A brief on Augmented Reality in Real Estate & in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry. Use for augmented reality and applications of augmented reality.
A brief history of Augmented Reality usage and adoption in Real Estate and AEC Industry.
The gaming app Pokémon Go utilizes Augmented Reality and has proved to be a huge success. With its launch, there were about 45 million users, and currently, it is estimated to have a 30 million user base. This demonstrates the potential of AR. With its wide variety of applications, its relevance in real estate and the general Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry is even more significant.
The first commercial application of augmented reality can be attributed to advertising purposes by German agencies. It was a printed model of BMW Mini, which held in front of a computer camera, also appeared on the screen. Some other early adaptation includes by National Geographic in 2011, depicting rare and extinct animals’ species as walking through a shopping mall.
There are some common augmented reality applications we have usage on a mass scale. For example, snap chat uses facets of augmented reality. Also google translate provides the feature of pointing your camera towards a text and the application would provide a translation in the preferred language.
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Difference between Augmented reality and Virtual Reality
There is a big difference between Augmented reality and Virtual Reality. While AR superimposes digital information on the physical world, VR replaces physical reality with a computer-generated environment
Augmented reality, as the name suggests builds on the reality or the real context of the environment. Especially useful for understanding interior design and objects of human scale. You could image or render an empty apartment with a virtual layer of the proposed interior design, furniture and fittings. This could be either interior designers presenting to clients, or it could be real estate agents showing properties to prospects.
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The value of Augmented reality in real estate can be found in the following fields.
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Marketing
Selling and marketing products through AR could be done by augmenting any existing print medium. Such as developing brochures with AR pointers, when pointed at with a camera would provide more details or even the 3d model of a project to look at.
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Product / Design development.
The development of design for projects could be fast-tracked by actively utilizing Augmented reality for fine-tuning of design and get a location-specific outlook of how a design would look. A locality can be superimposed with the proposed design and could be interacted with in real-time viewing all aspects of the design.
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Service
The difficult aspects of facility management and operations for real estate developments and properties could be aided by AR technologies. Manufacturers could provide AR capabilities in user manuals and maintenance manuals. This might be especially useful for working in difficult, remote, or hazardous conditions. In essence, the manufacturer or vendor can provide more information at the hands of the users or clients for better troubleshooting through augmented reality. The end-users need not spend endless time browsing on the internet and going through many service videos.
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Manufacturing
Manufacturing in the construction and real estate industry is very different from manufacturing other consumer goods. Here the manufactured goods such as Doors, Windows, Dry Walls, etc. need to be installed on a site. Again, AR could help in the installation processes. Imagine a step-by-step installation for a door or a window for a specific project and size, being seen in AR by the installer. It will be help both skilled and unskilled workforce and speed up the installation process.
From an Interior design perspective following apps are found in use.
Houzz AR app allows checking the interior space with different tile selections, wall, and decoration options. The simple step to follow is – 1. Select products in the Houzz Shop, 2. Scan the floor, 3. See the different tile options available. 4. Calculate the required amount of tile for the area.
Ikea place is available with Apple’s new AR Kit technology. It allows trying the entire catalogue of furniture and interior decoration items. It will superimpose Ikea products in your homes, giving a very realistic representation of the actual product in the context of your homes.
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Wayfair offers AR capabilities across apple ios as well as android devices. Wayfair uses ARCore in android to provide AR capabilities for interior and furniture shopping applications.
Azek provides augmented reality solutions to view realistic 2d or 3d depictions of mouldings, deck, railing, porch and pavers projects and their visualization of how they would look after completion. Azek is a leading exterior building products manufacture, and their augmented reality mobile strategy is to make it easy for contractors and consumers to explore colours, patterns, textures etc.
Augmented reality can be accessed through the cameras of mobile phones or could also be accessed HMDs also known as head-mounted displays. Head-mounted displays started off with Google lens. And currently, some head-mounted displays in the market with valid use and applications include Microsoft Hololens, ODG R-7 and Google Glass Enterprise.
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How does Augmented Reality work?
Augmented reality starts with a camera-equipped device. Such as a smartphone, tablet or smart glasses loaded with AR software. The user points the camera towards the object, and the software recognizes the object. The device downloads information from the cloud, similar in a manner a website downloads a web page. However, in the case of augmented reality, the information is displayed in 3d. Hence the visual in front of the user is part real and part digital. This is how augmented reality works.
The data presented through augmented reality is real-time data, a user can interact with this data by way of voice, touchscreen, or gesture. For example, a user could touch the start button on the graphic overlay within AR to start a product through the cloud. With each movement from the user, the orientation and the point of view changes automatically. For different use cases such as site supervisor or a crane operator of a construction site could be provided for relevant information for their specific roles and tailored to their needs.
As a consulting firm, we are excited to use AR applications within the real estate industry & Architecture, Engineering and Construction industries.
