In times like this, where social distancing became the new norm due to COVID-19, companies are forced to go digital and adapt to newer technologies, including the creation of virtual meetings with team members or clients. InsiteVR, a virtual reality (VR) meeting software for AEC, recently launched Resolve to enable construction teams to meet in VR with large BIM files on Oculus Quest.
Introducing a new model loading engine, Resolve provides a collaborative virtual environment for teams to review and interact with building models at full scale, decreasing the number of expensive field errors and late-stage changes. Resolve’s custom engine can open huge BIM files within the $400 VR headset Oculus Quest without a computer connection or video streams, making it easily accessible from anywhere. According to InsiteVR, this is the first commercially available solution capable of opening complex building models with hundreds of millions of polygons on the wireless Oculus Quest.
“Before everyone started working from home, we were already seeing a surge in meetings due to the ease of use of the new Oculus Quest,” says Russell Varriale, COO of InsiteVR. “Teams seeing the largest ROI from VR meetings have been those where each participant exclusively uses a wireless headset to join a group VR review. That’s really only possible with the Oculus Quest. Resolve unlocks this same ROI for the rest of the industry, no matter the project size.”
To improve communication among VDC, design and field staff to prevent construction RFIs and identify constructability issues during coordination, Suffolk Construction started using InsiteVR’s technology. During the $100M Lee County High School project, which will house two thousand students and become one of the premier public high schools in Florida, Suffolk invested 4 hours across 1 training and 3 work meetings in VR. Using InsiteVR for BIM 360 integration, Revit models were directly pulled from BIM 360 docs into multi-user VR meetings, allowing Suffolk to “confidently host VR meetings in the latest published version of the Revit model without the need for any model prep or game engine conversions”.
After investing 4 hours in VR, Suffolk identified 11 issues per hour on average that were hard to detect or undetected in Navisworks and avoided 4 Critical RFIs. In the future, the company will use InsiteVR to pre-plan upcoming work, quickly review any issues in VR that crop up during operations, and make 3D models more accessible to field staff.
“I would recommend other projects use InsiteVR for group coordination in a model,” said Flora Liu, Studio Lead at VIATechnik. “I’ll continue to use Navisworks when I’m alone working with the model, but it’s much easier to review a model with other people in VR together because you see things differently and you’re able to resolve issues as a team that you can’t resolve alone.”
Now available in early access, Resolve has allowed users to open 1.6 GB Navisworks to 10 GB Revit files. To make it easy for teams to bring model data into VR, InsiteVR’s new software connects to Autodesk’s Construction Cloud and works with Revit, Navisworks, and 70 other file formats supported by BIM 360 Docs.
