CHANGERGAME

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Adrenaline is running high as you snake your way

through the top-secret research facility. At the end

of a long corridor, you duck into a lab fi lled with

black-topped tables. Something isn’t right, but

you aren’t sure what it is. You take a moment to

look around and notice that half the room is

missing air hoods. You look up, hit a button on your game

controller, and the ceiling peels away as if it were the skin of

an onion. Someone forgot to add several key parts of the

mechanical system into the model.

This scenario is but one of many that a design or con-

struction professional might encounter while using a

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Special Report

A new generation is hacking into its childhood toys—and driving better project decisions

PRESS ‘START’ TO BUILD

Users are moving beyond BIM models

and point-cloud scans (center)

to video games. Virtual scenes

include (clockwise from top right) a

lab, a kitchen, a col-lege locker room, a

medical lobby, a pro locker room and a

safety scenario.

PHOTO: MICROSOFT.

CHANGER

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CONTROLLING YOUR DESTINY Many of the tools needed to bring a project model into a gaming environment are available at your local electronics store. Design and construction users may grab Xbox controllers (left) to move around a model.

video game to experience a virtual construction project. The operative word here is “experience.” The construction industry has widely adopted 3D tools such as building-information models, but BIMs are still experienced in a fl at, 2D environment when rendered on

a screen or a piece of paper. Video games are taking these models to a new level of immersion.

The fi rst-person shooter games of the 1990s that parents, politicians and social activists came to despise—such as Doom, Half-Life and Quake—made way for more sophisticated games that serve as the backbone of virtual-reality design and construc-tion tools. And the unruly hooligans who played them when they should have been studying? Many are now hacking into

A new generation is hacking into its childhood toys—and driving better project decisions by Tudor Van Hampton, Jeff Rubenstone and Tom Sawyer

IMAGES: CENTER: VIATECHNIK LLC; TOP LEFT, SKANSKA USA; TOP AND MIDDLE RIGHT: GILBANE; BOTTOM RIGHT, BOTTOM AND MIDDLE LEFT: MORTENSON.

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their childhood toys to make the construction industry a better and more exciting place to work.

Driven by so-called video-game “engines,” or the software that runs in the background, the setup usually includes a map of the project model, with textures and visual elements that render and update in real time as you “walk” through the scene. Clash detection, which helps construction teams identify potential problems before work is executed in the real world, is a feature already built into most video-game engines.

Skilled gamers and attention to detail are often re-quired to make this possible, but the learning curve is flattening daily. A user might start by exporting a Revit model into Autodesk Maya to enhance the 3D look and then add rich textures created in Photoshop. Then, the file might run through the Unreal or Unity game engines. Instead of carrying sawed-off shotguns and searching for bad guys to blow up, the design and con-struction user is armed with visual tools that allow her to experience the model as a virtual, physical mock-up.

The time needed to render is no longer a limiting factor. “We can pump out a two-minute animation probably in a couple of hours,” says Lucas Richmond, senior creative studio manager for Gilbane Building Co. “The traditional way [took] two to three days.” Portability is also not a problem. Perhaps the best part? The costs are insanely inexpensive. When we caught up with Richmond at the ENR FutureTech conference last fall in New York City, he demonstrated projects on an Alienware laptop. With a price tag of up to

$4,000, that’s the most expensive piece of the puzzle. (Watch the demo at ENR.com or at ENR’s YouTube channel.)

Video-game engines can be downloaded for free, and once a

model is imported into the game, you can walk through the scene on a monitor. But if you want to “reach out and grab things,” as Richmond likes to say, you’ll also need a VR headset.

This July, a $600 consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset will be on the shelves. It will include a screen sensor, remote cables and an Xbox controller. Other headsets are here or coming. Google Cardboard is an open-source VR headset that can be had for a few dol-lars. It turns your smart-phone into a stereoscopic viewer, and construction sup-pliers tell ENR they plan to give away such low-tech swag at trade shows to drive interest in VR. Ad-ditionally, Samsung’s new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge will pop into the $100 Samsung Gear headset, released last fall. Even social media apps such as Facebook plan to re-lease VR capability. What does all this mean for con-struction? Game on.

How Immersion Drives Decisions

Ricardo Khan, senior director for project solutions at Mortenson Construction, Minneapolis, says the com-

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‘IN THE KNOW’ WORKFLOW Users working at Gilbane Building Co.’s creative stu-dio (above) include college graduates with BFA degrees in multimedia and with an emphasis in video games and animation.

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pany has used immersive virtual-reality tools on more than a dozen projects. He says jobs best suited for such tools are large, complex facilities with tight time con-straints and spaces that generate revenue. Types include health care, sports, convention centers, hospi-tality and higher education, although Mortenson is starting to use the technology on smaller projects, such as those under $30 million, he adds.

At present, advanced visualization is most beneficial for driving early decisions in design that optimize con-

struction, including the use

of modular elements. “It wasn’t really the construction phase that was the pain point. If we were to take this gaming technology and move it into the design phase—since we were doing so much work based on negotiated price—if we could help the designers make their deci-sions super early, it would help us,” Khan says.

Once those decisions are made early enough, “it increases the opportunity for construction optimiza-tion,” Khan adds. “It helps with modularization, and the more time we have to plan and procure our mate-rial and help our trades understand what we are doing, the better.”

Everyone on a design team believes the “beautiful rendering,” as Khan calls it, is the most important fac-tor that drives a decision. “But when you look at some-thing on a screen or on printed paper, you are inter-preting something flat. Interpretation drives confusion, and confusion drives cost. We are trying to eliminate that, using this technology,” Khan says. “We need to be able to show our customers the full scene, so they can walk around in it and turn around and look the other way.”

After experiencing the design in a computer- assisted virtual environment (CAVE), the donor of the Pegula Ice Arena at Penn State University realized that the railing around the rink was at a height that would block the spectators’ view of the skaters. By changing the rail height before—rather than after—installation, the design team calculates that VR saved $475,000.

Even so, some experts are quick to point out that CAVE immersion has its limitations, its chief constraint being lack of portability. “Why do you need to build this huge room when you can have a laptop or an Oculus?” Richmond says. “You really don’t gain much walking in a 6-foot square than sitting at an Xbox.”

MIXING REAL AND UNREAL Wearable visors, such as the forth-coming HoloLens (below), promise to mix virtual and augmented realities, which IT firms like Trimble are exploring for construction users.

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Gaming tech is not just for building projects: Dif-

ficult industrial turnarounds and civil projects are find-

ing ways to use these tools. Last summer, a laser-scan-

ning firm working for a confidential owner contracted

with Chicago-based startup VIATechnik LLC to bring

a point-cloud scan of a nuclear power plant into the

Unity game engine. The problem was how to manip-

ulate a 70-ft-long replacement reactor vessel through

the plant without breaking other components or re-

quiring extensive demolition.

“Before we gave them the functionality to test mul-

tiple paths, we also gave them the original task,” says

Danielle Dy Buncio, president and CEO of VIATechnik.

“They didn’t really trust the plan 100%, which is why

they engaged with us.” In this situation, it wasn’t neces-

sary to model the game in super-high definition. But the

result was valuable because the original plan would have

run the vessel into a structural column.

“The reactor vessel would have gotten stuck,” Dy

Buncio explains. “Every day the plant is shut down is

a million dollars.”

Besides logistics, safety is another important arena

for games. Trying to find a place for video-game tools

in its toolbox, Skanska USA is developing new safety

applications for the underlying technology. “The truth

is, if you give [project team members] the model in

Navisworks, they might not use it,” say Albert Zulps,

virtual design and construction director for Skanska

Buildings USA. “But give it to them in a gaming en-

gine—even with preset views—it breaks down the bar-

riers. Gaming engines offer that.”

Zulps is spearheading Skanska USA’s dive into video

games, with a focus on getting multiple stakeholders

on projects to try out models in a virtual space. “It’s a

common interface today, something like WASD [the

keyboard keys used for low-tech games] and a mouse

to move around,” he says. “If you can play Minecraft

or Doom, getting into a model can feel very intuitive.

It’s no longer someone else driving. You’re immersed

in that space and can form your own interpretations of

the design model.” Skanska recently hired a computer

programmer skilled in the 3D Unity game engine,

which it plans to use to re-create jobsite accident sce-

narios to help educate workers during safety training.

Recalling a construction accident in which a worker

was killed by a piece of falling steel, Zulps says Skanska

initiated a global safety stand-down to go over the de-

tails and show a few renderings. The future addition

of playable scenarios could fundamentally change

safety training. “Now, we can build the incident setting

accurately in Revit [and] bring it into Unity 3D. And

because we have the game engine’s physics enabled, we

can ‘play through’ the scenario.” Initiatives like this

take the pre-shift toolbox talk to a new level, allowing

workers to walk through situations virtually and learn

how their decisions lead to different outcomes.

The immersive experience could help save lives. “If

we have an accident on the job, it’s one thing to tell

everybody someone got hurt. It’s another thing to show

what happened in a visual model and show the root

CAN YOU SEE ME NOW? A virtual walk-through of a project might include avatars (below), allowing users to chat and collabo-rate while ‘playing’ inside the game.

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cause,” says Bill Flemming, president, Skanska Build-ings USA. “We’ve found that, with workers, it’s much better to show a video simulation of what occurred.”

The New ‘Mixed Reality’

The next big thing in construction is a shift away from just staring at screens all day, says Aviad Almagor, di-rector of the mixed-reality program at Trimble. “With construction, we still consume data in a very simple way—with a 2D screen,” he says. “With mixed reality, we have the opportunity to take data out of the screen and present it in the world in context.”

“Mixed reality”—another term for augmented real-ity (AR)—allows users to map images onto objects in their field of vision while wearing the technology-laden DAQRI construction helmet or other specially de-signed visors. Another advanced version of this tech-nology is the yet-unreleased Microsoft HoloLens, which is being developed as a consumer product so that users can play video games such as Minecraft with the game’s graphics mapped onto the world around them. HoloLens also promises to be a tool for business.

VR hasn’t yet reached the trades, Khan says, but he expects that AR will. “What will affect the craft worker

is wearable technologies and the in-tegration of augmented-reality safety gear,” Khan says. “Imagine a craft worker with a smart helmet or vest that drives improved awareness of their environment, where sensors track particles in the air, sound decibels, moving vehicles or fall hazards. Now, combine that with AR, and the worker can pull up work instructions in the place of work through [a] visor and overlay the instructions where he or she is going to work.”

Additionally, Khan believes craft work will begin to change when development kits hit the market for de-vices such as DAQRI. “We have been waiting for al-most 10 years on AR, and now it’s time,” Khan says.

Microsoft sees potential for HoloLens in multiple fields and, with Trimble, is developing it as a design and construction tool. “Imagine I can take a project’s data and put it on the table beside me and walk around it—and bring partners and stakeholders in to look at it,” says Almagor. “I can bring this content into the physical world—take it and project it into the meeting room, where we can all walk around it and discuss it.”

Integrating the technology into the construction workflow could go well beyond the design process. At the moment, HoloLens is limited to working within controlled indoor environments, and it has trouble projecting its images onto the visor in direct sunlight. But as these technical challenges are addressed, Almagor envisions mixed reality reaching a point at which workers on the jobsite will “see” the design plans overlaid onto the actual building loca-tions. “If I need to pour concrete on this floor, I want to make sure the sleeves for the pipes are located in the right place,” he says.

Heads-up displays and intelligent labeling of envi-ronments are features already found in video games, and users familiar with these interfaces would be able to adapt quickly to these new workflows, says Almagor. “Some customers we’ve talked to want to move to a hyper-reality environment. They want to see all the data: wind simulations, energy simulations—go way beyond the design model,” he notes.

The mixed-reality technology in development by Microsoft and other vendors still lacks that level of in-formation density, but Almagor reports that more than a few of Trimble’s construction-sector customers are already eager to be able to play with their models in real environments. “The technology is mature enough right now to begin delivering benefits to the customer,” he says. “But a lot of the people who experience the current tools—after an initial positive reaction—what they say is, ‘I want more.’ ” n

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Future TechSpecial Report

INDUSTRIAL GAMING Replacing a 70-ft-long pressure vessel inside an operating nuclear power plant proved tricky to plan. ViaTechnik started with a point-cloud scan of the area, built a Revit model and brought the map into the Unity game engine so users could test out pathways.

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