GAMMA BASRA: And I'm Gamma Basra, head of visualization and film.
We work at Foster and Partners, one of the world's leading
architectural engineering and design studios.
We communicate visually using images, films and real-time games
engines like Unreal.
FRANCIS AISH: We've worked on augmented and virtual reality
for many years, developing custom tools that
allow our designers to create, analyze, and experience their ideas
in intuitive, yet powerful, ways.
Today, we'd like to tell you about some of our latest AR and VR work.
The projects we've worked on are still sensitive,
so we're going to use a dummy project to illustrate the key concepts.
We use a wide range of tools and media to communicate ideas,
as different tools give different experiences.
Physical models can give great overviews of a design,
but we wanted to explore how best to show
the street-scale human experience.
We're long-running users of Unreal, with a very good relationship
with Ken and the Epic team, so we had already
built a very detailed, high-quality visual model
of the new tower and its context in Unreal,
and used it for regular VR reviews.
We'd also previously conducted VR and AR design reviews
using VR backpacks, Hololenses, and iPads.
These can be done at 1 to 1 scale indoors in warehouses,
and got very good reaction from clients.
We always like challenges, so together with the design team,
we posed ourselves a harder one.
Could we walk the stakeholders around the real site at 1 to 1 scale,
but give them the VR experience of the new building
to help them understand the spatial experience
and how the building would fit in within the city as part
of the design and planning process?
To begin with, we started laser-scanning the site and context
to align the virtual and real worlds.
The site itself is approximately 100 meters
square and can be that dynamic environment with pedestrians
walking around and changing lighting, as well as great visuals.
Unreal also provided the development platform
we used to create our custom software called CloudCom.
We also work closely with HP and Microsoft on the hardware side.
We then customize the hardware to enable robust multi-user tracking
of this scale.
Of course, as with so many projects, COVID got in the way,
and for a while we had to continue working in our bedrooms
and back gardens.
But because of the multi-platform nature of Unreal,
we could quickly create an iPad version of our tool
and stakeholders could use that to continue
to participate in the process from their back gardens.
Once we were allowed back on-site, we continued testing and refining
system, getting feedback from our stakeholders.
Critically, this is a multi-user experience.
You can see the other participants and speak to them
and point out features of the new building.
It's an incredible, multi-sensory experience
of walking around the plaza, seeing the very powerful virtual visuals,
but feeling the real plaza beneath your feet
and hearing the sounds of the city around you.
Something we found very useful was switching
between virtual and real reality to compare and check
the present and potential future.
And by incorporating screens on the rear the backpacks,
we made the process inclusive to allow larger numbers of stakeholders
to participate.
Overall, the user reaction has been incredibly positive.
We've also developed remote collaboration functionality
to allow remote participants to join and contribute to the process.
And one future use could be to increase design participation
using tablet AR and other low-cost XR devices to allow broader range
of stakeholders to participate.
So we think this has pushed the boundaries of outdoor 1
to 1 scale VR.
This ability to collaborate at any scale and from any location
is incredibly powerful.
It's giving our clients and designers a way
to experience their designs like never before.