When planning for the future, it can often be hard to try and visualise a completed project, and what it might look like when done, or even how it might have an impact on the things around it. Blueprints, and more recently CG imagery can help massively in the planning and visualisation of what the future might look like, but for many it just isn’t immersive enough. That’s where Virtual Reality comes in to play.
Birthed from the experiments of the video game industry, VR has come a long way in a very short space of time over the last few years, and massive companies such as Facebook have already seen its potential, and the possibilities the technology has to be applied to a wide range of fields. Perhaps the most impressive and powerful of these applications is simulation.
Here are some points and examples on how VR technology can help us to visualise what tomorrow might look like.
When redesigning, refurbishing, or redecorating the home, it can be difficult committing to a certain colour palette or purchase without having a true indication of what It will look like, often before it’s too late (this is certainly the case with bold colour paint choices!). As a solution to this, many property programmes in the UK, that show the overhaul of an old or run down home into something new and impressive, have started using VR – or its distant cousin AR – in order to display to homeowners accurate depictions of their plans without as much of a risky reveal at the end.
In the investment market,RW Invest are using VR headsets to give investors (both locally and internationally) an immersive experience like no other with their buy-to-let properties. Property investors looking to get themselves a slice of the city with a modern apartment building with a balcony view, for example, will be able to utilise a VR viewing to get an immersive and authentic representation of what their purchase will look like when the construction is completed. Plus, they’ll even get a feel for the surrounding area from within the property itself, something you just can’t get with traditional design images or graphics. This helps to give investors peace of mind, and will continue to be an aiding piece of technology used in the property sector and similar areas of business.
Complete Immersion
While VR technology may still be in its infancy, and will grow in quality in fidelity over the coming years until it becomes a mainstream piece of kit in many people’s homes, many are already experimenting with how it can give them an alternative living arrangement entirely.
We have already discussed above how difficult it can be trying to decide on what furniture and décor choices to go with in your home without the visual aid of something like VR, but what if you want a temporary drastic change, or are sick of your home’s design altogether? Well, software developer and game company Valve’s flagship VR unit has some interesting developments in mind.
In their current headset offering available to the public, the HTC Vive, comes with two beacon objects, which scan the surrounding rooms dimensions in order to translate the space into VR, so that the user doesn’t knock into things when walking around. It has been discussed in interviews and demonstrations of the product that in theory, an unlimited number of these beacons could be used, meaning that in the near future we could walk around our entire homes through the lens of VR, having completely redesigned it free of charge.
At the very least, it will prove to be an invaluable tool for visualising future plans before they have even materialised.
