CONSTRUCTION & BIM
COULD VIRTUAL REALITY BE
BIM’S BIGGEST ENABLER?
As virtual reality continues to pique the interest of the construction industry,
how will this sit alongside the industry's current go-to technology; BIM? Nigel Alexander of Tridify
looks at how both technologies can allow developers to do things faster, smarter and with higher quality.
In April last year the UK government made it a legal requirement for BIM to be used in all centrally-procured public sector projects and, at the same time, the UAE also made it a legal requirement for all large and public sector projects. More recently, the National Institute of Building Sciences published a comprehensive BIM guide for building owners to acquire greater value from the technology. However, despite its broad adoption, building owners have been slow to implement BIM technology.
However, the sluggish pace of BIM’s take up has not stopped the industry’s interest in the latest technological buzz: Virtual Reality (VR). In fact, with the rise of VR technology, BIM has the ability to become a major asset and source of added value for construction and facilities management.
One of the key things that VR brings is the ability to better visualise and display exactly what buildings and environments will look like. While we’ve had this before with 3D modelling, combining VR with BIM means that the visualisations become immersive and 100% accurate. This allows the industry to move away from traditional modelling, creating something that is more user-friendly and accessible.
38 | TOMORROW’S FM
VR models allow you to explore entire environments and buildings in much greater detail and with much more flexibility. They allow you to move into a space that doesn’t yet exist and to interact with that space in ways that no other modelling technique will let you. Indeed, how you interact with a VR space is where the major advances in technology will occur in the next few years.
By combining cloud-based technology with VR and BIM, the creation of those models can be automated. This same technology also allows these models to be modified and adapted easily, from structural issues such as increasing corridor width or moving access points, to cosmetic issue such as adding furniture, moving lighting, colouring walls and changing flooring. But probably more importantly, these VR experiences can be viewed on any platform and in particular mobile devices such as Smartphones and tablets. This potentially is as big a shift for the construction industry as the advent of the iPhone was to the telecoms sector, as it puts VR models in the hands of everyone across the industry value chain; from the architects and developers to the end user and facilities management.
“THE ACCURACY OF MODELLING
THANKS TO BIM, CAN BE A GAME CHANGER FOR
SPACE PLANNING AND FLOW
MANAGEMENT.”
It gives each one a new way to experience and visualise projects.
This is where we begin to see the power of VR to drive benefits and grow the value chain. The accuracy of the modelling (thanks to BIM) can be a game changer for space planning and flow management as you can move around the VR environments freely and understand in detail how everything fits together and how a building really works even though it will not be built for two years. This means issues can be ironed out early on in the process, which removes the need for expensive reworking and redesigning.
Combining VR with BIM in this way also allows developers to start the sales and marketing process as early as possible. It opens new areas of the value chain in facilities management, smart retail solutions, simulations, health and safety and, right at the consumer end, 3D ecommerce. VR can provide the platform for sales and marketing to collaborate with planning and facilities management.
The reality is that combining BIM with an automated and scalable VR platform can allow developers to do things faster, smarter and with higher quality. This is a real enabler for change in the sector.
www.tridify.com
twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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