Virtual reality (VR) is being taken to a whole new social level by DIRTT, a Calgary-based interior construction manufacturer.
The company’s new app, ICEreality, not only cuts the cords of other VR technology, it turns the design review process into a collaborative social experience.
The phone app links with an ICE software design file, DIRTT’s BIM tool, which can crunch pricing, engineering, manufacturing and installation information in real time. Users can all link up to the same file and use avatars to walk through a structure together before it is built and make changes.
The technology also has the power to do augmented reality and impose the design overtop of real buildings.
“What is really powerful is the portability,” said DIRTT co-founder and chief technology officer Barrie Loberg. “We call it VR in your pocket. VR headsets are not something you are going to carry with you into every meeting.”
Originally, Loberg created ICE in lockstep with DIRTT to support its approach to interior construction – complete customization and four-week lead times. In 2007, Ice Edge Business Solutions became a subsidiary to DIRTT as other manufacturers wanted to adopt DIRTT’s technology, ICE software.
Loberg explained making the design review process a social, collaborative experience is what has truly elevated the potential of DIRTT’s VR and augmented reality.
“With other VR technology you are kind of isolated,” said Loberg. “In real life you don’t bring drawings and colour swatches and things into a meeting room and go in one by one but that is how a lot of VR is done.”
During testing, DIRTT would bring people in to try traditional, one-by-one VR and then DIRTT’s VR with multiple users walking through the same space.
“It was very awkward,” said Loberg of traditional VR walkthroughs, noting that people seemed eager to take off their headsets.
But in groups the experience was far different. Loberg noted the engagement level was significantly larger and people became more comfortable in the VR environment.
“While still in VR people started talking about what their plans were for lunch,” he said. “It’s very comfortable.”
DIRTT has been researching VR and AR for roughly three years. One their first challenges was to take the technology beyond being tethered to consoles like it was in its primary industry: video games.
To ensure the technology could run smoothly, Loberg said the team had to take a different approach.
“Typically in design software your model is your information and the result is the computer can cope to struggle with such large-sized building models,” he said. “Our approach is that the primary purpose is to understand the space so we can do very large models and still an engineering model of data but not directly from the 3-D model and this freed the computer to perform much better.”
Loberg stated the construction industry has traditionally been one of the slowest to change and it is ripe for new approaches.
“It’s a very disjointed industry,” he said. “Eighty per cent is mom and pop shops and they can’t always do research and development. It is one of the slowest industries to pick up a new technology and has low productivity. Everybody now uses technology in the rest of their lives and expect to use it in construction. It is very ripe for change.”
ICEreality is available on the App Store and is compatible with iPhone 6s or newer, running iOS11.
“It goes from just seeing the space to feeling the space,” said Loberg. “It’s great to get that feedback prior to construction.”
Recent Comments
comments for this post are closed