• CONSTRUCTION hen Brett Mitchell put on a virtual reality headset, the architectural plans for a new performing arts center at El Camino Fundamental High School jumped to life. With a simple click of a button, he could sit in the front row, stand on the stage or even fly to the top of the room for a bird’ s eye view.
Not only was it a cool experience in a video-game type world, Mitchell, the facilities construction director for the San Juan Unified School District, caught a design flaw that could have been a costly fix after construction: The guardrail from the stairs on the stage obstructed his view from several of the auditorium seats.“ Those seats would have been unusable,” Mitchell says. With the use of a virtual reality headset, he and teachers at the high school provided valuable input to the builder— from construction changes like the handrail to aesthetic decisions such as whether a black or green curtain on stage would look best.
“ You can see what the design is going to look like before it’ s even done,” Mitchell says.“ You take the guess work out of everything. And we were able to solve conflicts early on.”
While still in its infancy in the construction industry, the virtual reality experience is becoming more available and affordable in major builds. Architects and construction companies in the Capital Region are increasingly turning to virtual, mixed and augmented reality to plan, manage and market projects— from schools to hospitals and new homes.
Software and hardware developers have made great strides in recent years, with the advancement of virtual, augmented and mixed reality and delivering this technology directly to consumers at a lower and lower cost. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung and others have released portable headsets that can be used with smartphones, video games or laptops.
It’ s a huge leap from the past where any business that wanted to deploy virtual imaging would need trained software experts, says Hitesh Dewan, a professor of construction management at the UC Davis Extension in Sacramento.
A decade ago,“ You needed to know code and you had to be savvy with storing files on your computer,” says Dewan, who also works out of the Sacramento office as operational technology manager at XL Construction, headquartered in Milpitas.“ But now you can open up your phone and point it in a direction.”
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52 comstocksmag. com | December 2017