Oculus VR and Renderings

[stellarfun]

A developer in Washington commissioned a VR media 'show?' of a proposed new building -- the architect is a Pritzker winner -- which used detailed renderings and set it on the building site. This allowed you to Look at the building as if one was taking a 360 walkaround.

A 'problem' is that one is so immersed in the VR, that one really needs a guide to ensure that you don't crash into things, or have things crash into you. This seemed to be particularly true for anyone who was familiar with the actual site; for example, someone thought he would step off the sidewalk to get a different perspective, but there was no actual sidewalk.

From a presentation / marketing standpoint, it was sensational. The building looked much better than the two dimensional renderings.

Also, the technology is such that the view corresponds to what you might experience coming out of a bar having had a few too many.

I'll have to check, but I believe the 'show' was prepared in Vienna.

 

[datadyne007]

Our VP came running over to me holding the Metropolis Magazine cover featuring VR yesterday and asked me if I believed it was the immediate future and if we might have to invest in a VR device for the office. (Mind you, I JUST got them to buy an iPad for the office last November for us to take out to site visits to prepare field reports more efficiently.) He said he thinks we might actually have to in like 2 years time.

I could see us giving a Massport exec the Gear VR and showing him/her around our new mechanical room or terminal concourse. Definitely more interactive & immersive than standard Revit renders, I guess.

 

[fattony]

Some new Android phone (S7? I dunno I'm an iPhone guy) is shipping with divided goggles to hold the phone to your face to create a steroscopic image. In a year or two, this is will likely be ubiquitous to all phones and there won't be any specialized VR devices except maybe for extreme gaming.

 

[stellarfun]

The one great disadvantage from a presentation standpoint is that only one person gets to see at a time. And if you handed out multiple devices, I think it would be very difficult to synchronize.

Those sitting and wearing it did not have the same experience as someone who could move about and change his/her orientation with respect to the 'building'.