Following years of burning anticipation, virtual reality for all has a date on the calendar. The promised date – make that timeframe – is the first quarter of 2016. During those three months, hardware that makes virtual reality possible joins up with software to launch design visualization into realms previously impossible to reach.
Who are the companies, what are the offerings and the sorts of hardware needed to launch virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality in your firm? Below are previews of upcoming releases from Autodesk, Configura and Trimble, along with examples of hardware to help make the technology a reality. However, the beginnings of realistically depicting reality go back a few centuries.
Dazzling the eye into perceiving drawings on flat surfaces as dimensional goes back to the first century B.C. Therese Oneill wrote in the week.com that painting photo-realistically began earlier than most thought. Her story cites a still life fresco in the Pompeian Second Style that employs perspective and shading to communicate depth and shape. This style is akin to the trompe l’oeil technique, literally meaning, “to deceive the eye.”
Painters evolved realism from carefully observing the reality they were painting to working it out mathematically as a system. In her article, Ms. Oneill wrote that just over 1400 years elapsed between the Romans’ frescos and Italian designer and architect Filippo Brunelleschi’s experiment with linear perspective. His results introduced vanishing points, horizon lines and orthogonal lines that today remain the foundations of 3D drawing.
Now, about 600 years later, imagine how Brunelleschi and his peers in other countries might experiment using these innovations for design visualization in the digital style.
Autodesk
Autodesk is everywhere. In the years after AutoCAD’s introduction in 1982, users of the company’s growing range of solutions have created Oscar-winning special effects, digitally-prototyped new vehicles, improved utility services and reached repair/replace decisions for critical infrastructure.
Autodesk’s newest offering makes BIM models into virtual reality destinations – places where visitors have the power to choose views, enter spaces and tour where they want.
How? Revit’s 3D models receive materials, lighting and other effects for photorealism from 3ds-Max, Autodesk’s professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. Then, imported to Stingray, a gaming engine for simulations and special effects, the photorealistic model goes live, allowing everything in the image to render instantly.
Revit, 3ds-Max and Stingray, in unison, pack the power to transform BIM-accurate models into an immersive VR experience. Wherever viewers look, it appears as if they were watching a video or seeing a static digital image. Viewers have the control to look where they want and walk where they want.
The power to make it real is important at Autodesk. Its products do the AEC industry’s heavy lifting: designing, engineering, construction. The VR experience had to be impressive.
Being impressed with Autodesk’s VR experience may be why many first-timers call it “amazing.” Rick Davis, Autodesk’s design visualization industry manager, has given many their first virtual reality demonstration.
“They are blown away,” said Mr. Davis. “They did not expect it to feel that real.”
A VR headset is the best way to view virtual reality. While several models are currently available, the Oculus Rift, available to consumers in the first quarter of 2016 according to oculus.com, has been the development mule for many VR programs.
Images inside the headset will fill the wearer’s field of vision, with sensors that follow the wearer’s motions. If the wearer sees a lobby space, for example, looking up reveals ceiling, looking down shows floor, and to the left or right shows the setting as if one were standing in a completed space. Everything seen is digitally created, without elements from the physical world.
“The wearer uses a gamepad to move easily in the virtual space, so one could travel the length of a football field in seconds rather than walking step-by-step from end-to-end,” said Mr. Davis.
When Autodesk University kicks off on the first day of December in Las Vegas, a choice of 77 design visualization classes greets the student body. Timely they are, because Autodesk’s Revit, 3ds-Max and Stingray are available now. Showing off their capabilities will be only one of Autodesk’s strategies lined up for the architecture and design, engineering and construction communities. That alone should mean lots of cheering for the home team.
Configura
The CET Designer User Conference is an annual meeting of the minds for purposes of conferring, consulting, associating and celebrating. Its 2015 event was held in Orlando for three days during the last week of October. What the powers that be at Configura, software company and publisher of CET Designer, currently have in beta version will be worthy of a separate user conference: Virtual Reality Extension for CET Designer. NeoCon 2015 saw the unveiling of the beta version, and attendees at the user conference took test drives as well.
A steady flow of upgrades means that Configura maintains a leadership position with CET Designer. While its back office abilities get applause for producing orders and installation documents, visualizing projects for clients during the sales process earns Configura its standing ovations.
“We know that visualization of space is a critically important part of communicating design intent to clients,” said Randy Fiser, CEO of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). Mr. Fiser made his comments during the CET Designer User Conference, where other attendees echoed his sentiments.
“Rendering and visual capabilities have helped us educate our clients about what they’re getting in the space,” said Amy Wright, associate and project manager, at encompas, a Haworth dealership in Kansas City, MO. “It is easier to collaborate earlier, in greater depth and arrive at better solutions.”
IT departments also stand to benefit.
“CET Designer allows us to communicate a design vision,” said Jason Lund, the IT Manager for the Minneapolis-based Steelcase dealership Atmosphere Commercial Interiors, who also presented at the conference.
On his watch, Atmosphere, formerly Target Commercial Interiors, became one of the first dealerships in the country to provide CET Designer to each of its interior designers. 30 designers at the firm currently use it.
Mr. Lund’s contribution to the 2015 conference began well before he led his session about virtual reality’s potential as a robust communications tool. It began with a phone call.
“I experienced virtual reality for the first time at the University of Minnesota VR lab,” Mr. Lund explained. “I came back and immediately called Configura, asking them, ‘Are we going to do this in CET Designer?’”
“Configura is responsive,” he said. “They developed the VR extension for CET Designer before the Oculus Rift headset became commercially available.”
Mr. Lund sees Atmosphere using the VR feature so clients can “fully experience the design proposal – they can walk around, see the space from many perspectives.” He expects it will “help the client understand and be comfortable with what they’re going to get from Atmosphere.”
Achieving client understanding was a driver in development as well.
“Seeing is believing, but seeing is also understanding,” said Jimmie West, one of Configura’s developers involved with VR technology. “VR makes it easier for clients to understand and explore space planning.”
Plenty of clients will have that opportunity, considering that Configura has more than 10,000 users worldwide. The company delights at delighting its clients with an ever-advancing battery of space planning and visualization tools, keeping this intelligent software popular among commercial office furniture dealerships.
Expect availability of the Virtual Reality Extension for CET Designer around the same time as release of the Oculus Rift. The extension’s pricing remains to be determined.
Trimble
Nobody is better than positioning technology giant Trimble at pinpointing the location of anything, anywhere on the face of the Earth. It innovated Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for commercial use, and was then the first to offer GPS for handheld consumer devices. Knowing what’s where and communicating it as real-time data to the field and the office is a Trimble specialty.
Small surprise, then, that Trimble collaborated with Microsoft on the HoloLens device – a platform that mixes digital imagery with physical surroundings – to develop mixed reality solutions for both field and office applications.
“Mixed reality is a revolutionary change, bringing a completely different way to interact with data,” said Aviad Almagor, director of the Mixed Reality Program at Trimble.
He explained that data has steadily moved closer to the point of interaction, progressing from mainframe computing to personal computing to mobile computing and wearable devices.
“Except in each case the barrier remains, the data has remained behind the 2D flat screen,” said Mr. Almagor.
With mixed reality, that constraint vanishes.
“Taking visual data out of the screen and literally into the user’s hands could be accomplished with a combination of tools such as SketchUp and Trimble Connect, with Microsoft’s upcoming HoloLens.”
SketchUp, acquired by Trimble from Google in 2012, is a very flexible tool. Mr. Almagor explains, “It is a 3D design tool that is easy to get started with, fun to work with and used by many industries in different applications. It allows quick visualizations of design concepts by architects and designers for client presentations.”
From buildings to pre-production of scenes for motion pictures to automotive styling, SketchUp is heavily favored for rapidly iterating design concepts.
Trimble Connect can receive uploads of SketchUp files and many other common formats and then make those files accessible wherever a user happens to be. Being a cloud-based solution makes Trimble Connect indispensable in the office, on the road or onsite.
“Potentially, using a WiFi connection or hotspot, users could bring the data to Microsoft HoloLens-enabled applications and use 3D holographic visualization as part of their workflow,” said Mr. Almagor.
In mid-October, Trimble and Microsoft participated in New York City’s Architecture & Design Film Festival. At the event, they completed more than 100 live demonstrations of its technology’s proof of concept, showing phases from design to construction, and received very positive feedback.
“Nearly everyone who experienced our demonstrations envisioned how mixed reality could benefit them,” said Mr. Almagor. “Architects saw its potential for visualizing and communicating concepts, interior designers for presentations, and developers for sales offices where they could display their building as 3D holograms, then take buyers to a detailed experience of specific floors and spaces.”
The beneficial outcome for project teams, noted Mr. Almagor, is a better understanding of the project through 3D holographic visualization, improved communication and better collaboration.
In a white paper for Trimble, he wrote, “Visualizing digital content as holograms in the context of the physical world bridges the gap between virtual and real, and eliminates the current workflow’s inefficiencies.” He also discussed the ‘hyper-reality environment’ with infinite possibilities for data interaction. For example, documents for schedules and specifications could be overlaid on the physical world, linked with locations on the site.
Will the collaboration between Microsoft and Trimble change the way we consume, interact and communicate information? It could, but Mr. Almagor believes one thing is certain.
“Mixed reality will have transformative impacts on the way we work, live and play.”
Fully Realizing Visual Data
Information is the currency with which humans communicate. Humans assimilate what they see, hear, feel, taste, touch and smell into information for making choices, having emotions and taking action. Computers work differently.
Data, cold and unadorned, is the feed computers require to complete their tasks. That is to say, human information must have its sensory features stripped away for the computer’s easy processing.
Virtual reality and mixed reality can become techniques that, for architecture and interior design, restore some human information by creating visual data. These techniques don’t just deliver the data; they communicate an enlivened design experience for the benefit of all stakeholders in a project.
[Ed. Note: ICE Software from DIRTT chose not to be included in this feature.]
As researcher, writer and commentator, Stephen Witte reports and advises on trends shaping the future for the A&D community, manufacturers, and distribution channels. His background includes corporate roles in product management, product development, and public relations. He can be reached at switte@stephenwitte.com.