Editor’s Note: The 2017 APDSP convention in New Orleans, Oct 11-12, will feature Job Site University, a program that teaches reprographics shop owners how they can interact with the technologies found on modern job sites. One such technology is virtual reality. In this Q&A, Sanjay Mistry, VP of business development for VIMaec, explains the value of virtual reality to the AEC community and how reprographics shops can get involved.
APDSP: What does your company do?
Mistry: We take CAD data and put it into a virtual reality environment. Our clients are people who use software like Revit, Sketchit, and ArchiCAD. We enable them to take that data and put it into Unity, which is a real-time game engine. If you want to deliver a real-time game experience in the virtual reality space, you have to go through a game engine like Unity because the data and information have to be fully optimized at a certain frame rate.
APDSP: Are you talking about those funny looking goggles?
Mistry: Right. Users wear the headset, such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vibe, Samsung Gear VR or google Cardboard. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vibe headset are higher end – they connect to a dedicated laptop or PC running the VR software and create a really immersive VR experience. The google Cardboard headset is more entry level. We support all of them.
APDSP: How can virtual reality be used in the AEC community?
Mistry: Virtual reality helps you see things before ground is broken. You can see good things in the design, and you can see bad things in the design. For example, with VR, you can navigate through the space. You can walk to the farthest corner of the room and see how it’s going to look from there. You can’t do that in an artist’s rendering or a fly-through video – with those, you’re just seeing the perspective that the designer wants you to see.
APDSP: OK, so that’s virtual reality. What’s augmented reality?
Mistry: Augmented reality is an overlay on top of an existing image. Say you’re watching a football game and the announcer draws on the image to show how a play happened. That’s augmented reality. For another example, say I’m walking down the street. Augmented reality could be a map I’m seeing in front of me on the glasses I’m wearing.
APDSP: How is augmented reality used in AEC?
Mistry: You could use augmented reality on a job site to see where components will go together. Every contractor on the site could be wearing a headset, and they’d have the blueprints in their sight and could see exactly how all the components could go together, like a Lego building. Another possibility is for an architect to use augmented reality to show a client how an existing building could be rebuilt, by showing the existing building with the potential changes overlayed.
APDSP: How big is the AEC market for virtual and augmented reality?
Mistry: It hasn’t been used much yet in AEC, because the technology has been expensive and inaccessible. But today we can affordably set up a company with the right technology, hardware, and services so that a small firm could be just as competitive as a large firm. There’s no bigger market that would benefit from this technology than AEC.
APDSP: Here’s the big question: How can reprographics firms profit from this?
Mistry: There are a number of ways a reseller or reprographics service provider could get involved. AEC people are not tech people – they are architects, designers, and engineers from a structural perspective. They don’t want the headaches involved in converting CAD data to virtual reality, but they recognize that they need it to compete. So the reprographics firm could establish a partnership with a company that can develop virtual reality content for them. One thing that is very positive about reprographics firms is that they are super good salespeople and they already have the trust of their AEC clients, so it makes sense that they would offer this service as well. They don’t need to develop the gaming ability in-house; a company like ours can handle that part of it. It’s easy money for the reprographics firm in some ways.
APDSP: Hopefully many of our members will attend the convention and learn about these opportunities first-hand. But if they want to discuss this with you before then, how can they reach you?
Mistry: They can email me at sanjay.mistry@vimaec.com or call me at 310-730-9763. I’ll tell them, “Let us help you get on the wagon. If you are left behind, your competitors are going to surpass you.”