Autodesk University was quite the success last week, but we’re just getting started. Industry Insights by UNIFI invited Simon and Logan to be on their webinar. The topic: ?BIM and Virtual Reality.?
BIM and Virtual Reality webinar highlights:
Why VR isn?t just about being showy?when you have BIM, it?s about data.
There?s some perception that this is showy, but rest assured that VR is not just a novelty that is cool to look at. The potential we see and we are working on is for tools that are useful, interactive, and data-driven.
There is a special kind of ergonomics that comes from this?. Instead of working from plans and elevations. You add a human element – it enhances the human data.
It?s amazing the amount of info you can learn from subtle head movements. From your view in a theater to the placement of your cabinets.
You can?t communicate things like scale and distance and proportion in any better way than VR and AR.
When it comes to Virtual and Augmented reality for AEC, good BIM is important. What?s good BIM? Bevel clarified:
…depends on what you want out of your AR and VR.
If you?re going for realistic and pretty, having all your materials modeled in a more filled out way makes a big difference?.
If you?re going for something more data focused, then having all those metadata points filled out would be the crucial thing… We can automatically set up those exports, our algorithms can read those data points without having to do it manually.
User flow simulations using hard data
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AR and VR are experiences you have to try to understand.
When it comes to AR and VR, make sure you are the one bringing this tool to your clients. Don?t wait until your client is ready because they never will be until they try it.
It?s hard to understand what it?s like unless you?re doing it. Your screen isn?t quite adequate. Your drawing isn?t quite adequate.
It?s always a challenge to get people to understand the potential until they try it for themselves.
Try our iOS AR Plans app, featured at the Autodesk AEC Keynote.
Once you have a headset there are many turnkey BIM to VR solutions. Enscape and Iris Prospect are great and work through Revit.
These get you to the point where your Revit model is in VR and you can view it. If you want to interact with your data, you?ll need to get into the game engines. We teach Linkedin Learning courses designed for AEC professionals to get started.
BIM nerds and those of you spearheading VR and AR efforts at your firm, listen to the full webinar below for more tech talk.
Learn how Logan and Simon decided to become spatial technologists for AEC. Find out their favorite VR meeting room platform. And see which programming languages and game engines they use for each project.
We have some pretty clever people working at Bevel, who recently attended Autodesk University and had the pleasure of having our AR demo presented in Unity’s keynote.
With all of the work we have been doing with Unity and Revit in our spatial technology solution making, Bevel has become somewhat of an expert in the field. Bevel was at Unity Technologies’s booth, as well as featured in Unity’s keynote at this years’ Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas Nov 12-15, 2018.
Autodesk University and the Unity Booth
Autodesk University?is a huge 4-day conference in Las Vegas that according to their website says is “the conference for those who design and make the world around us”, it’s a pretty big deal, “connecting 10,000 professionals from construction, manufacturing, architecture, engineering, and media creation.”
So pretty much all of you people that we are making solutions for.
Bevel was featured at the Unity booth and Simon and Logan made the most of it, by showing off our?Augmented Reality Plans, kicking butts and taking names of those interested in downloading our demo plans and/or signing up to receive?info on our soon to be released AR app.
Logan speaking at Unity booth at Autodesk University
What are these Augmented?Reality plans?
Augmented plans make communication easy.?Handheld Augmented reality makes communicating complex building designs easy?It?s a bit like bringing a Revit model to the job site, instantly keyed to your plan documents.
Illustrate construction details in three dimensions on top of the official construction document.? Then see 360-degree photospheres of the full model at scale.
Bevel at Unity booth showing of our AR plans demo on Ipad
Augmented Plans are just one of the ways we?re leveraging our clients? 3D Revit models using Unity.
Be the first to wow your clients
Use augmented plans and zip on through design review
We work with you to transform your construction docs into 3D presentation and communication tools. Customize your user interface and add special features to site plans like animations, diagrams, and infographics.
Demo of Bevel AR plans being used
Our creativity is unlimited, but our augmented reality developers are not!?We have availability for only 4 more projects?for delivery by March 2019.?Sign up now to make sure we still have a spot for you!
How it works
We talk with you to get your specific needs and features.
To show off /convince your team to use AR in your next project
You understand all of this Unity – Revit, AR plans demo stuff, but now it’s your job to convince the person in charge of your next project. It’s our goal to make this next step as seamless as possible. That’s why, with the helpful nudge of a deadline for Autodesk University, we have come out with some demo plans for you to download and use anywhere.
Bevel AR plans being used in real-world setting on-site
Have a tablet? You are 4 steps away to creating AR 3D digital models on our plan sheet.
Already have plans? We create custom interactive presentations with our technology. Space is limited, so contact us today.
Bevel’s feature in the Unity Keynote at Autodesk University
Autodesk University was a whirlwind in the best way. We know that WE are excited about what we can do but seeing faces light up with the realization of what this means for them and their clients has us beaming. More than a handful of those that participated with this hands-on AR Demo confessed that they had basically given up on their Revit to Unity pipeline but that THIS is a game changer. The ability to help all stakeholders visualize every iteration of the project is one thing. Getting to make that concept a reality is our privilege.
We know we love it but don?t take our word for it, watch the video and you can experience the possibilities yourself.
Bevel Unity to Revit Video used in Keynote
https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Bevel-AU_arPlands.png448806Logan S.https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Logo_cut-300x110.pngLogan S.2018-11-16 12:12:472020-06-03 07:59:18This Is An Awesome AR Demo To Download
In my experience Halloween’s either all in–you?re jumping in with both feet–or there?s no point in even playing the dress up game.
I guess Bevel?s resident Maker Madman and XR extraordinaire, Simon Manning got that same memo because he takes his Halloween costume game to the next level.
Last week Lexi sat down with Simon to see where all of this creative juju comes from and to see if maybe she might be able to catch some of it.
So Simon, tell me a little bit about Halloween for you? And how the extreme costuming began?
Halloween started out as my favorite holiday, because of all the holidays it has the least obligation surrounding it–it?s one of those times where I have more free time than usual.
It’s a great opportunity to get inside the workshop and make something crafty. I combine that additional free time with craftiness to do something above and beyond.
The tradition of ?sickly sweet couples costumes? started when my partner and I moved to Seattle, and first dressed up as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That was before we had any access to a workshop – so we used what we could.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde costume
Tell me about this workshop that you use?
As the years have gone on I have had more access to laser cutters. At my old job I was a model shop manager – so I had my own spray booth, woodshop, all this kind of equipment – my costuming got more and more sophisticated each year. ?
From then on, each year has been a tradition of one-upping the previous years.
More recently I have started to create multiple Halloween costumes a year. I make the couples costume, but also there are separate events where I don?t want to rely on a couples costume if I am attending events like a VR Halloween meetup on my own. This year for the VR meetup I’m going as a Beat Saber player.
Do VR games inspire your costumes?
Totally. A few years back, I went as Job Bot from Job Simulator–it was the first year of the HTC Vive so it was one of those things that VR people would instantly get – everyone else just thought it was ridiculous.
Job Bot costume. Job Bot tasks you “human” jobs in one of our favorite ever VR games- Job Simulator by Owlchemy Labs.
Beyond the inspiration from Virtual Reality games, more broadly I’m inspired by spatial technology. This year I think I have outdone myself. This year we decided to go as Google Maps.
Overlay segments to create the Google maps diagram
Laser cutting the Google maps streets
I?ve painted this really long ribbon, with yellow and red patches, like the navigation/ traffic line – we?re going to have that connecting us at the various parties – so wherever we go there will be this long ribbon snaking its way through the party from one of us to the other.
I also made a bunch of extra pins, so that I can give them to friends like Logan and Maret. One of my friends is going to Mexico for Dia de Los Muertos – so I gave him one. And the idea is I?ll get a group of friends to take selfies all over the place with their red pins and then we?ll do a collage.
It?s ridiculous, its fun, but the key is its comfortable.
How do you come up with your ideas?
I?m really bad at procrastinating – so last year I waited till just a few days before Halloween and we were looking up couples costumes and one of them was this really cheesy sheet of cardboard with a printed out Oreo on it and I was like:
Oh that?s nice but I can do so much better than that.
So I 3D modeled an Oreo and fabricated all of the bumps and designs and we ended up going as 2 halves of the double stuff Oreo
Complete 1/2 of double-stuffed Oreo
How much time do you put into these things?
I usually spend like 1 day. This year I was in there from 4 pm – 12 am, an 8-hour stretch. I created 2 full costumes (Google maps), 1 alternate costume (Beat Saber) and an art piece.
I?ve got one thing in the laser cutter, while another is being spraypainted, and I have the woodcutter running. I just put in my headphones and get to work.
A lot of my work is deceptively simple.
Another awesome thing that Simon manages to fit into his busy maker schedule while crafting his 1-3 costumes per year, is a specially made art piece. To give back to the firm that allows him to use the workshop – he designs a piece to be donated to their annual art auction.
Is it the costume making or the reactions you like most?
Making the costumes! It?s always up in the air of whether it’ll turn out the way you imagine it. It’s such a rush of excitement as I?m peeling the stencil of the shirt – seeing this google map slowly emerge the way I planned it. It?s like I designed my own puzzle, and somehow it looks like it should.
There’s kind of a zen to accepting the things that turn out differently though. Over the years, there?s always a few things that don?t pan out the way I intended. It?s a nice exercise to let go of those things. It all works out anyways.
Tell me about the process?
I like taking a lot of photos of the process because it tells the story a little bit easier. I find that part of the process really fascinating, the step by step of it. That?s how I learned.
Adam Savage from Mythbusters has a series called One Day Builds – he is definitely an inspiration of mine with these kinds of projects. It?s also a great source for crafty tips.
One day builds – Exact Scale Model of THE SHINING Maze
How is costume making related to what you are doing at Bevel?
It ultimately comes back to the philosophy of why I think Bevel needs to exist. Which is everything that we are doing with VR and AR, it ultimately comes back to making real things – which is my passion. Whenever I?m making this stuff I?m using computers, technology, I?m writing plans for robots to cut this stuff out for me. I’m essentially leveraging technology to the fullest so I can create these things that are in my head as detailed and intricate as possible.
And I think that Bevel is doing the same thing but for the construction/ architecture industry. We?re building tools that are making it easier and faster to create things. It?s all about that “R” in the XR.
The future of VR and Halloween
VR is enabling a new type of Halloween costumes, which is the virtual avatar.
Rec Room has implemented a new costume system, you can make your own clothing and hats and hair in the game.
I see on the horizon some really awesome creative enabled applications for Halloween, like Magic Leap / mixed reality costumes, so when they look at you through their AR glasses or iphones, they see a costume overlayed with your body.?
People are using AR and VR to express themselves, which is really what Halloween is all about.
Context is critical. But when architects open up Revit to begin drafting, they?re generally working in a blank white box. All of that could be about to change with the Esri + Autodesk alliance.
Esri’s ArcGIS is the gold standard for GIS data?and it will show you everything from traffic, zoning, and demographic information to the exact location of every fire hydrant in the city. Architects, Contractors, and Engineers spend weeks gathering and synthesizing this data on each and every project they undertake. Having this information readily available and integrated into existing workflows will save time and money.
A hugely important and time consuming part of architectural design is site analysis. Logan Smith: ?I had a project that spanned multiple parcels where there was wetlands, utility lines, protected forest, easements, and a semi conductor factory nearby that had special rules regarding runoff, along with everything else that any project would deal with like zoning, traffic, curb cuts, and topography.? Translating this information from the civil engineer?s PDF into a workable site model took weeks and was prone to human error. Instead of running through dozens of dead-end feasibility studies, an Esri + Autodesk alliance could automate that so you can spend more time designing for human experience.
When Simon Manning recalls his days at the ZGF model shop he says that getting models into their context was ?without a doubt the most time consuming part of the job. The notion that all of that can be layered into a Revit model will save people a ton of time and energy and get way more relevant information faster.?
The importance and difficulty of context can’t be overstated. And communicating and comprehending that context is one of the ways VR is the best tool for the job. In VR we can layer contextual GIS data, map data, and building models. This means we can do everything from verifying the view from your 40 story apartment to exploring your city for lots that fit your zoning and demographic criteria all while analyzing their topography at various scales.?VR does that now, albeit with some development cost. If the Esri + Autodesk alliance streamlines this process it will be huge.
We don?t yet know exactly how the alliance will work, but we are hoping that it?s a seamless integration with the Autodesk products we are already using.
Simon Manning is headed to Oklahoma this week to speak at the AIA’s annual conference on Architecture. Simon will be highlighting case studies of how architects have used VR and AR in their workflows to improve efficiency and elevate design. Thanks for the invitation to speak, AIA OK!
https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AIAOklahoma.jpg529800Logan S.https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Logo_cut-300x110.pngLogan S.2017-10-17 18:27:022020-06-03 07:59:21Simon Manning Speaking at AIA Oklahoma
NEWS: Bevel just received its acceptance to speak at Seattle’s Mini Maker Faire, “The Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth”?We’ll be presenting on the future of making, as we use VR as a tool for Creation. Simon and Logan will be speaking about their experience as Makers and the advantages of using VR as a tool to create and visualize artisan craftsmanship within the built environment.
Details:
Date: Sunday Sept 17
Time: 3:00
Place: JBL Theater at MoPOP Level 1
Web: makerfaireseattle.com
Stay for the rest of the faire to experience the latest and greatest inventions from across the region. This family-friendly festival offers tech enthusiasts, crafters, homesteaders, scientists, and garage tinkerers of all ages and backgrounds a public platform to show off their passion projects. #MakerFaireSEA makerfaireseattle.com
https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/download.png228242Logan S.https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Logo_cut-300x110.pngLogan S.2017-08-12 00:35:472020-06-03 07:59:21Bevel to Present at Seattle Maker Faire
Room scale VR can replace expensive scale physical mockups. Here’s a case study on how one hospital used VR in their design process:
Working with Cincinnati Children?s Hospital, 80+ medical professionals tested dozens of design options during a 3 day VR workshop with Simon Manning, formerly at ZGF Architects. ?The hospital and designers received comprehensive and well-informed feedback in days instead of weeks. Using a VR mockup, the hospital saved the cost and labor of making a physical mock-up which would have involved 100’s of pounds of foam and cardboard and days of labor (savings approx. $45,000).
As an added bonus, this enabled the hospital to run iterative way-finding studies with prospective patients in a virtual simulation of the clinic.
https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/pexels-photo-911758.jpeg15002247Logan S.https://bevel.space/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Logo_cut-300x110.pngLogan S.2017-07-22 20:56:312020-06-03 07:59:22Iterative Design in VR
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