Comment by jondiggsit
5 hours ago
My team uses this technology on a daily basis at my company. I run a design / build firm in the Hamptons, USA. We start all of our design projects with a 3d-first approach. Schematic design starts in 3D using Rhino3D or Revit. We use visualization plugins, like Enscape, to render the models and stream to a Quest 3 headset.
So when clients come in, and feels adventurous, we'll setup the headset, set the display height to their actual, and let them walk around their beautiful new home.
The response has been powerful. My clients are able to truly understand the scale, the proportion of rooms, ceiling heights, and the smallest details.
We're able to make real-time changes to the model (within reason) and provide instant design feedback.
I've been using this technology for years and I'm surprised it's not being adopted faster - good for us right now though!
This comment almost made me quit my job and pursue my original passion in architecture. So the job was, all along, as fun as I imagined it… And the full-stack knowledge to make it happen is still rare? I am currently designing my house in Blender and was planning to import it into Unreal Engine to make it navigable. HN has a way of serving me the content I’m looking for at the right time…
I love hearing statements like this.
I want to learn how to import into Unreal Engine... also throw a rocket launcher in there with some destruction physics.
I will caution tho, converting the Rhino models back into CAD for construction drawings, etc. is time consuming. One of my architects is skilled in Revit, but we haven't explored the real time rendering / 3d visualization abilities enough with it.
I did this circa 2021 (with SketchUp, Enscape, Quest 2) during our house remodel. It was very successful in reducing the number of walls my wife wanted to move around after they had been finished
Wow I’m incredibly impressed that you’ve decided to embrace VR technology. When renovating our house, it was incredibly hard (and still is) to visualize how everything. So far we just got lucky but the basement is going to be a challenge as we’re making structural adjustments.
How did you get your team to get onboard with the process? How is the ROI?
My team design team are graduate architects, on the younger-ish side - 29 and 40. One worked for Santiago Calatrava - who, if you know, obviously models all his work. So it was second nature to them, I just pushed them to lean into it. Rhino is not without its drawbacks. It is time consuming but it's worth it because, as a sales tool, it wins every time. I'll have first time meetings with perspective clients where we'll wireframe a design on their survey (if we know some particulars of the program). Blows people away.
The ROI - the salaries were a negative on the books for two years, but now we're choosing our projects, ones that any AD100 firm would kill for.
Do you find the value of VR/AR to be in the communication of design intent to clients unfamiliar with traditional 2D representations, or do your designers leverage VR/AR during the design development process as well?
Absolutely both. Internally, we'll model something, move an element, etc., and we're able to evaluate the idea until it feels right.
For clients, I don't know any other way at this point. Showing a novice a 2D elevation does nothing for them. They will nod, make comments, and play along, but until you sketch a person into the drawing, they don't even understand that the front door is ten feet tall.
"I don't know any other way at this point. Showing a novice a 2D elevation"
I think 2D prints aren't the baseline, and since at least the late 2000s even run of the mill architecture firms have been using 3d studio-type renderings with clients. Maybe I don't understand how the visionpro works. Your clients arent actually physically moving their body, right? What's the advantage of looking around the space in a visionpro vs large monitor?
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Are there any productive tools or workflows you employ for modeling directly in VR? Or is it more useful for review and evaluation of models developed on traditional workstations?
I'm AEC adjacent and am trying to talk myself into picking up a pair strictly for personal architectural projects..
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Wait, you actually have an empty building/area the size of a typical custom design home? Aren't those typically rather huge? Do you partition the previews?
The Quest has joysticks to control your position. We managed to get one of our 70 year old clients to figure it out.
Okay I have to ask - do the joysticks move you forward like they typically would for a character in a video game? Or do you use teleport controls? Because the former would absolutely make me (and I think most people?) motion sick
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Why would you assume they physically walk around the entire space instead of teleporting/moving in VR?
> Do you partition the previews?
It's the Hamptons, these houses are for some of the wealthiest people on the planet.
I'd make them wear a giant visor over their face rather than have to talk to them directly too. They're also some of the most insufferable people you'll ever meet.
Do you believe Apple will continue to spend billions on a device that caters to niche enterprise use cases and is today selling in single digit thousands per month, if that? If so, qhat other Apple products out there suggest that enterprise is something Apple cares about enough to maintain a distinct product line? This isn't Mac Pro where 95% of the R&D and production costs are shared with half a dozen other major Mac SKUs. This isn't MacOS. It isn't iOS. It isnt even iPad OS which it was initially based on. Excepting the SoC, the hardware is entirely bespoke. It doesn't seem realistic to me that they'd continue it without a real consumer audience that the last 2.5 years proved does not exist. Hell, even the lowly Quest, that cost Meta over $100B so far, sold nearly 30M units and Meta's clearly bailing on that as it pivots to non-enclosed facial computers like glasses. The whole category is a failure outside of a few enterprise cases.
The comment your replying to used Quest 3. No need for Apple. Steam Frame will probably have a color camera module too and be even more flexible as a real computer.
MacBook Neo is a clear business win. Cheap, available, consistent, works with standard Jamf MDM, and trivial warranty repairs/replacemnts.
Most small to medium enterprises run off SaaS. The most common local tool is Office suite, which now has feature parity with the Windows version.
OK, go off.