An in-depth analysis and comparison of currently available Virtual Reality Headsets from the perspective of implementing VR into AEC workflows

Cell phone manufacturers seem to want us to think that they just now discovered Virtual Reality. We all know that it has been around for many years. The real difference is in how affordable the hardware and software has become. Making it available to all companies and not only companies with large R&D budgets. Today all you need a small hardware investment and some inspired team members to make Virtual Reality a Reality at your Design Firm. Integrating new technology into current workflows can be cumbersome and difficult. With Virtual Reality being an "Emerging" technology, there is relatively little-unbiased information available for determining what workflow could work best for you. We will be examining different design, documentation and visualization workflows and how to combine them to make the process easier. This presentation will look specifically at the process that we have used to; first identify our Virtual Reality needs and gather what software/hardware could accommodate them. Second, explore how a selection of these fit into our current workflow. Third analyze the results and further test based off the most promising, looking at what needs to be improved/modified on both the technology and within our workflow. Finally, test the modified process on a test project and iterate as needed. Integrating new technology into current workflows can be cumbersome and difficult. By examining and modifying our current workflows we are able to intergrade new technologies as they arise, this will make us more efficient when it comes to deploying and using new technologies. Identifying the needs of your firm can be one of the most challenging steps of this process. Do you need a high-end visualization solution, one that is incorporated into your design and documentation process or both? Do you have the need for a tool that can produce both a high-end virtual environment and static images or are you planning on using different tools for each? These along with other environmental factors lead into choosing the most appropriate solution. We started this process by laying out a roadmap of what we wanted to accomplish. By doing this we were able to establish our short and long term goals and make decisions around those goals. To meet our goals we first investigated what hardware and software solutions would fit our vision and needs. This investigation led us to understand that we wanted a solution that was “interactive”, provided a high level of detail and control visually and integrated easily into our design process. We researched the benefits of different software and hardware packages and how they could be integrated into our process. This presentation will be a combination of informative and demonstrative, looking at how our decisions were made and our current use of the technologies. Then by showing the workflow we use to show how you can quickly create a virtual environment for your projects.

VFX to VRX : Real world Virtual Reality production for 360 Music Video Björk, Red Bull Air Race VR and Lexus VR car configurator

Walking into this class should be individuals who feel there is something to the virtual reality technology but they have yet to try it and are not sure it the right thing for their firm. Or maybe they know it has value but are not sure about what the best path to take is. This talk shows multiple paths and also acts as a case study showing hands on examples of how it helped project teams design and communicate those designs to their clients.

The session will be a case study of the use of virtual reality in automotive design concept ideation and validation, using virtual reality painting software, Autodesk VRed, and Maya for development and visualization.

Learn how to link bidirectional BIM data into and out of Stingray for visualizing schedules and estimates in virtual reality.

This class will show how to take Inventor models into a Virtual reality environment and view them with a VR headset.

Learn how the Factory Design Utilities, Reality Capture, Smart Manufacturing & Virtual Reality can help you discover and communicate the most efficient layout solution by creating a digital model of your Manufacturing Facility.

This session will demonstrate how Virtual Reality as a tool is increasing efficiency in Construction and helping Construction Managers to improving and understand design, limit number of change orders and RFIs, eliminate the waste and deliver better projects.

Dubai Creek Harbor will be home to the new worlds tallest building and one of the worlds largest open airplazas. So how do you bring such a large model into Virtual Reality while maintaining good performance from your computer, but also allowing its users to interact freely and easily around its foot print?

In this class we will look at exporting and optimizing our 3D Studio Max and Revit FBX files for large scale Virtual Reality projects, here we will focus on optimizing the model, reducing polycount and simple UV Mapping to allow simple integration with Unreal Studio and Data Smith.

From here we will look at importing and placing the model within Unreal, adding simple functionality to Large scale projects such as zone selection, menus, adding in instance entourage elements, teleportation and navigation. At the end have a client ready product for presentation and handover.

Finally we will look at its maintenance and flexibility, as designs change your model should be able to change with it with minimal impact to your workflow, here we will look at updating models, and the process of setting up design changes with Unreal.