If you want to learn more about IrisVR’s Prospect click the LINK here.

I love this technology, anything that further utilized our Building Information Model is great!

Sc.

Driving Factors for BIM Adoption

What's driving your BIM adoption?

From, my experience I have found that there are some key factors driving BIM adoption in the AEC industry.

BIM is an extension of the Design, Construction and operation processes, utilizing a collaborative approach to managing data at all the stages of construction. The Design and Construction industry globally have seen a decline in the profitability over the last decade resulting in the demand for innovation and improvement on how we design and deliver buildings and infrastructure.

We are already seeing the adoption of BIM playing a factor in the AECO industry for a number of reasons, for example in Africa the drive to adopt BIM is being driven by the Quantity Surveyors, in North America we’ve recently seen a shift in BIM utilization from Architects driving BIM to the Construction companies utilizing BIM for construction management including quantification, construction sequence and staging and collaboration helping to reduce time and cost. 

Projects are difficult at the best of times, everyone is concerned about cost over runs, risk mitigation and ever ballooning scope of work. Adopting BIM can be challenging, it changes the conventional design process that we are all use too. 

The conventional process is broken and inefficient for the needs of today’s high demand projects. We have to collaborate more effectively, produce more efficiently and deliver a high quality package to our clients.

 When a project succeeds we all succeed

There are a number of driving factors that play an important role in the successful adoption of Building Information Modeling.

Client Demand.

BIM is becoming a requirement on more and more projects as our clients develop an understanding of the benefits of BIM. As our clients are educating themselves on BIM they are demanding the project be completed utilizing BIM so they can take advantage of the many benefits including sustainability (social responsibility), workplace environment. Clients are quite often willing to pay more to achieve these needs, however they will demand a high level of BIM from all parties.

BIM Mandate. 

Were seeing more and more countries and organizations mandating BIM as part of their RFP's. Government authorities both Regional and National as well as International companies mandating BIM as they see the long and short term benefits of a BIM project. 

Competitive Advantage:

As the use of BIM is becoming more commonplace in the design industry those who have adopted BIM are slowly loosing their competitive advantage. However, as BIM becomes more prolific companies who are utilizing the BIM beyond generating "construction drawings" are seeing a competitive advantage as they can deliver "value added" services as well as "billable" additional services. 

Value added could be as simple as generating Stereoscopic views for use in Google cardboard which can be generated very easily and quickly to additional billable services could include higher level of VR engagement,  marketing uses, building operations use etc. 

What are your driving factors and look for additional area's you can utilize BIM to enhance your business model, opportunities are numerous...

Sc.

IrisVR Release v0.2.3; Revit direct to VR

IrtisVR has recently released it's latest version of their VR App.

This release has been several years in the making. Behind the scenes of the latest release; IrisVR reads the 3D model and pulls out relevant file information. While reading this 3D geometry, they have optimized the software to improve stability, reduce loading times, and expand file support. 

The manual process of creating VR walkthroughs can take hours (if not weeks), but  Iris v0.2.3 will reduces the process to seconds. 

IrisVR is a standalone piece software, which  the users download and install the software themselves without needing to send their files to a consultant. 

This provides users fast access to VR throughout the entire design process, allowing you to show the design ideas in VR with your clients, creating a seamless integration with existing design workflows.  

New Features
    •    Revit 2014 - 2016 File Support
    •    Autodesk Material Support
    •    Navigation Overhaul
    •    Improved Daylighting
    •    Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
    •    Scale Model "Dollhouse" Mode
    •    File Load Time Improvements
    •    Start Position Reimagined
    •    New Revit VR Plugin

Known Bugs
    •    Jagged edges caused by aliasing
    •    Dollhouse mode doesn't calibrate properly with cropped Revit 3D views.

This new solution enables users to quickly view their Revit files in VR! 
To access, go to app.irisvr.com and log in to download the latest build of our software. 
Controls and installation instructions can be found at http://app.irisvr.com/help.

A video announcement that showcases IrisVR 0.2.3 is also available that will explain how to get your files working in Revit in seconds: https://youtu.be/ZIB-ydgg1-E 

This release is intuitive and I know IrisVR are very excited to see how companies use it. 

Send me your feedback via comments.

Sc.

Calgary BIM User Group - VR for BIM Presentation

If your in Calgary on May 20th 2015 come and join the Calgary BIM User Group for a couple exciting presentations... I'm especially looking forward to the second presentation. ;-)

Meeting is being held at the Smart Technologies building located at:
3636 Research Road NW Calgary.

Bluebeam & BIM – Nick Decker – Bluebeam

Nick will show how architects and engineers can use Bluebeam Revu and its Studio feature to collaborate in real time and monitor their documents. As an example, he will show a workflow of reviewing steel shop drawings during construction. This project included many document management challenges in keeping up with revisions and comments on several thousand documents at one time. The project’s architects and engineers used Bluebeam Studio to collaborate, monitor workflows, and utilized Batch and Sets functionality for document management streamlining.

Virtual Reality for AEC – Scott Chatterton – CEI Architecture

Digital design allows the public to easily recognize and conceive the design intent of the building. Tools such as virtual reality and augmented reality continue to evolve enabling designers to visually integrate imaginative concepts into real world settings, to explore how their ideas and designs fit into their surroundings, and to tap into the extensive databases that already exist on the current infrastructure.

CEI presents Virtual Reality

More on AR and VR....

Here is an image of one of my desks of late. 

I have a few desks.... I like the stand up desk, it's where I go when I need to get away from my usual desk  (clutter) to be able to focus on something, in this case setting up the Virtual Reality software with our new Alienware laptop and OculusRift goggles.

Recently I've been playing with Augmented Reality more, especially since now there are apps for your phone and web sites that make it so much easier to push your model into AR. 

I downloaded the Augment app and set up a trial account with them. 
Works great! Very similar to when I first tried AR in 2012 (check out this blog posting) 

I tried it on a number of different files that I have specific for this type of application, the Revit models I have are typically stripped out of views and also interior components so it's just the shell. The tower model I tries works well when exported at STL, actually all the models work well as STL expect the materials do not show up. OBJ works good, the materials show up great however for the larger files it takes too long to load on the app on my phone.

I can see huge potential with this technology such as site planning, promotional and marketing material, visualization aid for clients, design options etc...And it's lots of fun and easy to do!

Very impressive, it's a quick way to impress people!

Sc