Architecture
Augmented reality in architechture and construction projects involves placing a 3D model of a proposed design onto an existing space using mobile devices and 3D models. Its utilization matured in the architecture and construction industries when contractors such as Seattle’s BNbuilders began using it to show clients proposed designs in the context of existing conditions using Apple iPads and other mobile devices on a construction site.
Seeing an Autodesk Revit or other 3D model in context greatly assists in space planning and design visualization. AR was confined mostly to architecture, engineering, and construction firms with large technology groups that could spend hours integrating Revit models with homemade 3D-game-engine models, but the technology has now been democratized and is available on a per-project basis, so small firms and even sole proprietors can take advantage of it.
Moreover, our solutions can bring subcontractors and jobs together, it involves placing a 3D model in context, viewable on an iOS or Android device, whether on a 2D set of plans, in front of an actual site, or even on an image of your project’s site. Users focus on a given design or plan file with the camera on their mobile device; the program then recognizes the design, and the screen overlays a virtual model of what the project will look like upon completion. Anyone can see a Revit model in context (Revit drawings have to be imported into a different format to be recognized), in a full, 360-degree view.
Real Estate
Augmented reality has a wealth of design and construction uses beyond visualization, too. It can be used for design analysis to pick out clashes by virtually walking through your completed model. It fits the bill for constructability review by letting the architect and contractor collaborate on changes that have to happen between design and construction due to constructability issues. It can even assist with prefabrication of building components.
Whether it is a smartphone or a tablet app, AR is providing developers, designers, and agents with a number of sales-enhancing tools from the ability to enhance traditional advertising, to the capacity to showcase properties from a 3-D perspective which would have been done using drawings in the past.Developers can equip their on-site sales teams with AR-enabled tablets. When a potential buyer comes in to take a tour of a model home, they can then be brought to an empty lot.
The agent armed with an AR-enabled tablet can walk them through the curb, hold up the tablet and using AR overlay the exterior 3-D view of the proposed building showing it is exact location on the lot. This can better help prospective buyers to visualize their home before it even exists.Companies can also AR enable all their print material and print advertisements which can give clients a unique experience, and allows them to see a interactive 3D model overlayed onto real time space.