First Purpose, THEN Process: Incorporating Virtual and Augmented Reality Into Construction
Date Posted: December 11, 2019
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas,
From AGCMO:
by Harvey Wright, Sales Manager and Mark Schnesk, Sr. Application Engineer; Seiler Design Solutions, LLC
Virtual Reality, augmented reality, mixed reality. These are the key words animating the visualization work flows in the AEC community. Each one of these is slightly different, and often times are simply differences without distinction. The labeling of the end product is less important than establishing the utility of the process. In other words, what are you trying to accomplish? As my friend and mentor Chuck Meese says: “Begin with the end in mind.” Decide your purpose first, and back into the process.
The idea for visualizing 3 dimensional, physical information in a virtual 3 dimensional environment has been around for a while. I remember first encountering the notion when R2D2 projected the image of Princess Leah in distress in a holographic format in the original Star Wars™ movie. Since then, the idea has been largely an entertainment novelty. The evolution of the technology actually goes much farther back than that. There were stereoscopic viewing devices that displayed photos in a 3D appearance. There was even a device called the “Sensorama” that vibrated and released smells while projecting a film format.
The first consumer based virtual reality products were released by Nintendo, with marginal results. It is important to note that gaming was, and is a big innovator in this technology. As far as VR/AR/MR applications in the AEC industry, I would divide them into 3 use cases: marketing/project pursuit, coordination/clash detect and field inspection/verification.
For the purposes of marketing and project pursuit, designers are looking for alternatives to communicating their design to project owners. People who are not trained architects or engineers often find it difficult or impossible to visualize 2D representations of 3D space. Floor plan, section and elevation views and orthographic drawings are simply not effective in conveying design intent. The ability to take a 3D model, and project in a virtual 3D environment can reduce project approval times, and become a huge competitive advantage. Typically these workflows involve big screen projection, or Oculus™ type headsets, that immerse clients in a virtual projection of modeled space. There are interloping software elements that span design software (Revit™, AutoCAD™ etc.) and format for VR projection. As noted above, these are typically developed from the gaming industry, and include Enscape™, Unreal Engine™ and Unity™.
For coordination and clash detect, you would be working in a purpose built application like Navisworks™. This leverages 3D models of multiple file types, and matches geometry to produce a “federated” model. This workflow is now being hosted in a collaborative cloud, and allows for remote collaboration by all project stakeholders. This utilizes Autodesk’s BIM 360 cloud in the Coordinate™ application.
The ability to bring virtual 3D model information, and locate that visual information in real world coordinates is being heavily developed. Autodesk’s “Field’ app allows for projecting 3D model graphics in the field. This is typically viewed on a mobile device. In addition to VR field applications, there are a couple of non-immersive solutions available. Trimble has introduced their Hololense™ (Microsoft Corporation) hard hat viewer. This utilizes Trimble Link™ as a host platform, and projects a semi-opaque image of the model in real-world coordinates. The model can then be manipulated by using gestures. Since this is non-immersive, I would describe this as a mixed reality solution.