Comstock's magazine 1217 - December 2017 | Page 53

McCarthy Building Companies' use of VR helped address a critical design flaw in the El Camino
Center for the Arts (rendering above), without a costly fix. RENDERING COURTESY OF SAN JUAN UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
The investment in what is now off-the-shelf technology
— a laptop, cameras, software and a headset — is easily out-
weighed, firms say, by the cost-savings clients see with more
accurate designs and fewer changes during or after construc-
tion. And most people can learn to use it.
Just a few years ago, implementing virtual reality was
not only more costly but also time-consuming. Formatting
a computer file from a 3D design model to something that
was an immersive experience took weeks. Any changes in the
model by a client took days. The equipment, set up perma-
nently in a firm's office, cost thousands of dollars.
Today, construction teams and architects can travel to a
client’s office with the equipment in a rolling suitcase, make
changes in the model — such as move a window two feet to
the left — while the client wears a virtual headset, providing
an immediate response to requested design updates.
“The technology has allowed us to communicate with the
client more,” says Kaushal Diwan, the national director of
innovation at DPR Construction, which began exploring vir-
tual reality in 2010. “The number of rework issues have gone
down because of it.”
When employees at the North Bay Medical Center in
Fairfield put on VR goggles, they could virtually walk on the
roof of the proposed three-story hospital wing to see how
maintenance workers might access a boiler, heating unit or
air conditioner. And when the staff saw workers might have
trouble getting over some of the pipes, DPR Construction, a
national commercial contracting and construction company
with an office in Sacramento, virtually added a ramp to im-
prove access.
DPR is also using virtual reality to provide OSHA safety
training to its workers at some of its sites — simulating fork-
lift and high-rise safety training to give workers a better feel
for their work environment.
And construction firms faced with renovation projects
can deploy specialty 360-degree cameras to capture on-site
tours, as XL Construction did at a North Bay health facility
earlier this year to show what wires ran in the ceilings.
“We had a superintendent, a project engineer and a team
of 15 people that needed to understand the space,” Dewan
says. “To have 15 people climb a ladder, poke their head in the
ceiling and look around was out of the question.”
By deploying a 360-degree camera, XL Construction gave
teammembers an immersive experience that showed them
what they needed to see to move forward on the project. It not
only saved time and money but preserved the tour for future
use. And that, Dewan says, is one of the exciting benefits of
virtual reality — the ability to digitally store comprehensive
December 2017 | comstocksmag.com
53