The Wild Launches Tours for VR/AR Project Collaboration

Tours provides an AR/VR environment of a project that allows everyone involved, no matter where they are in the world, to take a guided tour within the design. (Image courtesy of The Wild.)

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry has come a long way since the days of physical blueprints. This digitally driven sector has benefited from 3D, BIM and digital twins, but bringing that all together in a truly collaborative and immersive experience has been slow to emerge. The Wild, an immersive collaboration platform, is continuing to change that with its recently launched Tours, which puts collaborators and clients into the project.

“One of our greatest challenges is to cut through the distractions that surround us and create a focused and compelling expression of our ideas,” said Gabe Paez, founder and CEO. “Tours in The Wild empowers you to craft a story that will focus everyone on your desired framing. You can set the terms of the discussion and create your most powerful pitch.”

With the forced move to remote working, as well as the expenses of travel before the pandemic, The Wild sought to create an augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) platform that brought to life true visualization of a project no matter where the team was located. Tours takes that a step further by allowing a “tour guide” to lead people through a virtual presentation. Once the tour begins, the guest participants are “teleported” in and locked into a frame. The guide can move about freely, sharing ideas and designs, while the participants come along for the ride.

Instead of figuring out how to have an in-person meeting, a tour allows team members and other stakeholders to visually experience the design, boosting dialogue and allowing errors and other important elements vital to a successful project to be found.

“Whether you are trying to sell a new contract, guide a brainstorm, or get sign-off on your design, it is crucial to frame the conversation at every moment so that every participant remains on track and focused,” Paez said. “Travel is expensive, and moving people and materials across the world is incredibly inefficient. We want to be able to minimize that by virtualizing the process to take people from across the globe and instantly put them into a shared built environment.”

The Inspect Tool allows users to access BIM data from any part of the model. (Image courtesy of The Wild.)

Earlier in the year, The Wild brought a few important updates to its platform. Three additional tools were added to work with BIM data. Along with an Inspect tool, which allows users to inspect and view data from any part of the model’s BIM data, another tool allows more element control from SketchUp and Revit files. The third addition was a seemingly simple but highly requested Measure tool. Users can measure, visualize and annotate distances regardless of the user’s scale.

Interested in how AR/VR is being used in other industries? Check out Augmented Reality Goggles for Military Working Dogs Could Transform Rescue Operations and Augmented Reality Is Used in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery.