A house in Wales, designed by Featherstone Young Architects with Olivier Demangel, created a 90% accurate VR model. The user is able to open and close doors, even reposition objects. Materials like wall paper can be changed and experiments with different environmental elements carried out. A VR headset is needed to understand how convincing the virtual model is.
Architectural engineering
Before construction, the structural design of a building needs to be safe and the engineer ensures movements and forces caused by external factors such as weight, wind and temperature are accounted for. With VR, surveys of a site can be done remotely using a drone and a VR headset.
Virtual reality and construction
Using VR, testing of some stages in the building process without the cost and time factors of real life testing can be done and the final structures rendered in 3D. Scale models cannot completely simulate environmental factors a structure is subjected to and human judgment can be inaccurate, therefore VR offers possibilities.
Virtual reality tools include:
v PrioVR motion capture device
It helps experience a VR environment through natural body movements. It enables one to virtually open doors, demolish walls, move cranes around or build in real time. It works via body sensors that transmit information.
v Matterport 3D camera and capture app for iPad
Fast and portable, the application scans 90 m2 within 30 minutes, producing high-quality immersive 3D-models, which can be shared. With Matterport Cloud, 3D spaces can be viewed from anywhere in the world.
v Google Glass VR headset
Glass uses natural language instructions as controls. It displays maps and enables sharing of photos and videos. If you are going to be designing a building or a remodel, you will want to get a sense of the area in which your creation will be built.
v Roto motorized chair
It helps explore a VR environment in various directions and enables the rotation and turning around, which is ideal for coordination meetings or for moving around a space in Navisworks.
v VRSCA
Developed by Pocketcake, it processes models at speeds up to 80 frames per second. VRSCA runs the simulation of a large model with dynamic lighting and defined interior without overheating or lag, and can host up to 58 viewers in different areas.
v 3DiO virtual immersive environment
Stanford CIFE researchers have created a virtual, immersive meeting place. Although still in the early stages of invention, it’s definitely worth noting.
v Touchable holograms
Bristol University’s research team, will soon expand VR to include touch. Ability to feel different textures with holograms will ensure selection of the proper materials for an interior design project.
v Microsoft HoloLens
It uses light to create holographic images. It’s the first holographic computer to run Windows 10 and is completely untethered. It delivers a mixed reality of physical and digital worlds and enables pinning of holograms in a real environment.
v Daqri Smart Helmet
With inertial measurement tools, high resolution depth sensors and 360-degree navigation cameras, it creates an augmented reality experience to help workers complete projects faster and efficiently.
v 3D Laser scanner
Using laser beams, it measures the distance of any point in virtually each direction and in any type of environment. The point and distance data collected via the scanner can be used to create 3D-models.
Traditional ’job-site walk’ will soon become redundant
VR enables the conversion of building and architectural projects to a 3D-environment which helps to see the space and proportions. Drones with lasers can scan an area and upload the information to a VR headset. With VR, changes to a building can be made before construction commences.