Engineering Inc - September/October 2017 - 36

has seen with the introduction of VR in its design and construction
processes is improved communication between the design teams
and owners who have a hard time visualizing projects in 2D linework and flat images.
"This is true from the early stages of the design all the way to live
usage at the construction site," Dankert says. "The ability to look
around and move the focus from a singular view to feel the space
and have a more complete understanding of the project has been
the largest impact we have seen."
The ability to have one person in the VR environment as a design
team in another part of the country watches live and comments on
what they are seeing has been huge.
"Think of a live virtual project tour of a completed project,
and you can understand the impact and value it has added
before construction has even begun," Dankert says.
An unexpected benefit of the firm's adoption of VR has been that
many of the usage ideas have come from watching how employees
and clients are interacting with the technology, and then exploring
ways to improve, simplify or extend the use of the tools to fill needs
that arise.
Most recently Mead & Hunt has started to explore two key ideas:
immersive VR and architectural visualization (AR).
"The first is providing more immersive environments that
include sound to help you relate to the use of the space before it
is constructed-from the sounds of nature and the environment
outside of the building to the internal hum of communication in
a gathering space," Dankert says. "As you walk through the VR
environment, the hearing sense helps you envision the space much
the same as surround sound has changed the movie and gaming
environments."
The firm is researching the use of AR, which superimposes a
computer-generated image onto a user's view of the real world,

both during and after construction.
"Many people have a hard time
with the motion in a completely
VR world, [and] AR provides the
ability to establish a less confronted
environment by showing digital
information superimposed over in
the real world," Dankert says.
The firm has the full backing of
its
IT team in order to successfully
"The ability to
use VR on projects.
look around and "From the equipment needed to
move the focus run the interactive enveloping technologies, to the software, cloud sharfrom a singular ing space and security of our designs,
view to feel the partnering with our IT department
has ensured the simple progression
space and
of our use and access to VR in our
design process," Dankert says. "Havhave a more
ing accessible, simple and intuitive
complete
technology systems in place ensures
understanding
that the progression of the technology and its usage will continue."
of the project
And the commitment to VR
has been
will likely continue as the technology plays a growing role within the
the largest
organization.
impact we have
"In the next three years, about 25
percent
of our designers will be using
seen."
some form of VR device to do their
DAN DANKERT | daily work," says Andy Knauf, vice
MEAD & HUNT president of IT at the firm.

WALTER P MOORE

A VR user perspective
of a proposed
construction project
as viewed from a
virtual lift.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Engineering Inc - September/October 2017
