Robotics and XR: How to Improve Safety, Quality, and Owner Satisfaction

TIM GAYLORD: Welcome, everybody. Welcome. We made it. We are here. I know you've all been just counting down the days, the hours until this last final panel session. So thank you. We've made it. We're here. We're going to close it out strong.

Yeah, welcome to the panel on robotics and mixed reality, or XR as we'll call it. We're going to discuss some things about how to improve quality, safety, owner satisfaction, using these solutions. All right? So we're going to dive into some examples of how robotics are transforming our construction work as well as how XR is completely changing the way owners experience their projects and their data.

So I'll be your moderator for the panel today. My name is Tim Gaylord. I am the director of innovation for DPR Construction. And I get the privilege to work with these fine folks up on stage with me here. And at DPR we have a core value of being ever forward, where we believe in continual self-initiated change, improvement, learning. And a lot of what we do as innovation and VDC leaders is support and promote new and innovative solutions that folks want to try out. Like robotics, like mixed reality, all across the company, with the end goal of trying to improve our efficiency and effectiveness as technical builders.

And I know those not at DPR but up on stage share that same sentiment. So with that, I'd love to have the rest of the panel introduce themselves real quickly starting with Alex.

ALEX BINGHAM: Yep, hello, I'm Alex Bingham with Cushing Terrell architects, engineers out of the Austin office. I've been with Cushing Terrell for about 10 years now, and on the project that we'll be talking about here in a couple of minutes my focus was as a project architect for the front of house and back of house, kitchen cafe.

ROY MALCOLM: I'm Roy Malcolm. I am our central VDC leader for DPR Construction. I've been with DPR for about 10 years. I sit in Dallas and I support our VDC operations across our Dallas, Houston, and Austin business units.

NIC FONTA: Hey everyone. I'm Nic Fonta. I work for Autodesk. I'm the general manager for XR at Autodesk, and I'm based in Montreal up there in Canada.

RAYYA KARAA: Hi, Rayya Karaa. I work for [? VDC ?] Construction-- for [? GPR ?] Construction. I've been there for 3 and 1/2 years. I lead VDC execution in Austin and San Antonio.

TIM GAYLORD: All right. We'll have this video playing in the background just a little b-roll. All right, I want to kick things off around a concept that leverages both XR and robotics in a really unique and innovative way, right where we virtually mocked up our designs to gain owner buy in before we even installed. This is where we took all the great things from the traditional construction chalk walk, and added a virtual element to it.

So to kick off, what exactly is a virtual chalk walk? Rayya, I'll have you start by defining what that concept is and the others will chime in on its evolution.

RAYYA KARAA: Yeah, so a chalk walk is when you're using a chalk rail and measuring tools to lay out a space on a concrete slab in pre-construction. In Austin we had an interesting use case with a high end client that's been requesting chalk walks on their coffee, their cafe and kitchen spaces. To that client a cafe space is the place where their employees unwind, have a good meal, connect with each other. So the experience for them was a really important item in their design.

So over the years, we started with the typical chalk walk with a reel, et cetera. But we're always trying to push ourselves to be ever forward. As Tim mentioned, that's one of our core values. And we always wanted to do it better in a layered approach and a quicker approach and a more efficient approach. So as you can see on the screen, there's the reel, which is a typical way of doing a chalk walk, that was then replaced with paper to scale. So we printed paper to scale on the floor, and used mixed reality software to have the client come in and walk the space.

Then we were awarded another project for that same high end client, and of course they requested another chalk walk. So we made it our goal to make it even better. And we're going to keep making it better as long as we can keep working for them. So we connected with Dusty Robotics and partnered with them. So the way Dusty works is that it's speaking to a total station as it prints the layout on the slab. And we printed the layout of the kitchen and cafe.

The information that's there was very important, in terms of accessibility, equipment, counters, tables, chairs, as well as equipment tags for designers. And kitchen, food service designers as well to be in the space and review it within the real building, within the real world. So we invited the client, design team, whether it was the architect, some of the engineers, the kitchen suppliers, to come and join us on site, and basically look at it, analyze it before we built any of it. That's what you're looking at on the screen.

ALEX BINGHAM: Yeah. And so this particular project that we're talking about is a 35 story high rise building in Austin that we were doing a tenant finish out for office space. We specifically chose to do the chalk walk for the cafe front of house and back of house, due to the cost per square foot, the complexity with mechanical, electrical, plumbing connections, as well as just known track record with this particular client, making changes at the last minute. So we really wanted to get that owner sign off for this particular area and avoid rework.

ROY MALCOLM: And because of the success of this chalk walk that Rayya and Alex were a part of we were able to take that and scale that concept to a completely different project in Dallas. This was a life science facility. And kind of the great thing that I like about the chalk walk, and the way I would describe it is it's an awesome opportunity to engage with the client very early in the job, to collect, design, and construction process feedback using robotics and XR in a practical way. Something that's low risk, but high reward. And it helps show the value to the client, which opens up doors to use these technologies later on in the project for other use cases. Which was the case on both of these jobs.

And so we really tried to make a big spectacle and showcase around these chalk walks. We invite the project manager from the client side, their leadership team, we were able to the end users. The design team, our DPR team, and really get everybody together. And it's really awesome to be able to walk through the VR and the AR and see the robotics layouts on the floor, and just to get that kind of alignment with that large group of folks, everybody says, all right, now we understand what we've got to do. Let's go do it.

RAYYA KARAA: To add to what Roy said, we also worked very closely with Alex and the Cushing Terrell team to create a VR experience that was mostly focused on the finishes. So we created the quick [? asana ?] [? page ?] where we were just posting questions and the Cushing Terrell team was responding with details as advanced as which painting is on this wall, what's the menu at this little cafe stand.

So you really, if you look at the VR experience versus what was built at the end, it's exactly the same thing. It's almost fascinating, how far we were able to push it by using the collaboration between the construction and architect.

TIM GAYLORD: Yeah, that's fantastic. And you can imagine all the different use cases, right, for these virtual chalk walks so everything from a cafe to a hospital operating room, right? Where we can get some doctors and nurses into the room, so they can see the space and tell us, right, hey, we actually need these outlets up or down or, on the ceiling, wherever they go. So and shout out Dusty team. I see you out there. Appreciate y'all.

All right, next I want to shift to talking about XR and robotics a little bit more generally. Right? Both of these solutions, they've been around for a while now, but adoption and development of them for construction is still relatively low. So Rayya, I'll start with you again. Focusing on robotics, when exactly should we use XR and robotics in construction?

RAYYA KARAA: Well, in my experience it was mainly today we're using it in a fit out project. You want to at least have a slab that's there. We want to make sure it's leveled. It's clean, to some extent. So that we can run robotic layout on it.

We also saw a lot of this concept actually started during the pandemic. So really helpful for remote collaboration to be able to join in VR as well, if you're not able to make it to site. And also in sustainability as a priority, right? We didn't want to print paper and throw them in the trash like we did the previous time. So we were very excited to come across Dusty, and very happy with this partnership awesome.

TIM GAYLORD: Yeah, Nic, maybe you can talk a little bit more about XR?

NIC FONTA: Yeah, sure, I can talk about XR more generally for construction. Typically the most common use case that we see XR being used for is what we call coordination of design and build, which is similar to what we're seeing here. When you bring the design on the site with some sort of augmented reality or mixed reality use case, or capabilities, and the goal is to bring it on site, anchor it, position it, make sure that it's anchored as you move, and it stays still in the right location so that you look for QA, QC, watch for execution errors, or even look at the next phases of the construction that might be coming up next.

Now there is many different ways to anchor the virtual model into the physical space, and this is one example. What we often see is the use of QR codes where you establish anchor points in your digital model, you connect them with the QR codes physically on the side. So it's a bit of a manual process. But it still brings value.

In terms of when maybe not used XR as much, or where we have to be careful, the thing that comes to mind to me is anything related to safety on the site. The reality is we don't really have yet today devices for XR that are extremely efficient and tailored for the construction site. VR headsets, they have passed through very careful. We don't see them being used very often on the site.

See through devices like the HoloLens have advantages free your hands and you could see. But if you have in very light environments where the sun is bright, you might not be able to see as much. In any case, just be very mindful of that if you were to implement XR on the site. Make sure that you have virtual barriers, or as you said, like the slab is clean so people don't trip, don't fall over. Be very, very mindful of areas where you don't want people to go, because they might get distracted. But if you take care of that, there's a lot of ways to get value out of these use cases and technologies. Yes.

TIM GAYLORD: Yeah, that's a fantastic point. I mean it seems like the software is there, but we're kind of like a hardware issue, right? In a way of having fully integrated smart visors into a hard hat. Could really change the game, I think, with all these different technologies. So that's a great, great point. But I want to talk next about delivering a successful project. I think we can all agree we want to set high expectations for safety and quality. We want to always have a zero incident workplace. We always want to try to deliver on clearly established quality expectations. So Roy, maybe you can talk a little bit on how we can improve upon both of these goals using solutions like XR and robotics?

ROY MALCOLM: Yeah, absolutely. I think when it comes to these technologies and really in safety one of the best mitigation tactics is to eliminate or reduce the exposure to the risk itself. And so that's really where a lot of these technologies come into play. From an XR standpoint when we're doing the chalk walk or shortly after we're pulling in our DPR team and our superintendents, and we're asking them some pump-primer questions.

In the case of the life science facility that we did the chalk walk on there's a massive filter drier tank that has to go in there. That was kind of the big focus the big question from the owner. And so I'm walking with the superintendent, and I'm asking him how are we getting this thing in the building, and what are you thinking in terms of safety and rigging that we've got to think about. And he's rattling off some things that we've got to make sure of, and I'm taking notes of that.

And we actually put that into our safety mitigation plan to either eliminate those risks, or at least plan for them ahead of time. So that's the strategy there we've had a lot of success with. But not only on the construction safety side but looking further to the operations phase of the building. Because we're also walking with the facilities folks that are going to be using that facility and interacting with that space. And we're asking them the same questions.

And because of the higher detail that the models in XR and AR and VR and the Dusty layout gives the end users to actually understand what that space is going to look like, they can start thinking more about, well, how am I actually going to use this facility? And in this case, we had folks who were like, well, I don't-- that valve location is way too high. Let's put it down here so we don't have to get a ladder to access it. Or this clearance is off. We need to make sure we adjust that.

And we captured all of that information, baked that into the design, and essentially eliminated safety hazards that would occur potentially years ahead of time. So that's really cool. And then when it comes to robotics, Dusty in particular, again, the use case there is for eliminating those risks before they even happen, and eliminating exposure to them.

So Dusty, I believe through our experience with it, one person operator plus the robot is roughly five times faster than a two person crew doing layout. And so obviously we're doing that layout much faster. We're eliminating the exposure to those people on site, and kind of typically in construction that layout activity is very constrained. There's a lot of other activities that rely on layout to be complete before we can move forward. So we're often rushing. And what happens when we rush? We make mistakes. People get hurt.

I've seen a lot-- several instances where folks doing layouts were struck by objects falling from above because we're trying to do floor layout while we're installing MEP roof in, and so we eliminate that hazard potentially with something like Dusty. We can even do it after hours, when there's nobody there. So a lot of advantages of just removing that safety completely.

TIM GAYLORD: That's great. Yeah, Alex, you want to maybe talk a little bit from the quality side?

ALEX BINGHAM: Yeah. So on the quality side the progress of how we've been doing the chalk walk over the years has greatly improved. As you probably saw in the slide show, like printing off 1 to 1 scale plots probably isn't the best idea. But the origin of that was really to get the client to walk through that space. So similar to virtual reality, we want the client to really feel immersed and experience a space with the goggles as opposed to just looking at a render that depicts the space.

And then with augmented reality what's really great about that is you can take your client on site, and you're not having to lug around an iPad or physical drawings where you or the client has to memorize hundreds of pages or hundreds of specs. It's more digestible with augmented reality. They can see the finishes in relation to each other. They can see what that finished interior space looks like with the existing shell. And the quality of that walk through is much better than what we'd been doing in the past.

And then with the use of Dusty, not only we allow or just able to do the walls and the roof openings. We're also able to do the doors. The door clearance. The name of the door. For the kitchen we actually had it do all of the equipment in the back of house kitchen with the labels, including the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing penetrations. We even took it as far as dashing in the structural beams underneath the floor so we could see in relation of the penetrations to the structure underneath.

TIM GAYLORD: That's great. That's great. Nick, anything to add on the XR front?

NIC FONTA: Yeah, maybe just a bit. I mean you guys have covered a lot, but again, if we take a step back and we look at XR in general, and how it relates to safety. We absolutely see a lot of people preparing before they go do specific operations on site, with training in virtual reality, either so that they were more familiar with the space or even for special operators to be prepared for specific operations and tasks to be done.

So you train ahead of time in VR. You have to spend less time on the site and you're more efficient as you do it. So that's the typical use case that we hear the most about when it comes to safety and training.

TIM GAYLORD: Yeah, yeah. I mean a lot of when we're testing out robotic solutions on the innovation team, it's all about removing workers from harmful conditions. And Dusty is kind of an interesting one. I was talking with some folks from their team earlier today. It's like you don't really think about it. But I mean, traditional layout, right? You're getting down on your hands and knees, and you're snapping lines, and you're bent over, you're hunched, you're on your knees. And that may not affect you that day, I'm sure you go home a little sore. But over time that can be some major issues, right? Lower back issues, shoulder issues, knee issues.

So if we can train them up give them a new skill set and remove them from that work, that's some added bonus benefits in addition to the productivity, the quality improvements. That's all kind of goes hand in hand. So great points. I appreciate all those perspectives.

So next topic I want to hit on is around construction or constructability reviews, right? Widely used practice but still, some inconsistent outcomes due to a number of factors. So Alex, I'm going to start with you. Maybe you can share how we can leverage XR and robotics to get the best outcome out of these reviews.

ALEX BINGHAM: Yeah, well I think it really, really starts with content. What you're putting into the models before it even reaches AR and VR. So prior to this chalk walk we're working with DPRs team and their subcontractors with a program called design assist where they were taking our model and then fleshing it out to a higher level of detail. So actually modeling out all of the conduit runs, and showing all of the fixtures and fittings on pipes. And we then ran through that with Navisworks and clash detection. So even before we get to the XR and robotics there's a lot on the back end that we're putting into these models to make sure that they are actually successful.

And then during the constructability review we're able to use augmented reality and the Dusty to back check and make sure that we didn't miss anything in those prior clash detections. And what we find out is even though we can be very detailed in the clash detection beforehand, having everyone in the same room and physically walking through the space, we found items that weren't necessarily clashes, but improvements. Like maybe this hallway instead of four feet should be four foot six inches, things like that.

TIM GAYLORD: That's awesome, that's great. Rayya, you want to maybe?

RAYYA KARAA: Yeah, to add to that, honestly when we started coordinating the space, we didn't all have access to the core and shell building as it was still under construction. So we had a lot of pending RFIs that we needed to clarify once we were able to set foot on site. So what we did is, when we welcomed the team on site first off we had a bit of a disappointment when it came to the HoloLens because of how bright the space was. So if you really want to use the HoloLens, do it in the afternoon and the evening, over drinks or dinner.

We had to rely on the iPads and iPhones a little more than we were hoping to. But luckily we had enough of them basically, ready so we distributed those iPads. And then we also distributed post-its that were color coded. So some of them were there to cross-reference RFIs that had been pending, and others were there to either submit confirming RFIs if we resolve the issue on the spot, or for items that we needed to track after the fact.

So if you notice, you'll see some post-its on the floor. We had, for example orange for accessibility, blue if it's the wrong kitchen equipment and we needed to swap it. All sorts of color coding. I'm not to go through all of them. But that also like when everybody left the site we were taking pictures, and then going back and formulating them into either confirming RFIs or submitting RFIs. And similarly Cushing Terrell were responding to some pending items as well.

Alex also touched briefly on beams and sleeves. So what we also did is we traced a dashed line on the slab to trace the framing of the level below, and then put an x wherever that we had sleeves and highlighted the ones where there was a conflict and we needed to move a sleeve outside of a beam. So that was also a big success.

Equipment tagging was very important. If you notice as well, actually this is a perfect image, there's a post-it and then we had some accessibility issues on here. This is an aesthetic issue, right? That we can't capture during clash detection. You're seeing some piping running against the facade. So we're talking to the architect. Is that really the design intent? We have another idea. Are you going to bless it? Sure, then let's go and write a confirming RFI and resolve this quickly.

For equipment tagging we also had the schedules on the wall. So if you're seeing equipment tag, you're not sure what it is, you can just walk up to the wall and read the information. Also had some QR codes on the backs of our iPads that you can quickly scan and pull to pull up the drawings if you needed to.

TIM GAYLORD: Excellent, yeah. So if it's not obvious yet, a lot of benefits to the project team, and to the client. But I want to dive a little bit deeper specifically into that kind of owner perspective, right? And how project teams can really improve that client experience with these applications. So Alex, I'd love to have you start on that design side, and how we can improve that owner experience.

ALEX BINGHAM: Yeah, for sure. So we actually with this project started with VR. And the owner was very invested and involved with the design and concept. [INAUDIBLE] But as we move through the process into construction documents, we were adding a ton more information. That's a lot to process for your end user for the client.

So really with this a chalk walk and the XR we're able to pass the baton from the design stage to the construction stage, and really bridge that gap. And lots of changes occurred during that time too. So it's great for the client to do a back check. Hey, this is still what the design is. And for them to really sign off on it before we actually start building walls.

TIM GAYLORD: That's great. Yeah, Roy, maybe you can touch a little bit on the construction side and those savings?

ROY MALCOLM: Yeah, absolutely. The client had approached us and asked to build a physical mockup out of wood of this giant filter dryer unit. And we said, we can absolutely do that. But let's maybe try something different. We have this XR and robotics option. This digital chalk walk. Let's try it. Doesn't work, we'll still do the mock up.

So we did it. The client was very skeptical. They had their PM walk through it first. He was so impressed on his first walk through. He's like, oh, my gosh, this is-- I've never seen VR. I'm aware of it, but I've never seen VR, AR and robotics come together in this manner to achieve this result. And he immediately went and grabbed a couple of their facilities guys, and you got to see this right away.

And we were in an OAC meeting a few days later, and he gets quiet when we get to that part of the agenda. And then he just starts getting angry, and we're like oh boy. And but he was like, man, we've been spending $1 million a year on physical mock ups for as long as I've been with this company, and DPR comes in here and gives us something that's 100 times better, provides us way more value, and the costs associated with that are negligible from what we were spending. So I mean, if that's not owner satisfaction, I don't know what is.

But they also then like I mentioned, this opened us up to other opportunities for these technologies later in the job. So using Dusty for actual wall layouts and equipment layouts. We're doing VR reviews at every design milestone and coordination sign off to check with the facilities folks. So all of those technologies that we in this room know add value, but don't always get buy in, doing that chalk walk really created that owner satisfaction. And we're doing awesome things for them moving forward too.

RAYYA KARAA: To add to the cost component. What's also nice about the virtual chalk walk and using Dusty is that as long as you keep good conditions around the site, you're able to also use these lines to lay out in the future. So you're not just putting this upfront cost just for the virtual mockup, and then you spend again to go lay out the space. I'm sure changes do happen. So that's what RFIs are for. That's what the experience is for. But the bulk of it is usually still used later on for actual construction.

ALEX BINGHAM: [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, and you're also building trust with your owner and your client. So a lot of the times we there's a selection process or a bidding process. And so for the general contractor to show that, yes, we fully understand the design, and we're invested, and have the client walk through. I think that's huge. And it's just fun. Like the client just likes to be out there and have fun with us. So.

TIM GAYLORD: Amen. I love it. This is all great, and I read a JB knowledge report last year around limiting factors in trying and adopting new technology in construction firms. And I think the top four seem to be lack of a budget, lack of a support staff, employee hesitancy, and a general lack of understanding around these new technologies. So I think it's pretty obvious all of us here are fully bought in on the benefits, but what other barriers are you seeing? Nic, maybe I'll start with you. Right? Of adopting and trying out these new technologies.

NIC FONTA: Yeah, if we look at XR specifically on the construction side. What XR generally speaking, I think there are, I'm going to say probably three main barriers that we often hear about. The first is connectivity on the site. You don't always have Wi-Fi or four or five 5G connection, which diminish sometimes, diminishes sometimes your ability to do specific things. Not always but often you want to be connected to your source data for many reasons.

The second I've touched on before, I think it's really to the hardware and hardware factor and form factors. You have a few options. If you're not familiar you have for VR or MR headsets, either pass through approaches, or see through approaches, HoloLens is see through, where you have a direct connection with what's in your physical environment. They both have pros and cons, but none of them are really perfect. So that's one thing.

But in any case, if you have a headset on your head, your hands are free, which is great, but your ability to be maybe sufficiently connected to your physical surroundings, which, again, is very important on a site might be limited. And the other alternative at least today is to use a tablet or phone, which is great, everybody has them. Easy to use. You're probably more connected to your physical surroundings and the potential dangers around you, but then your hands are tied, and the experience is not as maybe immersive as it could be. So yeah, I think that we're not yet at a point where we have the perfect device to go on the site, for sure.

And the last one, the last kind of barrier, if you will, is and we've talked about, this is actually a good example. I'm going to say positioning and tracking of the virtual data on the site. There are many ways. This is one I talked about the QR codes before. But in any case, it will be great if someday you just walk on the site and you pull up your glasses, and it understands probably with the help of AI where you are exactly, which floor are you at, and it finds exactly where you are. It pulls just the data that you need, and boom it just shows it to you.

And you say I want to see just MEP data right now, and it shows it. We're not there yet. We're not there yet, obviously. On a positive note on all of these three fronts, things are progressing. Hardware devices are getting better. There's better tricks to do some positioning and anchoring. This is one. And yeah, data connectivity is also something that's becoming easier to do on the site.

TIM GAYLORD: Yeah, people don't realize. I mean hardhats, they're not heavy, but they're not-- I mean they're not heavy, but they're also not light. Right? And if you're adding on hardware goggles and wearing it for more than five minutes, even, it can really start to get to you. So it's a great point. Roy, maybe you can talk about the upfront costs of these solutions?

ROY MALCOLM: Yeah the costs are definitely a barrier. But like we mentioned with the digital chalk walk being kind of that way to prove the value, and showcasing what it can do. And then of course we're saving costs. Like that million dollars we saved on mock ups can go towards one of these technologies and implementing that. And we know other savings that come from it. So as long as you can prove that value, that's the important piece.

I think another aspect of it, too, is also just the general awareness. Like, the first time I did a VR mock up was 2015. Or first meaningful time with a client, and it was very hard to get any good feedback from them, because it was so novel. I mean this was using the Oculus dev kit one.

NIC FONTA: The first one. Dev kit one.

ROY MALCOLM: Yeah. that was.

NIC FONTA: You're a legend.

ROY MALCOLM: A nightmare of trying to put it together. But it worked, and everyone that wore it was just so in awe. And so they were kind of like, wow, this is crazy. And not actually, well, can you-- what are you seeing can you give me feedback on this? I mean I was in awe too at that point. But nowadays, I mean show of hands who in here has their own VR headset that they use for personal use?

NIC FONTA: I might have one.

ROY MALCOLM: Yeah, I would imagine. Yes, so a lot of folks. I mean, it's normalized. And so now I'm not getting questions about the technology and what it is. It's like, hey, do you have Beat Saber on that? And so it's just being normalized, and same thing with robotics too. As we use it more and more and folks see the use cases and the value, it's just going to become part of what we do.

TIM GAYLORD: Awesome, that's great. Well, it seems like the folks next door are already partying, so we're going to get you out here soon so we can as well. Last question, right? Let's think future state now. Rayya, I'll kick off with you. Where do you see XR robotics taking us?

RAYYA KARAA: I mean, I dream of everything that I've been mentioning, honestly. Like just imagine if you just go on site and put on your sunglasses that are like HoloLens, simplified. That knows exactly where you're at, and instead of pulling up your plans, you're just seeing the hologram and building on top of it. It almost feels like you're playing and not working. And I'm all for efficiency. Hopefully these images get more crisp, and there's more accuracy. Less set up time in advance. Right?

More, safer headsets or goggles or whatever it's going to be that can allow you to keep your hard hat on and feel aware of your surroundings so that you don't trip or fall. I think we're getting there. Things are moving so fast. I mean it wasn't long ago that we were using a bunch of sensors to use VR and a million cables, and now we're there tracking our hands, and every single iteration is much better than the previous one, and things are moving fast. So the way I see It is we're not too far from just virtual sites that we just visit and build over. So excited for that.

TIM GAYLORD: That's great. Nic, you want to touch on it from your side?

NIC FONTA: Yeah. I think that, I mean, I've been doing real time stuff for quite a long time, and XR more specifically for maybe nine, 10 years. And it's true that we've seen waves over time. I mean actually first wave for XR started a long time ago, maybe the first serious was in the '90s. But through these different waves I think there's something different happening now. We see broader and serious signals from the industry with massive investments in many different areas, both hardware, software, and in professional space.

It's not-- I think most people now would agree that XR is not just for the consumer market and gaming. It is for professional work. Actually I believe it has more value for professional work than for gaming and consumer market, in my opinion. Probably a little bit biased. But we're absolutely seeing signals and we would probably, all of us here, that agree that the AEC industry is primed for better collaboration, more efficiencies, and that is probably true across the entire project life cycle.

And I think we're at a start at a real transformation that is barely, barely starting. And I'm-- we are. I'm going to say we at Autodesk we're very, very hopeful that this transition is for real, and that this is going to change how we work, collaborate, and be more efficient in the future.

TIM GAYLORD: Yeah, definitely, very well said,. I mean we firmly believe in it here at DPR Construction. On the innovation side, we have a full time robotics leader, we have a leader focused on mixed reality. And we're trying to move the needle on these things, because we're seeing incredible gains in quality, safety, owner satisfaction, productivity, user experience. I mean, all of the above, right? So these are real benefits we're realizing, and I think only scratching the surface. You've got a long way to go.

So with that, we'll wrap up and open for questions. But thank you so much for listening in on. And I think I have a mic here, and I'll jump down and we'll dive into the group for questions. There we go.

[APPLAUSE]

AUDIENCE: Just a quick question. Your video is showing visual live, but visual live's gone now. So what's your what's your replacement for iPad mixed reality?

ROY MALCOLM: Yeah, I can sort of answer that. We're still figuring it out is the short answer. I think we're looking at a couple applications. They're actually here. Sitelink is one of them. XR is another one. So we're still figuring out what's next. But yeah, visual live was good for what we needed. But yeah, still.

RAYYA KARAA: Things change.

TIM GAYLORD: You noticed. I think I think sitelink has a ton of potential. We've been working with them pretty closely over the last six months and they have a product that is doing a lot of what visual live did, plus more. So check them out if you haven't already. Shameless plug.

AUDIENCE: So it's obviously a lot easier to get the implement these technologies when the owner is willing to pay for it. So are you also implementing this on other projects where the owner isn't willing to pay for it? Or is that limited use to only those types of projects? So that's the first question.

The second one is, I had a question about Dusty. So you mentioned that the owner makes a lot of changes. Is there a squeegee or something that cleans up after Dusty and prints out new lines? How do you how do you get rid of the old lines? So just something I was thinking about.

RAYYA KARAA: I might start with the second question just because it's fresh on my mind right now. So what we did is we focused a lot on the color selection, and also instructed our team that if something is corrected, it's going to trace, for example, in red. So if you see a black line and a red line, always follow the red. So there was a hierarchy there that was communicated with the site. And that does happen.

We didn't want to sit and bother to try to erase it. That's a lot of work. That beats the purpose of getting rid of the traditional layout and keeping our crafts backs in good shape. So yeah, so we did have to go again and run some updates. I'm sure there was a little bit of manual layout that was maybe there. We didn't every single time have to bring the robot back on site to make small updates. So that's for your second question. Can you repeat the first one again?

AUDIENCE: First one was getting the owner to buy it, pay for it essentially.

RAYYA KARAA: So I'll be honest with you. Yeah, I'll be honest with you. Here the client always asks for it. And after the paper layout, honestly when we did so much work to win the next project with them, but when we won it I was like, great we want it. Now please don't ask for it chalk walk. So they did. And I was like, OK, we need to figure out another solution, because this paper situation killing a million trees was not efficient, was it? So we needed to come up with something different.

Now in situations where we have high end clients, where buildings are technical, and this is what [? GPR ?] is known for, our technical work, we are at this point developing a way to pitch it as a selling point. As a service that is also provided by our VTC team. But what you notice is on very technical buildings it's often a request from the owner in the first place to create some kind of mockup. So I don't know how it was in the life science project in Dallas. Was that something that we pitched, or was it something that they also requested?

ROY MALCOLM: They had asked for a physical mockup and we said, let's try something else to potentially save you money and give you something that's better.

TIM GAYLORD: I think I think a lot of these solutions here, we believe strongly in them, and we'll make the investment separate from the project team's budget just to-- it's like a drug dealer, right? We'll give you a little taste and come back for more afterwards. So we do that quite a bit, and to your second question, a little spit shine. We'll get the lines up off the-- they're not permanent so. Awesome.

NIC FONTA: Can I add something to your first question? And to the answers that were provided already. I know it's not always possible, but again, from a broader XR perspective I encourage all of you to try to find a way to switch mindset where as opposed to see this as a cost center or a cost that you're trying to send to your clients, try to switch your mindset where this is becoming rather a profit center. And I know it's not always possible, but very, very often it pays for itself by an order of magnitude, if it's a design review because you find costly errors or on the site.

Try to be creative. I know it's not always easy and possible, but I think if we collectively start to change our mindset, and find ways to take advantage of it, and see it as a way to actually make profit and save costs and reworks and everything, there is a lot of possibilities that are open up.

RAYYA KARAA: And when physical layout is kind of minimized, you have more budget to do something else. So it's just basically a study of how much is this going to cost us if we were to do it on overhead. Are we still-- are we losing money or are we winning money here? Or are we going to be able to leverage it for construction or are we not?

And sometimes honestly also it's a business strategy. This client has seven projects in the pipeline. We have to wow them. We have to win them over. What can we do, and let's show us show them the best that DPR can provide and do for them.