DCVR Meetup #22: Architecture & Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is taking off like hot-cakes in the architecture industry. It's an incredibly effective tool for designing, understanding, and even selling buildings. Architecture takes advantage of virtual reality's ability to show scale, change environments, make rapid adjustments, and even work collaboratively. It's clear that this technology has the potential to transform the industry, but how?

At this month's meetup, we're going to be hearing from some of the leading innovators in this space. We'll get to learn about how virtual reality can affect every stage of the architecture process, from ideation to design to construction.

We're also going to have pizza and soda courtesy of our amazing sponsor, Basit Law (http://www.basitlaw.com/). The Law Firm of A.Q. Basit works on intellectual property legal matters, focusing on obtaining patent rights for software, VR/AR, FinTech, and telecommunications technologies. Mr. Basit is a registered patent attorney and has over 10 years of experience in the intellectual property field. If you're looking for a good IP lawyer, please consider A.Q. Basit!

First, we'll hear from Daniel Zeballos of Illustrate My Design (http://illustratemydesign.com/). IMD has presented Virtual Reality as the future of architectural visualization to various groups in the past year. He'll share lessons learned from early applications of VR, and the kind of feedback he’s received from architects, developers, and other clients. He'll walk you through some of our recent projects to show the range of custom solutions available with our VR capabilities.

Illustrate My Design (IMD) is a local visualization company that seeks to provide leaders in the Design and Construction industry Virtual Reality applications that immerse both professionals and end-users in an unbuilt environment for an engaging experience through Design Development, Construction, Training, Marketing and Sales.

Second, David Werner of MG2 Corporation (https://mg2.com/) will survey the available VR software and technologies for architectural projects.The entire construction industry is in the midst of a technological revolution, with exciting new technologies including Building Information Modeling (BIM) and real-time visualization. The talk will compare and contrast the different options available and demonstrate the capabilities of combining BIM with Virtual Reality.

David is an Associate at MG2 Corporation (http://www.mg2.com/), focusing on retail and corporate architecture projects. He has over 3 years experience in the architecture industry and has worked for clients such as Costco Wholesale, Target, Starbucks, and Courtyard by Marriott throughout the United States. In addition to his architectural work, David also provides VR consulting and mentoring services through his own company, DWVRC (http://dwvrconsulting.com/).

Finally, Chris Petracco, President of TrustedPhotoDC (https://trustedphotodc.com/) will give an overview of the capabilities of the Matterport Pro 3D Camera and how it is being used with AEC. While many are familiar with Matterport (https://matterport.com/) and its use in residential real estate, the camera and platform are making headway into AEC as a lower cost option for construction documentation, as built conditions, and facilities management. The overview will also include the export capabilities of Matterport(.obj & .xyz) and inclusion of CoreVR(monoscopic) with all Matterport 3D Spaces and the option for custom stereoscopic VR.

Chris started TrustedPhotoDC in 2013 to provide Google Street View to businesses as a Google Trusted Independent Photographer and to compliment his other media production services. Since early 2016, TrustedPhotoDC has also been a Matterport Service Partner. Chris has over 20 years of panoramic and immersion photography experience, 15 years teaching college-level media production, and has worked in content creation for close to 30 years. TrustedPhotoDC provides virtual tours and VR experiences to clients in many different verticals, including recent projects with wired.com for NASA, Inova Health System, FastSigns, and many multi-family communities.

Agenda

6:30: Doors open / networking

7:00: Intro from the organizers

7:05: Presentation by Daniel Zeballos of Illustrate My Design

7:45: Presentation by David Werner of MG2 Corporation

8:25: Presentation by Chris Petracco on Matterport

9:05: Demos!