Practical Use of Immersive BIM for Design and Construction

AP PERCOWYCZ: All right good morning, everybody. Welcome to AU. Hopefully, first class for a few people. AP Percowycz, here.

VINCE DANIELE: Vince Daniele.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Everybody excited? Ready to go? All right, good, good.

VINCE DANIELE: All right, everyone. I'm Vince Daniele from IMAGINIT Technologies. Solutions consultant for a little bit over seven years. My background is primarily in architecture but at IMAGINIT, I specialize in consulting work, lead implementations. And I'm kind of the lead person at IMAGINIT for this whole AR/VR stuff that's really breaking through right now. So been working on this stuff for a few years. So hopefully we provide you with some information that you can use in your everyday workflows.

AP PERCOWYCZ: And again, AP Percowycz. I'm a SME with Autodesk. Since being board with Autodesk, I've been primarily focused around BIM lifecycle. So I started my career in architecture. I've worked at a couple of different firms, both AutoCAD focused. More Revit focused in the recent history. But again, more focus on design handover, construction execution. But again, like Vince, more and more focused on the virtual environment and more and more focused on AR/VR workflows being integrated to those.

VINCE DANIELE: And actually, personally, Andy and I have been friends for a very long time. We actually went to high school together in Michigan-- Anchor Bay. And both graduated from the same university-- Lawrence Tech.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Figured we start it off with a couple embarrassing photos, just lighten the mood. We're going to try our best not to take ourselves too seriously during this one. So like Vince said, we've known each other a very long time. I'm personally excited to be presenting with him today and happy to be presenting in front of you guys too.

VINCE DANIELE: OK so why did we decide or why did we want to present this class? Well, in the past couple of years, we've got a lot of sales calls or a lot of contact with customers and they're really interested in learning about AR and VR. But they might not really know why. Right? They have a vague understanding of the capabilities. And just in general, they really don't know exactly how AR/VR can bring value. But it's a really cool-looking visualization tool. So it's something that excites people.

So we get those calls and personally I'd imagine it-- They've been increasing over, probably, the last six months. I think the lead-up to AU-- I know a big focus for AU is going to be augmented reality, virtual reality. We'll probably see it in the keynote next hour. So we decided to put a class together and talk about some of the workflows that are out there.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Yeah, I agree. On our day-to-day, like Vince said. More and more conversation-- I'm sure that's why the room is packed right now, as well. Everybody's trying to figure out this new technology. What are the capabilities? And again, the value point, I think, is the most significant-- search out there, right? Obviously, people know that being in the environment is going to be valuable to some capacity. But there's also a cost to that.

VINCE DANIELE: But really ultimately, the reason that we wanted to put the class together was a free trip to Vegas.

[LAUGHTER]

AP PERCOWYCZ: All right. So let's get into the agenda, what we're going to go through today. Really, we're going to start off just talking about the current state of AR/VR. We're going to talk about just first, level set on some of the differences between those two tools. We do get questions about that quite a bit. Then we're going to start diving into some of the industry uses. So how are people utilizing this technology? And again trying to focus on where the value is being found the most in those cases. And again, obviously, in design and construction being the focus.

VINCE DANIELE: Then we're going to get into the current Autodesk workflows-- kind of talk about some of the old workflows and how they've improved them, talk about Revit Live a little bit and that exchange that happens between Revit and going live with Revit Live. And really the class title-- just the practical application of AR/VR and how you can leverage it as a customer and present to owners and get that value in return.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Then we're going to move into an actual case study. We'll take a look at a little bit more in product look like Vince had talked about. But we have a dataset that we will be using. We'll be referencing a lot for the slide where the video resources. So we'll try to get a level set with you guys and what we were trying to do in that experience and in that actual example.

VINCE DANIELE: And then just finish with some final thoughts where we think the technology is pushing-- maybe some guesses where it's at now and I'm sure, maybe within the next hour, how that might change. Or the next couple of hours, how some of these workflows might improve or change.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Yeah, right. We're pre-keynote. Everybody just remember that.

VINCE DANIELE: We know just as much as all of you.

AP PERCOWYCZ: All right, so let's jump into the current state of AR/VR. So we've got a couple of slides. These are pretty high level, obviously. But this kind of lays out, I think, visually very simplistically-- maybe not simplistically. But visually the focus of Autodesk moving forward. It's all geared around a connected BIM experience. And AR/VR playing a part in that throughout the way.

So anybody experienced with BIM 360-- BIM in general-- know that it's more than just designing a building. It's visualizing it. It's experiencing it. But also moving it into construction. How to streamline those processes around pre-fabrication, installation. Again, just more focus on the lifecycle of design into construction and then ultimately into the handover experience to the owner.

VINCE DANIELE: So next, just to clear this up for everyone. I'm sure all of you have probably heard of augmented reality, virtual reality. But just to give everyone some context, for those of you who aren't really sure the differences between the two.

So augmented reality, we can pretty much define it as the live view of the physical world with computer-generated graphics or animated objects on top of that real world or the physical world in context. Basically think, fake stuff overlaid on real stuff, right?

One of the pretty popular applications in recent memory is Pokémon Go. We're probably not the only people doing these presentations that are going to use this. But hopefully we're one of the earlier ones that you have this week.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Got to catch them all.

VINCE DANIELE: So we're the first ones. But you always want to be careful.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Be careful. Augmented reality.

VINCE DANIELE: So virtual reality right this is probably a little bit more built out at this point in some ways. But basically, virtual reality-- aside from augmented reality-- is you're actually wearing a headset. You're completely immersed in that environment. Your sensory is only looking through the goggles. So you're basically looking at only fake stuff the entire time. It's the context of a model, it's the context of a plan, an environment that you actually build into that virtual environment.

In the past, virtual reality has been around a long time. Technology has evolved where I think it's finally scaling to a point where it's viable to apply. The price point is coming in lower and lower as the technology moves forward. But as you guys can see, there's been iterations along the way. And it's definitely been a progression moving forward. But no matter what, in my opinion, it's tough to look cool wearing VR, no matter what. It's just always going to be tough.

So just going over some industry applications-- what's out there right now and how different market sectors are using this technology. We'll start off with sales and marketing. So there are already some really big companies-- some big box stores like Lowe's, Wayfair-- well, internet store-- and Ikea that are using this technology or ideas of this technology in implementing them into their sales.

So the little screenshot here is just an example of IKEA's kitchen builder experience that you can go to online and build a kitchen. But they also have, at some of their stores, they have this sort of VR experience that you can walk into an empty room, kind of configure a space. So you're going to start to see a lot of this stuff not only in the design realm, but also at a consumer level and helping to drive sales and push consumers to a more customized experience.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Yeah. I think again, as consumerism moves more digital, I think that experience is going to be more and more common, as well. So let's start talking about some industry applications. Specifically as we talk about design construction, the most common-- the kind of lay-up application of VR is just the design visualization aspects. If we can start modeling our space, getting it photo realistic as possible, we can start iterating better along the way. We can understand spatial alignments.

We can vet it with a client a lot easier. Frankly, if you're putting floor plans or even a model at sometimes in front of a customer, it's hard for them to contextually understand exactly what's going on. So VR/AR, both of which are a really easy access point and again, a completely accurate sense of the space. What it's going to be like to be there, move your head around, and obviously a lot more user-friendly than say, looking at a floor plan or just navigating around a simple model.

VINCE DANIELE: So also just continuing with this-- AR/VR is starting to be used in city planning and urban planning. So imagine laying out on like a Google Earth map a campus plan or doing some urban development and seeing how it progresses over time. Just a real general way of using it, but at sort of a macro sense, rather than micro-- being inside the space, and looking at a bigger picture.

This stuff is really kind of the new wave. I think it's not too developed yet. But you're going to start seeing this in the next probably, five to 10 years in applications and more than just building design.

AP PERCOWYCZ: So kind in the same tune as design visualization-- kind of hand-in-hand with that is the construction coordination effort that's going on, as well. It's great for the client experience to say, be in this conference room before it's all built, understand the trim work, the lighting.

But it's a whole other thing to say coordinate the systems that go on above the ceiling, where the ductwork alignments going below the steel, where conduit runs are aligning, infrastructure tie-ins. All these applications really ensure that these complex coordination efforts that are involving multiple parties along the way are done accurately. And that's really the goal, obviously, along the way in design construction.

VINCE DANIELE: And also thinking about it as kind of like a lifecycle management tool. Post-construction, we can use AR and VR to do things like go through safety routines in a factory, or view equipment as it's processing or manufacturing parts. We can pull some of the metadata in real time and really get a little bit more from just our standard design tools or facility maintenance programs that are out there.

So just imagine walking around a facility and being able to view equipment and knowing when to change parts out, maybe even like Andy said, sort of in line with construction, installation guidelines. And even with reality nowadays, training for live-shooter situations and just being able to simulate that in a built environment without actually having live actors and putting a whole ordeal together.

AP PERCOWYCZ: In this example, actually, a working factory data set-- People at Autodesk helped built out. And basically in this environment, it's giving you real-time understanding of where these robot wings are swinging. They're even linked in to some of the sensor data along with it. So it's tracking actual consumption of energy along the way, as well, performance. So pretty cool example, in terms of the factory.

Just talking about the market sector in play here, really most of the global architects understand are currently using virtual technology in some capacity-- or at a minimum, are planning to in the near future. Vince, you want to go to the next one?

Aside from that, the visualization technology-- planning to experiment with VR. So it's on the radar, in terms of a lot of our customer base, a lot of the industry base already. Again, I think Vince can vouch for the amount of conversations that are going on in this industry-- as well as the people in this room-- obviously know it's a focus moving forward.

And then by 2020, the market share is expected to reach $150 billion. That is an extreme amount of money that could be captured with this technology. So definitely possibilities along the way.

And really like we mentioned a couple of times already, but it's worth reiterating-- VR has a place across any architectural workflow in play. It doesn't matter if you're starting off in really early on conceptual planning, massing, understanding relationships, to moving into a bid environment, and iterating your design along the way. Really, it's a great tool to get again, a good level of understanding of what's going to be built, what's going to be installed. A lot of customers use it specifically for bid projects. It's a way to differentiate yourself within the technology within your firm's capabilities, immediately.

And then obviously on the back end, a little bit further downstream, but the sales marketing end of things-- again just pushing business along the way for your company, getting notoriety. It's a really easy way to highlight yourself in an architectural setting.

VINCE DANIELE: So now we're going to talk about how the Autodesk workflow ties into this whole idea of AR and VR and what's out there. So unfortunately, this is the technical part and stuff can tend to get a little boring. So just to lay the groundwork here, I just need to talk a little bit about some really exciting technical stuff here.

So first off, has anyone heard of this FBX file? Raise your hand. I figured. It's been around for a while. It was something that Autodesk purchased back in 2006 and developed as sort of an interoperability file that they can exchange between a lot of these different programs. Basically what an FBX file is, is it's just a 3D geometry-- a surface that can contain material information. So it's like a little package of 3D stuff together. And it can move from program to program-- so like I said, interoperability between Autodesk programs.

Some major examples for those of you in architecture and construction-- We can create or produce FBX files, export FBX files from Revit and Navisworks. You can use AutoCAD and get to FBX as well. But no one wants to use AutoCAD anymore.

So basically those programs-- Revit and Navis-- we can exchange the FBX from these programs and bring them into other programs like 3D Studio Max, which then in turn, leads us to this newer program. It's been around a few years, but it might be new to a lot of you that are just kind of getting into VR or this VR visualization.

Stingray is basically a gaming engine. Well, not basically-- It is a gaming engine. So all of the hardware that is out there right now-- Vive, HoloLens Rift-- they're using some form of a gaming platform to produce the visualizations. And this FBX file is kind of the key for Autodesk programs to kind of bridge that or build that into that environment.

AP PERCOWYCZ: How many people experienced with Stingray in the room, just out of curiosity? OK.

VINCE DANIELE: So a few. Good. So I want to talk about this kind of archaic or this older workflow at first. When Autodesk first introduced Stingray as its gaming platform, the workflow to get from Revit to Stingray was that we had to go through-- Well, you didn't have to go through. But the best way to get your scene built and into Stingray was to go through 3D Studio Max. So what that required was a transfer of an FBX file into 3D Studio Max. And then using this thing called the game connector or the Stingray connector, we were able to bring our 3ds Max scenes and assets into Stingray.

There were a lot of challenges with this workflow. First of all, the Revit materials-- the Autodesk materials, so the materials that are assigned in Revit-- do not translate from 3ds Max into Stingray. So you had to rebuild basically, all of your materials from scratch. You could use standard materials but you'd still have to rebuild them because they're coming in as Autodesk materials.

Another huge challenge was that you have to create collision objects. So think about moving around in a virtual space or any of you that play video games, we don't want to just be able to walk right through walls or fall through the floor. We need to create the physics within the environment. So we have to physically build in those collision objects inside of Stingray from 3ds Max.

Also we would have to manually create triggers and animations. So walking through doors, hitting switches, turning lights on, and those types of things had to be manually created. And it's just the more that we add to this process-- the more time, the more work-- it's just a really difficult solution. And probably one of the major things here is, all of the BIM data that you build into your Revit models is lost.

So if you're just building for strictly visualization, that's great. You know, we don't care about the data or the manufacturer in a Herman Miller chair, or something. We don't have to click on it to get information from it. But for those of us that do care about that type of stuff, all of that BIM data-- it doesn't transfer with the FBX. So it's just kind of poof, it's gone.

So in my opinion, this was somewhat of an impractical solution. It's was a good first attempt for Autodesk. You know, they roll the stuff out. But you had to relearn another program, you have to do all of this stuff, and making iterations, and redesigning an entire scene every time there was a design change. It's just ridiculous. And you know, we're not going to take the time to redesign and rebuild levels and scenes every time something changes with the design.

So then moving forward, about two years ago, Autodesk introduced this new program, Revit Live. Revit Live allows us to basically build on that old workflow, but it does stuff in the background. It basically automates a lot of the processes that we manually had to build into 3D Studio Max and then into Stingray.

So when we transfer our Revit model and go live, automatically materials are translated into Live. So we don't have to do any material recreation. Our materials and maps come with the Revit model into Live. Automatically, the physics that are kind of just there in your families and in all of the objects in Revit, they're built into that geometry. So we're not getting that issue of running through walls. We actually run into a wall and stop-- kind of like how Navisworks builds the physics in.

Also a pretty cool thing that's automatic within Live is that doors trigger to open. Based on the families, it can with reference lines the way that doors are built-- Revit can kind of see that based on your door swing, how the door is going to swing open. And it builds that animation in automatically. It doesn't work great for curtain wall doors, but--

Also this is probably one of the bigger things. The BIM data is accessible through the Live viewer. So when you go live with your Revit projects, you can click on the BIM information and it gives you a little heads-up display and shows you information that's tied into the different objects that are part of your Revit project.

However, it's not really available yet in VR mode once you're connected through Live. So it's something that you can do on a computer screen, but not through VR. And also built-in navigation so we don't have to create the navigation. So when you go from Revit to Live, all of these things are automatically done.

So if anyone's ever gone through this workflow-- how many of you have sent Revit models to Revit Live? Cool. So you know, it kind of chugs and it works for a while to build those scenes up. And sometimes if the models are too big, there could be problems.

But basically what that's doing is it's really just building a Stingray project when you click that Live button. The file that's produced from Live is LVMD file and it's really just a compressed file, it's like a ZIP file. So LVMD Live model-- this video here is going to show this process. We can drop a Live model into the Live viewer. And the LVMD is built into this Live viewer.

And we could do things like very simple navigation of a project. You can see the natural lighting that's built into the Revit models, some of those materials that are in there. The point-to-point navigation is really simple. So you click Point and it kind of walks your avatar or your person through the building or through the project.

We can do simple things in Live like adjust natural lighting. But Live does have its limitations. It does all of these things automatically, which are great. It gives us this pretty good model with a simple click of a button.

But the problems with this are that we can't, again, do a lot of quick iterations or revisions to the model. It requires us to kind of recreate the LVMD. So you have to go back to Revit, make your changes, produce another LVMD, open it up, basically, as a new file. It doesn't have that sort of quick connect like programs like Enscape have where it's a real-time render. You make a change in the Revit model and it just kind of populates right into Live.

I would say as a finished result, the Live product can be more manageable, I guess. And we'll talk about that in the this next bit. Did you want to add anything to that?

AP PERCOWYCZ: Yeah, I think the biggest point that how I look at Revit Live is that it's really an easy button directly into Revit that gets you an output to get some walkthroughs. It's doing a broad-stroke attempt at some lighting that's coming from the Revit model, the material aspects, and it does a pretty decent pass. I mean, this model's obviously a little bit dark. I'd want to do some touch-ups to the lighting, of course, moving forward.

But I think as just getting an output that I can directly tie-in to VR-- there's a little VR icon at the bottom-- this model as it stands directly exported out of Revit is VR ready. As long as you have the hardware to connect to it, you can get the headset on and start teleporting around the model, basically snapping to locations around the floor plan and experiencing your design as you move forward. So again, the point there-- it's just an incredibly easy access point to this type of environment. And then as you want to add complexity along the way, that's something Vince is going to talk to.

VINCE DANIELE: So we can kind of use that Live generator, that LVMD Model that's produced using that Live button that Go To Live button as a starting point. And then basically by unpackaging the LVMD file-- you can uncompress that because it is just a ZIP file of a stingray project. And we can bring those files then into an actual Stingray environment and start to enhance that scene.

So using Stingray and actually bouncing files back and forth between 3D Studio Max-- if you're more comfortable with Max-- All of this stuff sort of exchanges and you can really start to enhance the scenes with these programs. So if you're more comfortable, or if you're more of an advanced user in 3D Studio Max, you can configure your DirectX shaders in Max and bring them into Stingray and update them.

We could do things like building different asset options. So if we want to walk a scene and maybe switch through some different options live in a model, all we have to do is produce that FBX as its own asset or its own unit. And we can start to do things in Stingray like script different options and do a lot of really cool stuff.

So some of the big improvements when going to Live and then enhancing that scene with Stingray and 3D Studio Max are, one, you can bake the lighting in. So for those of you that don't know what light baking is, basically think of it as we are walking through these scenes in basically real time, we're able to navigate. So everything has to render as we move around and regenerate.

Well with light baking, all of that light that we get from photo metrics or day lighting-- we can pretty much pre-assign it to the scene. So with light baking, it's a process that bakes it into a scene. And then as you're actually in that Live viewer or you're walking through in VR, it's not having to regenerate and reprocess. So it really helps with the navigation and just the fluidity of the scene.

You can also animate material. So if we want to have things like water animating, like water flow, trees-- like leaves blowing in the wind, we can start to animate different materials that are in that scene.

And then also pretty cool because you know, Stingray is just a game developer, we can build in sound effects and things like that. And they can be triggered by proximity. So if you're close to a road, you can hear car noises. If you're close to some trees, you can trigger some birds chirping and some pretty cool stuff like that, or doors closing. So you can really start to build on top of that flat experience from Autodesk Live.

And like I said, custom triggers and animations. So beyond just our door swinging open, we can animate pretty much anything. You have full control over the scene. So if you want to animate lights going on or turning on, cars driving when you walk up to them, things like that. And these are just a few of the things but you could do so much more once you start to enhance that. It does take a lot of knowledge and you have to a lot of different programs. But just in general, badassification of the Live model.

AP PERCOWYCZ: Enhancing the environment-- I figured that might hit a few people.

VINCE DANIELE: So here's just a quick video that shows this process. So this LVMD-- just changing the file extension to a ZIP, unzipping the file-- will give you the Stingray project format. So there are some different subfolders in there. You just open that project up as a Stingray project. And then basically, it automatically compiles a scene and builds it in Stingray. So right away you can see, even the lighting and things with these materials start to get a little bit better-- or a lot better.

And we can edit those materials directly in Stingray. So the materials that you're editing are DirectX shaders-- like I said earlier, that standard material. So if you're familiar with 3D Studio Max or other-- maybe Maya-- then you're used to using standard materials. I don't who uses standard materials anymore. But they do translate to Stingray. But we can build DirectX shaders directly in Stingray and manipulate the shader graphs and things like that.

Some of the lighting in here is a little bit better. It started to bake some of the lighting into the scene. There's also a thing in Stingray that is called the reflection probe. So kind of like the light baking where in light baking we're building the lighting in, reflection probes for things that take a lot of reflections on-- there are these little spheres and we can pre-populate Stingray projects with reflections and stuff. So we're not having to regenerate the renderings every time.

So Stingray, because it is a gaming tool and we want frames per second and we want these scenes to generate really quickly, we need to kind of cheat-- create reflection probes, light baking-- to make the scenes really enhance. And this is just showing some different navigation stuff and spawn points in the project.

But we can also do things like tie-in different controls. So with Stingray, if you're using HTC Vive or anything like that, we can build a laser pointer into the HTC Vive so when you're walking the scene, you can actually point to stuff. Stingray does work with a lot of scripts. So newer scripts, we can build scale form.

Or it's another Autodesk program and I put it in the handout. So a little information on scale form. It's basically a UI scripting tool. So if we wanted to build in any type of heads-up displays in that VR experience or pull any of the metadata. So that's something I forgot to mention. When we go from Live into Stingray-- So when we unpackage this, the metadata is actually built into all of your unit assets within Stingray. So they are just string parameters, basically just text. So you lose some of the calculation from Revit. You know, if it's a calculated value, it's just reporting it to those assets as a text value.

But just having that control or having that automatically built in to those assets is a really, really big thing. We started experimenting with pulling in some BIM 360 data into these live environments and populating it through scripting and stuff. And you know, it's complicated but it's pretty cool. And we can see that in the future, it's probably going to be something that's even more automated.

And then finally, if this stuff is way too much-- even going to Live and plugging in a headset and you don't have the hardware or the resources to invest a bunch of money into VR-- a really nice entry-level solution that's actually pretty awesome is Revit it to stereo panoramic. So has anyone use this in the cloud-- rendered to panoramic?

So for those of you that don't know, when you're in Revit, you can render out a scene to a Stereo Panoramic. And it uploads it or creates it in the cloud. And you can actually use like Google Cardboard. You know, just a little viewfinder with the lenses, put your phone in there, and view your models just using your phone. So it's pretty cool and we'll show examples of that.

But the great benefits of Stereo Pano are it's a one-button solution. We can view 360 degrees from a static point. So unfortunately, you can't really navigate or move around. But if you build a bunch of these panoramics, you could probably convey what you need to in design pretty easily.

Iterations-- making changes are quickly produced because all we have to do is click that button to render to the cloud. And the nice thing is, if you're just doing little iterations or draft iterations, the quality is actually pretty good. But the standard panoramics don't cost any Cloud Credits. Yeah, it's so practical it hurts.

AP PERCOWYCZ: So guys, this is just a quick video kind of articulating what Vince had just said. This, as you guys will see when we get in the case study side is the same room. Vince, you want to hit play on this one?

So this is just a quick look at the Stereo Pano that came straight from Revit using that cloud render. This example, if anybody familiar with downtown Denver, it's 16th Street. This is a quick site grab from Infoworks that we popped in, combined it with one of our example data sets, and popped it down there to get some context of the street-level view. So we're a little bit set back from our marquee building. But we could start placing these 3D views around the scene.

And again, that quality right there is completely out of the box free. That's no Cloud Credits. As well as this one in which we're actually in a conference room in that Denver office. We're looking at the HVAC systems. Basically, all I had to do was turn ceilings off in Revit, make sure my 3D view was placed properly, and then render-- again, super, super easy workflow. It's a lot of work that's already being done within the modeled environment. It's bringing through all my linked contingencies for any of the coordination effort that I'm doing with my MEPs or structural. And again, I'm getting some real context of where things are lining up very quickly.

So two quick examples, both of which I can further enhance as needed. If I need higher quality, if I'm concerned more about the materials, obviously, add those in as well, and keep moving.

VINCE DANIELE: It's a good gateway to VR. So if you're really trying to sell your principles, your owners, like, we need to get into this space. Pick up Google Cardboard for $15, put some Stereo Panos, and you know, they'll be impressed by this type of stuff.

AP PERCOWYCZ: So guys, I don't know if anybody wants to try it. You guys can try scanning this on your phone. It was working for me last night. Vince was not getting it to work. But basically, just by scanning in an RF code, it'll get you to the Pano. And you don't need any software installed whatsoever on your phone. You can basically just line it up and it should launch it open in Safari just on your iPhone.

So you guys will have to let us know if it's working. If it's not, we can share out these QR codes. And they're all in the handouts. I think we provided seven or eight different examples of these environments. So if you guys just want to cycle through and take a peek. We tried to pick a couple different spots within our example building more geared around interior scenes.

But nonetheless, like we showed in that site view, you can start implementing site relationships, aggregating those models, even in Navisworks. So if you're not dealing with all Revit data, that's one of the nice things is that A360 render is right within Navisworks, as well. So other data formats that might not be as Revit-friendly again, gives you a pretty quick output, quick visualization aspect.

All right. So we've already shown a few things involved with the case study we were going to highlight. But we'll kind of get into it and why we actually went with this case study. So this is the Triangle Building in downtown Denver. Any Denver in the room? No? One? Yes. All right, good. Thank you.

So Triangle Building-- If anybody is familiar, that site looks very different now. It's basically all been under construction for the last two years. But basically within the Triangle Building on the sixth floor-- you can see that notch out-- there's a conference room that was right behind my desk that, basically, I used quite a bit for any of my customer calls.

The problem with that room was that we had these big bank of windows that were along this little notch-out facade there. And then along the facade going south, it's all high-reflective glass. So south-facing, as the sun's coming up in the morning, that room gets extremely hot by about noon. And unfortunately, I usually have it booked from about noon to 3:00. So I'm basically baking in there.

And our facilities guy, Ray-- he's tinkered with a lot of the HVAC systems for that room. Basically there's not a great solution for it. We've done some shading. But we're still at the point where it's just really too hot.

So we thought this was a good case study that we already had a lot of data for to build out with a couple of different arms at Autodesk that we work with. And in this case, we did a scan to BIM example. I actually scanned the room. From there, we had it modeled in Revit, got the CFD team involved to actually do some airflow dynamics within that space, and actually understand how air is circulating from that HVAC system to ultimately try and improve the comfort within that space.

So there's me setting up the BLK unit. I don't know if anybody's ever tested these out, but really, really cool piece of hardware. It basically scanned out that room. Then I actually did the above ceiling too, just to kind of see how it came out. So pretty quick to set up, but what it gives you as an output-- I think this was seven or eight scans that I merged together. Basically, these scans give you a real-world example of what that as-built solution is.

And as you guys can see, it's kind of point cloud basis. But in that point cloud directly, if I'm in a design circumstance, I could actually bring that directly into VR, as well. I didn't actually do that for this example. But it's just kind of showing as I'm running dimensions-- Vince, I think there's one build to this. I can get, again, that as-built room. And then I can ultimately link that directly into Revit to start populating the space in a modeled environment.

Can you go back just one, Vince? There you go. So at the top right, I can link my point cloud in. It's giving me my starting point. And then from there, I'm going to start modeling on top of it. So I'm getting my model as close to actual as possible. And then the Revit output is ultimately what I'm concerned with to feed this into CFD environment. So as you toggle back and forth from that 3D view that we've been looking at along the way-- pretty accurate, pretty quick to produce. It was really nice to get hands on and get it as an output.

So from there, we kind of simulated-- This is not something we actually tracked along the way. But just as an example of what we can do with that data, push it into some of our BIM 360 products. So within those, I can start feeding-- like Vince talked about-- some of that BIM information that could come from that field workflow.

So just by highlighting that overhead unit within that space as I'm pulling data from those field examples, I can get real-time data that's going to reflect any issues that are ongoing, basically install progress. And Vince can you progress it one? So I can start seeing along the way, if I'm tracking that piece of equipment, I can see that delivery aspect and always be visualizing it in Revit and Navisworks with that visual aspect.

And then from there, we experimented with something we already showed. We brought it into Autodesk Live, just kind of seeing how that data transfer comes through. So if I'm going next level to Stingray, I can ultimately pull those properties down, as well.

And then this is just a quick example, not really VR-based. But bringing that same model into our Docs environment-- here I can reference it on a floor plan. I just ghosted out the RCP plan. It's going to highlight my equipment there. I can pull in all those same properties from this environment, so that delivery aspect.

And then ultimately what I would be more concerned about is in context view along the way. So I dropped it into the iPad. Again, not really VR/AR, but definitely the direction it's going in terms of pinpointing where you are navigating around that space. You can see the directional pad. And then just pinching around the iPad to get my context in that view.

VINCE DANIELE: So this might not all be related directly to AR/VR but we use this as an example of how AR/VR is eventually going to fit into this and supplement this entire workflow from scan, to build, to visualization. And I think these next slides are pretty impressive.

AP PERCOWYCZ: So from here, we worked with people on our CFD team to bring that Revit model into the CFD environment. Vince, you want to hit play for this? You know, guys, I'm completely unqualified to talk about the pics and clicks in this program. But basically what it's articulating is kind of heat mapping some of the airflow within that space. And also temperature overlays, in terms of where the sun is kind of intruding and where the real hotspots within it would be.

And then from here, as I'm panning across-- it's kind of hard to see through that pull across. But that whole mass has actual airflow going on within it that you can actually add visualization to within that tool. So at the end, it was kind of quick. But you guys saw the airflow mapping of how that's circulating across.

VINCE DANIELE: And one of the challenges to kind of portraying CFD in an environment is, if we're looking at a static screen, everything is 2D. We have to cut through and make these sections and show the airflow. You don't really sense it though. And that's the whole idea behind CFD and showing fluids and things in motion is that we need to get a sense of it in the environment. So do you want me to?

AP PERCOWYCZ: Yeah.

VINCE DANIELE: All right. So taking the CFD data that was produced, we can translate it into-- So this is in 3D Studio Max as an FBX exchange, like I talked about earlier. So it looks like just a bunch of spaghetti noodles, right? And we don't want to put that into VR and be walking around spaghetti. So there are things that we can do to optimize and to use that data that's pushed out from CFD into 3D Studio Max and really optimize it visually.

So tying in a ShaderFX material into these spaghetti noodles, we can start to create a real dynamic animated visual of what that air is actually doing and tie-in different colors or gradients to show where the air is cool, where it's getting kind of trapped and hotter. So I think there's a lot of value into-- not a futuristic, because this is out there right now-- but a really good application of VR in the building environment. And even just going through Stingray and navigating through that scene, you can see how that airflow works. Is this just replaying now?

AP PERCOWYCZ: Yep. Just got to move. So from there, being in Stingray where we've already added-- like Vince mentioned-- kind of that animation to that airflow, you can bring that into the VR environment, as well. So this is a look at the HTC Vive-- the kind of, teleport action that you basically are just pointing to the floor plan, navigating around. Obviously the scene like we mentioned, not only with the airflow that you bring in, but also the material light baking that came all from Stingray.

But again, as Vince mentioned, it's one thing to look at a model of that airflow-- just see it visually in terms of where it's mapping. But then adding an animation to it, actually putting the goggles into it, and seeing where those arrows are flowing around you-- pretty impactful and pretty clear in terms of how that circulation path is happening.