Tools Not Toys: Estimating/Scheduling in Virtual Reality with BIM Data Sources and Stingray

KELSEY STEIN: Thanks for joining us today. I'm Kelsey Stein, VDC manager with Skanska. And we have Dave Tyner, enterprise solutions lead at Autodesk. Today, we're going to be discussing tools not toys, estimating and scheduling in virtual reality. The two of us.

Now I'm just going to recap a little bit for people that didn't see the keynote. Now this story began two years ago. My manager, Jeff Courtney, was interested in using virtual reality for construction. So this time last year, we presented a beginner class on basically estimating in VR.

Now for this class, we're interested in changing materials and showing the costs associated with those materials. We could also look at sun angles. And we also looked at different facade options.

Now you'll notice we're only changing materials on one wall in this building. Also, the cost pad is static. So these are just images with the cost. It's not interactive.

So after we went through this process, which was very successful last year, we wanted to build on it. And we said, OK, now is there a way where we can link this static pad? Can we make it interactive? Can we link it to an external data source, like Excel or even a database or even BIM 360 on the cloud? So that's basically what we've been doing this year, taking the next steps.

Now some benefits that we received from last year was enhanced client experience. That's been huge, helping the client visualize their project, and helping us communicate the cost. But beyond that, we wanted to see if we could communicate schedule or site logistics or other elements associated with the project.

It's also helped with real time decision making. Now in the Georgia Tech example, there were only two decisions that were being made by the owner. So we wanted to expand on that and say, OK, instead of just changing one wall material, can we change the floor and the wall and the ceiling? How many different options can we have?

Next, we've also had greater collaboration with designers. Now this has been huge. And we'll discuss it a little bit later with the USF project, being able to do parametric estimating or continually estimating a project.

Also clash detection and coordination. You're all probably familiar Navisworks. We've been using VR to do visual clash detection and coordination. And that's been really great. So we've been able to use it in pursuits, in the re-construction phase, and now moving into operations.

Lastly, we can look at constructability. When all this started, we were really looking externally. We were looking towards the client to see how we can win pursuits, on how we could help designers in the preconstruction phase. Now, we're actually starting to look internally and seeing how it can improve our own processes.

How can our superintendents use VR? How can our own design managers work with the architects and influence that design making process? So that's really the shift that we're going to talk about towards the end of the class, especially with Dave and the USF project. And we won five our of six.

So key learning objectives today, we're going to discuss linking in external BIM data sources. We're going to talk about visualizing schedules and estimates. And we're going to talk about exporting that information back out to a data source. And because I like to live dangerously, we're going to try to do all this live, so bear with me.

So I'll pull this one out. So this is the linear accelerator. So right now, we're in non-VR mode as part of Stingray.

Now if you can see, this doesn't look like the picture you just saw before. Now this is a direct export from Revit to live into Stingray. So this hasn't been optimized yet with materials, with lighting, or with the geometry of the linear accelerator machine.

But once again, we like to start small and build. So what we're interested in doing now is working on the functionality. So you can see, press the G key, and it pulls up all these different design options. I can toggle through those options. And you see the cost in green at the bottom updates as I'm changing that.

Also, we're not just looking at one material now. We're looking at multiple ones. So as I change the ceiling, and the basic wall, and the feature wall, the total has changed up to $95,000 now.

Now all of this is linked to an external spreadsheet. So if I switch back to that spreadsheet now, you'll see-- oops. All right, you'll see that this is directly reading from that spreadsheet.

Now we know that's true, because I'm going to click in here. I'm going to change this to $10 a square foot. I'm going to hit save.

I'm going to go back to Stingray now. I press the R button. It refreshed up to $10 right now. So we know they're directly linked. We know this is live.

Now the next thing we wanted to do is to be able to export this information. So I'm going to go right here where this file is stored, this over here. You'll see this is the interior spreadsheet cost. That's that Excel file we were looking at before.

I'm going to go back to Stingray. I'm going to hit the X button. And you see right now, all of the first options are highlighted. So I'm going to hit X, and it just pops up with an additional file, interior spreadsheet costs out. And so that's, ideally, what the client would choose.

So now I'm going to go pull up this file, which was just created. And you'll see only the options that are highlighted are what has been exported. So whatever is highlighted in blue is what's going to be exported into Excel.

So that was sort of the first step. We wanted to make sure this functionality worked. So now that we had it in and out, we wanted to take the next step. And we wanted to see if this would work not just using the keyboard and mouse, but actually linking it into VR.

Also when we linked it into VR, we were looking at optimizing. So that's where we started making material changes, enhancing the lighting, and also enhancing the geometry of the 3D model. So if Dave is ready, we're going to swap over to VR. Can I swap? OK.

So yeah. OK. The image is right.

DAVE TYNER: It's already up.

KELSEY STEIN: OK. Thanks. Yep. That's good enough.

All right, so now, you can see we've optimized the linear accelerator. We've changed a few of the materials, changed the lighting, done some light baking, makes a huge difference. Dave can tell you all about that, explain in more detail.

But now, we want to put up the cost. So you can see here. This is the wrong one. So now we have the cost pad.

You can see here in VR, we can change the materials on the floor. Its cycling through them on the ceiling, on the walls, and on the feature wall right here. And as we make those changes, they update.

And also, like any other VR project, teleport around the space. Now the good thing about this one, we're actually are able to show the client what it feels like for a patient to actually be in this space and feel what it's like. So all right. Do you have any other comments about that process?

No.

DAVE TYNER: So is anyone familiar with light baking? OK, so what light baking is it's the equivalent of a [INTERPOSING VOICES] render to real time. So what it does is bakes in all of your nice soft shadows, the things that really bring out detail in your objects. It does take a little while to bake down all the objects.

And depending on the complexity of the geometry of those objects is going to determine the amount of time it takes to bake. And the hardware [INAUDIBLE] obviously, but Stingray has a built in baker. And that's what we did here, which is the nice shadows, soft shadows. We could've gotten farther. But as you know, [INAUDIBLE] you can always just keep going.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. Keep going, yeah. And also do you want to talk about--

DAVE TYNER: [INAUDIBLE] I'll get it.

PRESENTER: Yeah. [INAUDIBLE]

DAVE TYNER: OK.

KELSEY STEIN: OK. And also, do you want to talk about the leap to 3ds Max and optimizing the linear accelerator?

DAVE TYNER: Yeah. Sure. So with Max-- [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah.

DAVE TYNER: All right, hello. So with Max Interactive, so you can send right from the Stingray editor or the Max Interactive Editor. Sorry. We're undergoing the name change. It's still on my brain.

You can send any model in your scene to 3D Studio Max to add lights, add materials, add geometry, whatever, and just press an update button and 3D Studio Max, it sends that model back in Stingray. And you can do that as many times as you need.

As some of you may know from experience, the other way to do that was to export from Max as an FBX, bring it into the game engine, and something's not right. Come back, change it, export game engine. But now, you just send it back and forth very seamlessly.

KELSEY STEIN: All righty. So after we did this, we thought it was great. But unfortunately, that cost pad only allowed for 21 lines of text in an Excel file.

So we said, OK well, can we expand upon this? Can we use all of the BIM data? Can we link in an entire Revit project and all of those parameters?

So this is where Dave stepped in. And we used the USF project as an example for that. So we basically wanted to move beyond just estimating. We wanted to look at true preconstruction services.

So how can we link in safety, site logistics, scheduling, Point Cloud, all these things? How can we use this workflow as a jumping off point. And so with USF, we started with large scale BIM data and scheduling, which Dave is going to show us now.

DAVE TYNER: Right. So the challenge here was what you saw with the linear accelerator and even with Georgia Tech project, it was very small geometry, so easily handleable by most computers. This project was huge. It had somewhere on the order of 30,000 objects, so 30,000 nuts, bolts, walls, chairs.

And so the traditional processing method was, all right, I'm going to just attach everything together. Because in VR, in any game engine, not just Stingray, but all of them, it's some combination of the number of objects you have and the number of polygons that they represent. And the more polygons they represent, ideally, the less number of things you want.

So you can have a ton of polys, up to like 40, 50 million, or something, and a single object, and you'll do OK. But as soon as you break it out into its pieces, it's got to do more draw calls. It's more resources on your video card. And yeah, you're going to start struggling. And struggling in VR generally means you're going to get sick, if any you had that experience.

So that's what we started off doing is attaching everything together, trying, trying, and trying it. And it worked. The only thing is that you lose the IDs when you start attaching things together. And you lose the BIM data when you attach everything together.

And as we all know, data is king. Right? And that's what we heard today. That's what we've always known is that it's data. It's all about the data.

Geometry is a physical representation of the data. But I can never see the geometry, take the data, build the project. You give me the geometry, I can't build the project.

So we need to keep that data. We need to retain it. We need to make it granular. Because at the end of the day, it's all about, what's the problem you're trying to solve?

And although the method that we employed doesn't allow us to see everything all at once, because that would just be too much stuff, in order to solve the problem while we're in there, we only need to see the stuff that's right here right in front of us.

We're in this room. We don't really care about what's going on out there. We're in here to do something. And so we only need to see what's in here.

So that's sort of the way it works. So what we wound up doing was, we import all the Revit data into 3D Studio Max. And when you do that, there's a little checkbox that says, import the BIM data with it. So every object gets all its attributes, all its BIM data.

And then from there, we export that out as a single gigantic FBX. Right? And you're like, what? You're crazy. No, no, no. Just stay with me.

So we then run a utility on it, a breaker tool, and it breaks the big FBX out into all of its little pieces. In addition, it writes all these additional files that Stingray needs to compile and compile faster. So that's what we did. And it worked out really well. The Stingray compiles really fast.

But there's nothing in the level. When you open up Stingray, OK, Max Interactive is Stingray is Max Interactive. So when I say Stingray, think Max Interactive.

OK, so when I open up Stingray, there's nothing in the editor. I can't see anything in the editor. Everything is hot loaded, which means it's loaded at runtime.

And all of the position and orientation of every single object is controlled externally in a CSV file, could be a database. CSV file so it's easier. So everything gets hot loaded at runtime. All of the BIM data gets sucked in associated to each unit, each object.

And so what this allows us to do is treat the entire experience like a contextual spreadsheet, if you will. Right? So instead of looking at your spreadsheet and sorting and filtering and translating what that means, what you're seeing, now, you can do all that filtering in real time in context. So the contextual spreadsheet, if you will.

So let's take a look at it. And really try not to be jealous of the UI and the pointer I have here. Kelsey.

KELSEY STEIN: I have a very small head. Sorry.

DAVE TYNER: All right.

KELSEY STEIN: Cool.

DAVE TYNER: All right. We can all see it now?

KELSEY STEIN: Mm-hmm.

DAVE TYNER: Yes? All right. Awesome. OK, so there's nothing, like I said. And when I-- look at that thing. It's amazing.

So if I press the menu button here, then I turn around. And what the heck is that out there? Oh, hey, it's the project. What's it doing over there? All right. Something must have happened.

All right, so now this is-- I'm not sure what this is. So let me just zap something here and tap that button. It is the interior. So this is all the interior.

And if I want to just say, all right, out of this interior, let's cruise over here. And everything's pretty small. But there's a toilet thing, so plumbing fixtures.

And I just wanted to see all the plumbing fixtures. Right? And then I want to know, what do those plumbing fixtures cost? Now that might not be right.

Truth be told, there's a little something funny with the cost going on, but whatever. We'll get it. It's solvable.

But anyway, yeah. So now I'm here. And I can investigate everything and drill down, and that thing is a snorkel. All right, so what's going on with the snorkels? All right, so here they are.

So real quickly, and this is all multiplayer too. So I can be in here with somebody, and we can be talking and looking at the data in real time. There's some schedule stuff.

And if I just want to see level seven, OK, still there. Let's go floors. That off. That on. All right, so now here are the floors.

And now I can zip to any floor that I want. And you can see it's definitely reading all that data in real time. There's floor two. OK.

All right, so that covers, let's see, we got cost. And we got the BIM data. And this is, I mean, this is a tiny fraction of the amount of data that we actually have, but we're working with limited real estate here.

So until we can really figure out a good way to display it, like maybe pages, scroll over, something like that, this is what we get. And that's fine. So yeah, so and again, everything that you filter is totally zapable. And all of its data is available.

So then you're asking yourself, what about 4D simulations? I'm here because someone told me there was 4D simulations, show it to me. Well, unfortunately, I'm going to do that right now. OK, no. I'm kidding.

All right, so if I just go through, and that one is gigantic. All right, so this is pretty cool. So this is the core. This is all the core stuff. And Kelsey knows what all this means. I'm just the dummy VR guy.

All right, so we have this beautiful wheel of time down here that I handcrafted for this very event. And what you can do is if I press the trigger-- hey, come back. Come back. All right.

If I press the trigger and rotate this thing around, it's going to build the building. OK. All right. VR. I'm trying to follow the rules here. Where am I? All right.

So yeah, here we go. So let's do it. Let's put our money where our mouth is. So I start rotating that, and everything is animating according to its schedule.

And if I want to see what actual date it is, you can see my date thing right there. Right? And I have to give some credit to a genius programmer named Mustafa [INAUDIBLE] who really put all this stuff together.

But now, I mean, that this applies to everything, everything that you see here. So if I just want to see the floors and do that, I can. And this is all being read externally from an external data source. Could be your whatever. I mean, it's from anywhere, right, so from Revit. Kelsey, I keep forgetting the name of the software that you use.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah, so we publish the data from Revit up to Assemble, which is a third party software program. And then we exported it out there into Excel. And from there, we sorted the data.

I can pull up the image of the file, and you'll see, yeah, like Dave said, it has over 30,000 line items in it. It has lots of different columns that we can filter by, so category, level, department, cost. Dave, do you want to go through each one of those buttons individually? So start with the BIM data, and then show how each one works and then schedule and then go to cost?

DAVE TYNER: Yeah, and I think it's important to note that I am very much the proof of concept guy. So I make sure the things can plug into each other. And then after that, someone else comes along to make it fancy and nice.

Like that first version of the cost sheet with the big ugly picture, that was me. Yeah. That was my work. Anyway.

So what do you want to show? The BIM data? Yeah, so all these buttons on the side basically represent each line in the BIM data. So that's kind of the cue that you tap it and you're going to filter on and off by that thing.

So all of the categories, basically, are filterable. So whatever you decide that you want to put in there, Kelsey could have any number of lines. And then we just start filtering on that stuff.

So right now, this is everything that has a square foot cost associated with it. This is truthfully my favorite thing ever. But I mean, this solves a big problem, and we do it in a kind of interesting way.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. Can you look at just the write pad, Dave, real quick?

DAVE TYNER: Yes. Sorry.

KELSEY STEIN: OK, so you can see most of that BIM data is just automatic in Revit. But a few of the items, we added in ourselves. Can go back to the cost one?

DAVE TYNER: This right?

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. Right there. So you can see, we have Skanska unit and then Skanska unit cost. And so for example, and then that's also related to the length, width, or height.

So for example, if we have a wall, we'll go in and put in our own Skanska parameter into Revit. And then we'll say, OK, we're going to use the unit, which is linear foot, square foot, cubic yard. And then we'll go in and plug in the cost.

And this is more for conceptual estimating. So these are round numbers. $50 a square foot. $100 a square foot. We're not plugging in 42.99 into this. This is just to give you a general overview of the entire cost of your project, or filtering down into what is just this one level? What is this lab level cost me? Or what does just the [INAUDIBLE] level cost me?

Or filtering by different categories, so yeah, how much are all the plumbing fixtures? How much are all the exterior curtain wall? So that's the idea behind filtering, having all of these different categories and then filtering by each one of them.

DAVE TYNER: Right. Because then you're using this to solve a problem. So Skanska, they started off with more of an external process. Right? Their customers would come in, go through the experience, do all the things that you saw them doing.

But now and really what they did was they disrupted one part of a multi part process. So now we look at all of the other parts of that process and what else is disruptable for another lots and lots of money and work, one.

But then, it's like, OK, they're thinking, now what can we do disrupt our internal processes? And how can we get our teams collaborating in a way that's valuable, they have access to the data, sorting, filtering? Just making decisions, like bringing the data to the center, bringing the stakeholders to the center, and everybody comes to make a faster, better, more accurate decision? And that's what this whole thing is about.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. So sorry, I interrupted, Dave. Can you go back, yeah, and just go through the buttons one by one? So start with the BIM data and then?

DAVE TYNER: Oh, yeah. OK I'm sorry I'm not doing the thing that I'm supposed to be doing here.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. No. I interrupted you.

DAVE TYNER: So right. So we have your BIM data category here. Your cost data, sorry, your schedule data. So everything, I just carried over a couple of labels so you'd know what it is on this page.

And then after that, we have the cost data, which shows the cost of everything visible. So as you cycle through, and like I said, it's kind of wrong, but as you cycle through, it will just show you the cost of everything that's up on the screen no matter what that might be.

So, yes, so the next phase will be to make this a little more intuitive, a better read out, more possible line items, pages. Coming up real soon here, we have-- all right, I wonder if I can say that? I can say we're working on an HTML 5 plug-in.

So if I zap this thing, a little thing could come up here and play a little YouTube video of what this is or how to install it or if you have spec sheets, whatever, that comes up. You can read it, navigate through. Just everything you need to make a better, faster, more accurate decision, we're trying to work on. We're trying to make it a lot more relevant for industry folks.

If anyone's tried Stingray, you know that, OK, you know that the documentation of how to do x or y is a little light and can definitely be improved. And we're definitely, that's not my department, by the way, but I work for Autodesk, and we need to make that better for sure, so that you guys can get in there and learn how to fish, but have a reservoir of information to draw from when the fishing is dry, so to speak. All right.

KELSEY STEIN: So if you guys remember the first cost pad that we pulled up, well, very first one in Georgia Tech was static. And we only had three material changes on the wall. Then in the linear accelerator, we had 21 line items in Excel, and we were able to change the floor, wall, and ceiling.

Now, we have this entire spreadsheet that's linked into the USF model. And these are all of the categories that Dave was just filtering by. So any number of these columns and any one of these rows, he can drill down into one single item or just one floor, one department, you name it.

So you can see how we start small. Build on it. Build on it again. Make it scalable. Up until now, we have the entire model in.

And we're also working on functionalities to get multiple models linked in. So you're just looking at the architectural model now. But very soon, we're going to be able to link in the structural model, that MEP model, as well. So you'll have a total picture of what the project's going to look like, not just one building.

DAVE TYNER: Yep.

KELSEY STEIN: So yeah.

DAVE TYNER: And so what you didn't see here, because we don't have it running on this, is this FBX streamer. So all of this is controlled externally. The whole thing is controlled externally. And the reason we do that is that if just something in the data changes, you don't want to have to reexport and reimport just to get that data in there.

All you want to do is update the data and not have to recompile the experience. And you're going to see all the changes you made in the data reflected in the experience. Sometimes, if geometry changes, obviously, you have to bring in geometry again. But if it's just changes in the data, like their prices change whatever, then they just have to update that sheet. And we have updated stuff.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. And through this process, I mean, we-- can you see it there? It says revision nine. So I mean, we did this process nine times just working with Dave back and forth refining and changing all the data.

So I mean, that's great. Because as you guys know, in architecture and construction, things change all the time. So we're not looking at one off solutions here. We're looking at things that are scalable and things that you can edit and go back and change and repeat over and over and over again. That's where our focus is.

So in other VR presentations you might go to, they're more focused on visual fidelity, you know, spending a long time to making beautiful objects. And that's great. We're totally into that too.

But for construction where we see the benefit is actually with data. And how do you slice and dice that? How do you filter? How do you view it? How do you use this tool to help make your job easier or your life easier, in addition to making really pretty things?

DAVE TYNER: Yeah, and we chose CSV files, because they're safest. Actually Jeff Courtney, who is right there.

KELSEY STEIN: He's hiding.

DAVE TYNER: Yes. He's the man behind the idea.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah.

DAVE TYNER: Go ahead, Jeff, stand up. Stand up. Say hi.

KELSEY STEIN: This is the infamous Jeff form the keynote this morning. Yep. He's the brainchild behind all of this. So this is Jeff.

DAVE TYNER: Yeah, and he said something, because I'm a very technical person, and I like getting into the weeds and the ones and zeros. And I was like, yeah, we're going to do this. And we're going to hook it up to a database, and it's going to be super rad.

And Jeff was like, OK. OK. If you never say database to me again, it will be too soon. So basically, and his message was, look, this needs to be simple for someone to learn how to set the whole thing up in like an hour and use in like an hour.

And that doesn't involve databases or HTTP calls or whatever else is involved in that process. But we just need to dumb it down. Keep it stupid simple. And to do that, we use things that people understand. People understand spreadsheets, text files. People don't-- you say database, and everyone might sort of like, oh, yeah, no.

KELSEY STEIN: And it's also talking about the openness of the platform. Because VR and stuff, it can kind of be, oh, no. People are scared to use it, or you have to have a programming background or things like that. But by linking it into Excel and things like this, we open it up to so many more people.

So we have a guy in our office that we always test things out on to see if we can break them. And that was one thing, by being able to link this into Excel, he's able to use this project. He's able to be part of this process and see how this stuff works in real time. And so that's yeah, that's been great. It's much more manageable.

DAVE TYNER: And the whole process top to bottom is very automated. So the moment you bring all your models into 3ds Max, and it can be all your models, well, so long as Max holds out and doesn't crash, but you can bring in your models.

There's a utility that runs. You press a button, and it goes out and it does from there, it does almost everything for you. All you have to do is open Stingray. Right? Yeah. Press the button, yeah, and everything just hot loads. Yeah, OK.

This is not out of the box. Let me, I'm sorry. I should've said that first. I wrote a lot of custom stuff to make this work in Stingray, but all of that would be available to EP customers.

So that's primarily what I work with EP customers. And so yeah, so this will be available to everyone. If you're an EP customer, come talk to me. And we'll get you set up with it.

It's pretty slick. And it speaks to the two things that are most valuable here, which are your time and money. How long is it going to take to get this stuff in? What can I do with it once it's in there? And then how long is it going to take? Is it repeatable? Is it scalable?

And that's what we're driven at all times to speak to those two things. If what we're doing involves one of those two things, perfect.

On the artistic side, like I was saying before, that can be just an abyss of how fine can we make the fuzz on the carpet so it really looks like carpet fuzz? Is that important? Not really. What's the use case? If it is, maybe it is. If there's a use case for it, we'll work on it. But right now, it's time and money and solving the problem.

KELSEY STEIN: Yep. And Dave and I didn't want to get into the meat and potatoes of this stuff, how to actually do it today, because it is quite overwhelming. But I promise you, it's all covered in the 25 page handout. So it explains [INAUDIBLE], the level flow, the unit flow, all that kind of stuff. So the how to information is there. We're just not covering it today in a live demo. And I think--

DAVE TYNER: Are there any questions about what anybody's seen? Surely there must be at least one. Yeah?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVE TYNER: Sure. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVE TYNER: Absolutely. Yep. And what you didn't see is the tying into BIM 360 and the placement of issues happening. We can bring in Point Clouds into Stingray Max Interactive. RCP files, you don't have to do anything special. You don't have to mesh them. You just create your RCP file, point Stingray to it, Max Interactive, and you're in Point Cloud and VR.

So it's a fairly resource intensive process, as you can imagine. But we make it as scalable as possible for that to happen too, again, in the effort of solving a problem and getting to your data. And any data, you name it, we can hit it and bring it in and drive behavior based on it.

KELSEY STEIN: Any other questions? Oh, yep? Mm-hmm?

AUDIENCE: You guys are awesome.

KELSEY STEIN: Oh--

DAVE TYNER: Thank you.

KELSEY STEIN: Thanks.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVE TYNER: Oh, awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you very much.

KELSEY STEIN: Thanks. Yeah. And like, you know, I probably repeated myself three times, but seriously, starting small and just build upon it. That's how we got here.

I mean, we didn't try to do this stuff from the very beginning. We had one success, and said, OK, can we do a little bit more? Can we do a little bit more? Chipping away is so much easier than trying to tackle a huge project from the beginning. So I just highly recommend that.

And like was mentioned in the keynote too, you know, Dave would come, and he would teach me one thing. And then I would go off on my own and learn a few other things and then come back.

And that's really what's made this partnership successful too is that we're both working towards the end goal, but it's not like we're just relying on Autodesk. We don't just come to them and say, make this for us. And then go away.

We have to have input. We have to be a part of the process. And we also have to drive it too. We have to tell them what we want. Like Dave said, he doesn't care what those different cost parameters are. Like for example, assembly type was very important to us.

DAVE TYNER: We have one question from a gentleman in the back. Sorry. I think we're running out-- are we running out of time?

KELSEY STEIN: Are we running out of time? Sorry.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Well, so we make a Skanska parameter in Revit, and then we fill that out there. We also use Assemble to store the cost data. So you can push the information to Assemble, and push it out to Excel.

And there's links both ways. So you can go from Revit to Assemble, Assemble, push it back down into Revit, or Excel, Excel to Assemble, Assemble back down. So we use those three as a triangle to go back and forth between. Mm-hmm. Yep?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Mm-hmm. Yep.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah, we just feel like it's the easiest tool to use. There are, yeah, like you said, there are tons of different third party software options where you can export information from Revit to Excel. But we use Assemble mainly because it's part of Skanska. It's part of our contract that we can use. So there are multiple people in the company that are familiar with using that tool.

And I guess in an average preconstruction office, say there's 15 people. One of them is a really good Revit user. But maybe five or 10 of them know how to use Assemble. So really once again talking about the openness of data, being able to share it, that's why we use Assemble, because it's a more open platform.

And it's also just very easy. I mean, it's easy to see what you're doing, view the schedule and view the 3D model at the same time. Yep? Yep?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. Yeah, so--

DAVE TYNER: So the question was, how many users can you have, or can--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Mm-hmm.

DAVE TYNER: Sure.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah, so you can have multiple users in Stingray. So in the past, we've had two people with the headsets on. And then we've had a third user that's in a non-VR version, and they're basically like a camera, and they're watching everything. So I can pull up that video.

But and so that's very easy to do if you have a hard wire and if you're on the same network. So for example, when we're in Skanska offices, it's very easy. We can talk. I can talk with Seattle, you know? I mean, I'm from Florida, but we can easily talk, because we're on the same network. If you're on different networks, it's a little more difficult. Maybe Dave can talk about--

DAVE TYNER: Yeah, not really.

KELSEY STEIN: --how to get around that. Yeah.

DAVE TYNER: The interesting part is you can have Oculus in with Vibe in with a non-VR person up to some number that we haven't hit yet, but--

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. And another note about that, the non-VR version, just the camera version watching what's going on, that's actually great. Our clients love that. Because not everybody feels comfortable putting the headset on.

And especially if you have a room of maybe 12 people, one or two can be in VR, but everybody else can see what's going on at the same time. So once again, it's more inclusive and inviting more people into the VR environment. OK.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Yep.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: Mm-hmm.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DAVE TYNER: Right so, I mean, you're talking about a data source, plugging into a data source so long as you have access to it from Stingray? Yeah. Yeah, it's connecting it. Then you have access to the data. It's the driving of the behavior based on that data is the thing you have to think about in setting up the logic and making it work.

KELSEY STEIN: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

DAVE TYNER: I just heard you say it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no. It's great. Like we love that use case, any use case like that.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a great use case. And we've been starting from the front end. So we started with pursuits, and then we moved to preconstruction, and now we're slowly moving into ops, and then facility management. So it's definitely on our radar, but we're doing a step by step process here, one thing at a time. But that's a great suggestion. Thanks. Any other questions? Yep?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

KELSEY STEIN: OK.

DAVE TYNER: Oh.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah, do you want to?

DAVE TYNER: Yeah, so the question is, how do you get a Point Cloud into VR via the RCP file? Again, it's externally controlled. You have a CSV file. It has to be a very specific format with a specific name, but it has your file, the name of the file, the path. It has the size of each point that you want, every nth point that you want to render, the volume in which you want it to render, and the scale at which you want it to render. And after that, we're good. That it. And a plug-in that allows it to happen. Yes. Yeah.

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah.

DAVE TYNER: So--

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah.

DAVE TYNER: Is it time?

KELSEY STEIN: Yeah. That's it. Yeah, we're done. Yeah. All right, thanks for your time.