Breaking Boundaries: Maximizing Immersive Technologies Using VR

RICHARD LIGGETT: Hi, everyone. Rich Liggett here, and welcome to our class of Breaking Boundaries and Maximizing Immersive Technologies Using VR. I've got AJ with me today. And Nick is not going to be able to make it today. So just kind of a background on myself, I work for HDR. I've been there for 14 years. And I started in the VR process about two years ago in some projects. And here we are today. So I'm going to introduce AJ. He's with Autodesk.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Thank you, Rich. And everyone, certainly thank you for joining us on this session. My name is AJ Lightheart. I'm a product sales specialist here on the XR team at Autodesk, still a relatively new formed team since the acquisition of our company The Wild a year and a half ago.

I've had the pleasure of working with Rich coming on three years now. And my world really revolves anything and everything around immersive technology, real-time collaboration, and very excited for you all to be a part of this and hear Rich and HDR's wonderful story. So with that, Rich, I'll throw it back to you for the learning objectives.

RICHARD LIGGETT: All right. So today kind of the topics that I want to cover today is really about the objectives that we have with VR. It's not a scary thing. I mean, VR in itself, it seems pretty daunting. But overall, it's just some technology that's out there. We use it in a lot of elements within our design. And it's just not something to be horribly scared about.

So what are the benefits to the client in VR? And I'm going to hit on those and discuss how we use it and how it can be used within our industry, how we implemented it into our normal-- our day-to-day workflow, and the challenges of getting it into our workflow, which starting off any new technology in a big company, we have to break some rules. We have to find out what we can and can't do. And we make some friends in the IT department.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Perfect. Perfect. Well, certainly Rich and all of us here, clearly we all have a common interest. It's an emerging technology, how it's going to be impacting the industry going forward, and ultimately, how can it become a more daily driver, more commonplace in the workflows?

So even as these technologies are becoming more consistently leveraged, there's still a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of different acronyms and verbiage out there around them.

So Rich and I felt that maybe the best place for us to start would be just laying a little bit of a foundation, some of the different terms connected to it that you might have heard, and then how we can use that, a bridge of connecting to the story that Rich and HDR have been on.

So I'm going to go through these and start on the left-hand side on AR, Augmented Reality, truly imposing or augmenting virtual onto the physical site, wonderful one for Brownfield renovation projects when you're actually out at the project site, whether it be wearing a headset like a HoloLens 2 or, and maybe what I think a lot of firms are truly striving for, doing it phone or, there we go, phone or tablet, tablet base, holding it down to see the subsurface or what's behind a wall.

Really wonderful applications when you are on that site or boots on the ground environment and certainly a key part today and going forward of what these technologies will be.

Then we go to the opposite end of the spectrum, virtual reality, fully immersed in a virtual world, your virtual model, with no connection to the physical world. And wonderful for the early-to-midstage design efforts, whether it be when you're going through the kind of iterative prototyping, the positioning of equipment, layouts of an environment, how you're interacting as peers or with your subs to complement your coordination, your QA, your QC, which again is a lot of what Rich will be talking about here today.

And maybe just the most impactful, bringing in your owners, your stakeholders, individuals that maybe know what they want, but they don't have a technically minded background. How can VR act as an empathy engine where they can better articulate and advocate for their priorities so that we can get alignment at a faster clip?

Then we have MR, a blend of the strong suits that both AR and VR bring to the table. And it's something that we're starting to see become more present in the industry. And then finally, just XR. It's an umbrella statement. It encompasses all these different use cases. And that's a key thing that I want to draw some particular attention to.

We believe, and what we're already seeing in the industry, the power is harnessing all these different applications or channels of access together as one versus the sum of their individual parts. So we believe that trend is going to continue.

And my own personal opinion is I believe a lot of these acronyms will disappear in the coming years. It's going to be more of just an immersive experience, vision, how we're collaborating with our work. So something to be mindful of there as well.

So Rich, now that we have really laid the foundation, the groundwork, let's hit the elephant in the room question. Why should we care about collaborative VR? Is it just a shiny tool that's sitting on the shelf? Or does it have real day-to-day project application that can benefit us?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Right. Yeah, so yeah, it's not just a shiny tool sitting on the shelf in our office, anyway. We kind of got into this whole VR side when we had some clients ask about some information in a model.

And of course, looking at the 2D set of plans and looking at how we're presenting that information, maybe I think what happened is something got missed in the design side, where they couldn't access the valve. And they wanted to look at that a little bit different.

So one of the options that we came up with was actually looking at VR. It turns out that the transition between what we normally do in our 3D world to put it into VR is actually pretty easy. A lot of our projects now are in Revit design. So when we do all those designs, we actually just push a button, and then we can open it in VR.

So it's really not a hard, scary thing. And it's not a shiny tool or a shiny object sitting there. It's not the gaming side either. I have a number of the sets that we have. And I don't think I have any games on any of them. So the people in the office are like oh, can we grab it and play a game? I'm like, there's no games on them.

But so there's those types of things. And it's not very expensive. It's really pretty inexpensive to get into this. We have the software costs that we have some agreements with Autodesk on.

And when we first started, we started out with the HTC Vive Pro, which they're a little bit more expensive. They're a very nice headset. And then we found quickly that we needed some more mobility. So we went with some of the Oculus headsets.

So when we did that, the Meta Quest I think is where it is now, when we did that, we were able to take those into a different location. And it really brings down the cost of the implementation. So it's been really useful for us. And we do use it more of a day-to-day basis and in that type of stuff. So it's not just sitting there collecting dust.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Appreciate you sharing that, Rich. And there's a few key things that I picked up on there that I know we're going to be getting into a bit more here as we unpack your story. But I did want to-- maybe hopefully you could share for the group a little bit of what started you down this path. Step back in time a little bit. What started you down the path? Why did you do so?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Sure. Yeah, so like I said, we had a client ask about some access to a valve. And that opened the question. The question was, how can we do better at our jobs? And when we found that out, we started asking those questions.

And I actually reached out to my nephew. He was 12 at the time. And I said, he's got an Oculus. And is this a scary thing? Is this hard for me to jump into? I mean, he's a kid. And obviously, I'm in my career. So he's like, yeah, you got it. No problem, Uncle Rich. It's no big deal.

So that's where we went. We hopped into it. I got some buy-in from the management group. And we were able to actually to go down that road. And I had some exceptional help with AJ and Nick as well in getting the information, getting the demo set up, and working through the process, and doing some live demos internally to see how this could work and what we can do with it.

So there's obviously the challenges that are involved with that. And in an industry where we haven't been using that in a civil-- so I'm in process design. And that's not really where this was designed for. This was designed for the architecture side, which most things on process seem like they were designed-- started in design in architecture.

So yeah, that was the big thing that we-- I kind of got started was just seeing what the options are and then figuring out that it's really not hard to get into it.

AJ LIGHTHEART: I love how you said just, how can we do our work better, right? How can we better communicate our intent, again, make sure that we're interpreting the feedback that we're getting. And I think that's such a powerful yet-- a simplistic but powerful ultimate takeaway that we hear day in and day out of what these technologies are meaning to the industry. And as you started to lay the groundwork, how did you start to roll it out to the larger team and ultimately get their buy-in and support of it as well?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Yeah, I mean, it's taken a lot of my time. I do a lot of demos. I do a lot of reaching out to those groups and trying to teach within the company. Like I said, it's not a horribly painful thing to do.

I think once people understand that it's not just for gaming, and it's not-- it's another tool that we can use where we can actually see the work that we're doing in a live sense, it really makes it impactful for everybody on the team. And I mean, that's the biggest thing is getting the project team members involved and getting them interested in it and letting them know that it's an option that we have out there.

AJ LIGHTHEART: So it's certainly, like you said, it's not just-- it's not for kids playing Fortnite playing video games on the weekend. I guess I'd be curious, as you did start to roll out, how it was received? And maybe a different way to say that is, was there less hesitation or pushback than you may have originally expected?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I think at the very beginning, we had a couple clients where they were maybe not as interested in joining the VR world as maybe I was. But the first 30% review, I think I got a lot of those-- whenever we do those reviews, it seems like the owners, the operators, really enjoy that.

Even if they're not used to putting a VR headset on, they can put a VR headset on. I can walk them through. They can see what their plant looks like, how it's going to feel without it being constructed. And really, that lends to them giving us better feedback when we're doing the design.

So it's more of a past the 30% design side, we can incorporate those comments into the 60% and how that creates everything for them. It was really pretty easy to get people on board.

AJ LIGHTHEART: No, I love how you put it, really has acted as a bridge from one milestone 30 to 60 and on and maybe a way to get there at a faster clip. And I think this might be an important spot to reference for the group, Rich. And I'm just going to pull up my headset here that-- and this is not a pitch for the Meta Quest 2, mind you all.

But it is at least worth noting that this device right here has been the number-one Christmas or holiday gift the last two years. And there we go, just getting it to a spot where we can see it. And the reality that you watch TV, you watch a sporting event, you're probably going to see three or four Meta Quest 2 commercials. You can't avoid it.

And the point I'm making here is that consciously or subconsciously, we have become, as a culture, much more exposed to these technologies over the last year and a half than ever before. It does not seem like pie in the sky or sci-fi any longer. It's becoming just more of a norm of how we live, work, and play.

So what I'm hearing from the industry, and what I'm hearing from you as well, Rich, that individuals that you felt potentially might be the most abrasive or have the largest guard or hesitation were more open minded to this. And I think a lot of it can be said to just how much exposure we are getting to this day in, day out.

So that's more of just a takeaway for the group of be aware that you won't get potentially as much pushback now as you would have three, four, five years ago when this wasn't something that was as present as it is today.

RICHARD LIGGETT: Right. And one of the things to carry on with that is one of the guys that was the operators that was in there that we did ask, and he was an older gentleman, and I was like, oh, explaining the whole process. He's like, yeah, it's fine. My grandkids got one.

So I mean, that's really the norm in a lot of areas right now where maybe three years ago it wasn't necessarily the norm, where these projects that I started on was the very first time that I put a VR headset on. Now it's definitely, like you said, more recognizable. We're not touting the Meta Quest. But it's a cheaper option than some of the others and very useful in our world.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Most definitely. Most definitely. And now that we have really kind of highlighted what how you've gotten this, how it become, and you've hit on some of the real day-to-day applications, I'd love to unpack that a little bit more. How have you, your team, your clients found really day-to-day usage, again, so that it's not just a one-off novelty then that's then just sitting around and collecting duct?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Sure. Yeah, so one of the examples is we did a walkthrough of this in the particular plant that we have here on the screen. And when I was walking through it, of course, I design a lot of things, right? So I'm not great at all of these things but-- and what they do.

And when the maintenance guy come-- hopped in the headset, he's like, hey, I can't-- I'd really like to have a platform to the other side of this so that they can wash it down. And to me, I'm like, yeah, it's easy, right? We just throw it on there. But to him, that was a really big thing. And one of the things that kind of my bosses always say is it's a whole lot cheaper in the paper side than it is on the concrete side.

So that was easy. When we started seeing these things is like it's really impactful for the client or the operators to really just hop in and say, oh, this looks like what I would normally do, but I can't reach that, or I can't get to that, or those types of things. And how do we get this equipment out?

And the program that we've been using is the Wild, which Autodesk has that program now. And some of the tools within there are the ability to make the elements or the pieces, essentially, movable. So we can pick up big equipment and make sure it does come out of the building. And the client or the operators can actually see the challenges of getting maybe these big pumps out or big screens out or big motors out.

Do they have to split them into sections, even if the monorails can hold that weight? Can they physically come out of those spaces? So those are some of those big things that really it helps the clients or the operators to see us coming out of those spaces with those pieces, picking them up. And it actually is kind of neat. You feel pretty strong when you're picking up a 2,000-pound motor and just walking it out of the room.

But those are the neat things within there that the client can see. The operators can see. The owners can see. And their design teams can see. If we're trying to pull those things out of a hole, and on paper it fits. But in the real world, it's sometimes pretty tough to do it.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Yeah. I think that color there, Rich-- and you're right. it does make you feel like Superman when you're in there and moving equipment around. And there's a few items that I've heard. And I want to make sure I was interpreting correctly, that for a lot of individuals, it's just that sense of scale and awareness that can really be that light bulb moment.

And, two, poor design, we're not even talking necessarily hard clashes here, but whether it be ADA compliance, throughput, capacity, ergonomics, sight lines, whatever it may be. Those things start to become very apparent when you're in one of these experiences, but could very easily get missed on a 2D environment. Is that fair, or am I off base?

RICHARD LIGGETT: No, you're right on. One of the biggest things was, in this particular plant that's on the screen, when we were in the lab, there was a wall behind it, that they couldn't see through the wall. Right? So they said, can we add glass there so we can see down into the pipe gallery?

A very simple request, which allowed them to be more involved with their design and have a product that they really would like to have in the end-- and it didn't make sense on paper to maybe have that window there, because it was just a wall, and it went nowhere. So when they said, maybe we should have that window in there, that was really a key, another key piece of this project, so just on the user side.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Yeah, most definitely, most definitely. Yeah, I think it's just, to your point there, it's a more natural that we see our world in 3D, right? We should be seeing our design and our work in the same lens. We don't want to be doing 2D work in a 3D world. And examples like that, I think, make it very clear for the audience of the types of alignment that we can gather and gain at an earlier clip.

So first off, I appreciate you sharing all this, Rich. I imagine you're getting everyone that's watching this, their wheels spinning in a excited and optimistic way. And I would love to-- I'm sure they're thinking about how they can start to implement this into their workflow. And you've started to lay some cookie crumbs there. But let's unpack that a little bit further. What tips, what advice would you offer them here?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Sure. Yeah, so our standard is the HTC Vive. And that is really a fantastic piece of equipment. The benefits to that one is, if you're sitting in it for a number of hours, which I've ran the batteries down on my headset handsets, and I've ran the batteries down on all of the Oculuses, and they all start dying out. And it's kind of a mess.

But the benefit with being in that tethered unit or that higher quality unit is just the time in it. You're sitting in it for a number of hours or however that's going to work. And you start to appreciate the quality of it.

Now, the Meta Quest ones that we have, we've got a couple of those. And the uses for those, I mean, we're able to take those to site. So the HTC, I can't really just box it up and take it to a site, because it's a tethered unit. And I have to have a higher computer, higher level computer, which is good. I got a better computer out of the deal.

But the Meta Quest now is you don't have to have a Facebook account, where you did when we first started. And that was one of the limiting factors for why we were hesitant to having those. But now we have a Meta account with those on it. And you just pick them up. You deliver them to site. Somebody can set them up pretty easy.

I can still sit in my desk, and I can sit in my nice headset and walk everybody through. Because inherently, not everybody is going to stay in it the entire time while they're doing the walkthroughs, right? So somebody will wear it, and then they'll say, hey, come look at this. Or this is my part, and you look at this part now. But I get to look at them all. So I enjoy the nicer headset for those.

There's challenges. The challenges that I had was bringing the, essentially, gaming world into our engineering design with the IT group. And I had to get a number of things whitelisted just to get the software to work. So once we got through that, it's been very seamless. And our IT guys are fantastic. So it's been really helpful getting to know those guys on those.

The hardware side, I mean, just it's not you just throw them on. And one of the recommendations from our HR is to not stand up, right? So we have them. We have everybody sitting down and in a standard chair and not a swivel chair. That way, they can't get all turned around and get lost.

And a lot of times, I just take the handsets away. So the first few times, when we take the handsets away, people focus on what's there and not all of the gadgets, right? So there's some tools within the software that we're able to use. And without the handsets, they're able to just see what I want them to see and go through the process of looking at the project, and those types of things. So they don't have to worry about it.

Now, we do have some of the folks that, after a few times, are like, hey, give me those. I want to try them out. And then I turn them loose. And it's really been pretty good for everybody on that side of it.

You don't have to start with a great, big package. I mean, you can, honestly, get a single Meta Quest for a couple hundred dollars and get the software, and you're up and running. So it's not a huge investment. And hitting on what the pictures on the screens there, you can see the difference between the Meta Quest and the HTC.

The HTC has all the cables and wires. And we've got a computer and all of the things. And that was our first go at all of this stuff. And it really worked really good for what we were doing. But that technology is it's good for what it's for, I guess.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Yeah, thanks. There's a few things that I noted down, one, hardware or the headsets. One, there's a lot of options out there. And it's good to have options, right? I mean, it's no different. I wouldn't wear the same shoes I go running as I would to a business meeting. You have different headsets that support different applications. And it's good to be aware of which ones might support in those instances.

Two, make friends with your IT. You made that very, very clear. Three, take a crawl, walk, run approach to introducing this to people. Don't throw all the tool sets and everything on them. Maybe take them on a guided tour. Put them where they need to be, so they can still get that sense of scale. But you maintain positive control.

And again, just the group taking away the feeling that it doesn't have to be a massive hardware investment. You can also take some baby steps to work yourself into this. So those were some of the key takeaways that I heard from you there, Rich.

RICHARD LIGGETT: Yeah, and ultimately, when we do a program walk-through, I walk through with Navisworks at the very beginning. We hit the highlights and say, what are the pieces that you want to look at? And then we come back with the VR side and go through those. So it's really not a full VR day.

When we do these big project walkthroughs, we can walk through a plant and hit the-- Navisworks side walk through it, and whatever software you're using. And then we can hop in the VR and actually hit the highlights of the questions that they have. And it really does lend as another tool for the whole process.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Yeah. And you were just talking about how you work this in as a consistent part of the workflow, things to be mindful of. Any other additional aha moments that you think would be advantageous for the group to hear, so they can just be aware of it or proactively plan for them?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's really get some buy-in from your management. Make sure that everybody that's on the team understands the process, understands what's needed. Like I said, this isn't a big investment. It's not the hardest thing in the world to get into.

I mean, I came from, back in the day, when we did paper drafting. So we came from 2D to 3D. And it was a challenge then. We've all made that change. But now it's the next step. So those are the things. You've just go to go with it and think it through.

There's a lot of support out there. I know at AJ's team and Nick, I've asked them hundreds of questions over the couple years here. And I've gotten to know them really well. They're able to answer my questions, and I've never had one go unanswered. I've asked late, mean days, and especially, it seems like Murphy's law. Everything breaks at the very end when we actually need it.

And they were able to hop in and make those changes and help me out on those. So they've hopped into my models with me. They've explained all of those things. So the team is really there. It's not like you've got to be on your own on these things.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Well, thank you for that. I mean, I do appreciate those kind words, Rich. And it's been our pleasure to be a part, a small part, of this journey with you. All credit really goes your way. And as we are getting towards the end here and maybe summarizing some of the key items, what are the top ones that you hope the group steps away with?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Sure. Yeah, so I mean, I think the biggest takeaways that I had in this whole process and going through where we're at now and where we started, is we use it on a day-to-day basis. And we are able to take it not just internally within the company, but we're able to take it externally to the clients. And the ability to do that has allowed us to be better designers, us to be more aware of all of the elements coming together, and the needs and walking through what these look like.

Some of our designers haven't been to a plant. And so then having them able to walk through the plant in a VR world really has allowed them to see the actual size and the context of what they're doing with these things.

One of the other ones is the 2D thing, versus 3D. I mean, we've been looking at 2D plans. And you get 800 pages of a 2D plan set, and you spend a lot of time looking through those. But you may miss something like this on the screen, where you have the structure doesn't line up with the piping, or whatever that's going to be. Because it may be just missed. I mean, there's just so many sheets sometimes to look at.

The other thing is we're already doing this design. We have all of these models created in our 3D world that we print out in 2D. So how can we look at those in a 3D world? And VR is, obviously, a very easy tool to implement on those things.

The technology side, as AJ alluded to, is we've got all of this technology that was in place three years ago when I first started. And now that technology is really being talked about on all of the commercials, on TV, in our spaces, in our different realms of what we do. And that allows so many of those things to be more commonplace.

So there's so many options out there. I think the Meta Quest 3 is coming out at some point. You mentioned the hollow lens. They won't let me buy that one yet, but maybe after this, I can't.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Well, thank you for all this, Rich. And again, just summarizing back some of the items I heard there, I mean, 2D is not going away in this industry, right? It's a key part. But just having a different lens to shake ourselves out of what we're fully immersed in day in, day out, I think, can prove valuable to individuals. And to your point, as well, there's just so many different stars that have started to align the how democratized hardware has become, how it has become more cost effective.

And as it relates to these emerging technologies, allowing them to be just a bit more plug and play out of the box, ready to go, not feeling like you have to have someone on your staff that has a coding background and that everything is custom built, it's just going from design to VR, becoming a much more repeatable snowball day in, day out. So I appreciate you. I mean, I would give you round of applause. I'll do a golf clap here.

But I'm sure that this is proven very helpful to everyone that has watched this. And as we just move into our wrap-up session here, Rich, any final key items that you just want to draw some attention to, some takeaways for the group as a whole?

RICHARD LIGGETT: Yeah, so there's so much information out there on all of this world, right? Now, a lot of it maybe doesn't pertain to what you're doing. But that's part of the ability within all of this stuff, is we're able to use it in the areas that we want to be specific in.

So I mentioned that when I started this, this was not software that was really designed for the process design world. And that's where I use it. I mean, I don't use it in the architecture world. I don't do architecture.

But there's so many options out there. And there's some links in here on going back to the Wild and what they have for videos and how you can get into it and all of those things. And obviously, contacting the XR team at Autodesk, they've always been fantastic for me. And I'm sure that they will be for you as well. And I'll let AJ talk about the booths that they've got down there. So he's got his information.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Yeah. No, no, thank you so much, Rich. And I guess the key thing is just know that all this weight, if you're someone watching this, all the weight's not on your shoulders of how you get started, what's this journey look like. As Rich said, there's plenty of resources. These are just a few we wanted to draw some attention to, will be part of the handout that comes with this presentation.

Certainly, our team here would love to understand where, how, and if these emerging technologies can be supportive of your efforts in a similar way to what Rich shared. And if you are joining us at AU, please come out to the Expo Hall. Come to our kiosk. Understand what our strategy is and where we're heading around XR and how that might further align with some of the workflows that your firm has in place.

So with that, as we wind down our time, just the biggest of thank you to you all for attending. And Rich, just for me to you, thank you for giving me the opportunity of being a part of this story with you

RICHARD LIGGETT: Yeah. And thank you, AJ. I mean, like I said, you and Nick have both been instrumental in me implementing within the company and getting to where we are in the VR world.

AJ LIGHTHEART: Wonderful. Thank you. Well, everyone, have a great rest of your day. Thanks a lot.