Jones &DeMille Engineering is a civil engineering company established in 1982. From highways to municipal water systems, Jones & DeMille ensures quality engineering starting at the earliest stages of design. Recently, VR has improved their communication with clients and ensured they can deliver high quality projects with confidence.
We had the opportunity to hear from Kendrick Thomas, Dan McGuire, and Brian Crowther of the Jones & DeMille team about their recent experiences with VR.
The Jones & DeMille BIM Workflow
The Jones & DeMille process starts with a 2D based floor plan in AutoCAD as a collaborative effort between their team, the client, and a sub-consulting architect. Once the overall layout has been decided, they move into Revit to produce final plan sets for the project.
To review models with clients, the team typically does simple isometric views from Revit or walkthroughs through Revit 3D views. Prior to InsiteVR, the team would export Revit models into other modeling tools for clean-up, then into Unity for simple VR walkthroughs. With the InsiteVR Revit add-in, project teams can explore models in VR with a single click.
The Problem: Understanding a Large Hotel Design
Two months ago, the Jones & DeMille team was contracted to provide design work for a 30,000-square-foot hotel in Torrey, Utah. The project was an addition to a current building that would add twice as many rooms, a spa, a yoga room, a restaurant, employee housing, and various large conference rooms.
The Jones & DeMille team was involved from the schematic design of the expansion. They were committed to ensuring the building owners, a husband and wife who own and operate the hotel, were happy with the results. Early meetings involved hours of pouring over drawing sets, clarifying elements, marking things up, and going back to the drawing board.
Kendrick: “The most common question from clients when looking at plans is ‘Well how big is this really? How big is this room? I know you’re telling me its 15 feet by 20 feet but how big is that?’
Even clients who have experience with construction projects can misunderstand drawings and renderings. The team admits that as the ones doing the modeling they understand what a space might “feel” like in the end, but for a client there’s always an inevitable element that results in a surprise post-construction.
The Solution: Opening the Project with InsiteVR
The team opened the model in InsiteVR straight from Revit and was eager to provide the client with a clearer understanding of the final result. Their initial plan was to spend 15 minutes reviewing the model in VR.
Within seconds of putting on the HTC Vive, the client was thrilled to see his building in front of him months before breaking ground. The Jones & DeMille team expected the client to just poke his head into various rooms and then get “back to business”, but the VR walkthrough quickly became the main order of business. The client began diving into details that had been difficult to analyze in the drawings he’d seen before and to clearly visualize the dimensions of the space.
Kendrick: “One thing that was great is he could step into the room and see how big it really was. He could walk up to a sink in the bathroom and say ‘oh yeah I have room to twist here. I have room to move here.’ We had 4 to 5 design elements change just based on how he felt in that VR environment.”
The Results: Better Communication, Engagement, and Confidence
With minimal effort to understand the controls and no motion sickness, the client spent over an hour immersed in VR. The walkthrough provided so much clarity that he kept saying “I want my wife to see this” and a week later she joined them for another round of reviews.
This was all virtual and every change or revision could be easily completed at this stage preventing unnecessary budget increases and costly schedule delays.
The next meeting was a fully engaged conversation between the two as they explored the space in VR. They spoke as if they were conducting their first construction walkthrough, except this was all virtual and every change or revision could be easily completed at this stage preventing unnecessary budget increases and costly schedule delays.
The proposed design included three hot tub rooms at one end of the building, which the team admits was challenging since they weren’t too familiar with this kind of room. Prior to reviewing in VR, nobody had mentioned anything about the size of this room.
Dan: [When they saw it in VR] they decided to make two rooms instead of three so they could accommodate the feeling they were expecting for guests. That’s a change you wouldn’t know until midway through construction. Even with a 3D rendering or image you don’t get that feel unless you can actually walk through it.
When a client is fully immersed, they can pay attention to details that can easily be overlooked and also have a feel for how the space will work for them and their specific needs.
Dan: There was also a door that we had added that had a big window. I don’t think we had noticed that it was in a spot people shouldn’t be looking into. It was looking into a dressing room. [After seeing it in VR] the client asked if we’d be changing it.
The client also noticed a missing door in VR, which the team was able to easily address.
Kendrick: Thankfully he clarified where he wanted it. Partway through construction we would have noticed there was no door there and fixing that would be a more expensive cost. These changes wouldn’t have been caught until construction when the client walked through once things had been framed or after dry wall. But they wouldn’t have been caught until that point.
The decisions made after exploring the space in VR helped increase everyone’s confidence in the job. The client was happy knowing the hotel design would be perfect for guests, and Jones & DeMille received the feedback needed to deliver on their standard for customer satisfaction.
These changes wouldn’t have been caught until construction when the client walked through once things had been framed or after dry wall.
What do you love about InsiteVR?
Brian: For me it has relieved a lot of time with projects. Before I had to take projects into Strata3D to do some configuration and then programming in Unity so it was right. At a minimum it was a half day’s worth of work to prepare for someone in the organization to view it. And some more time to prepare for the client. Now going through [InsiteVR] it’s working me out of a job! It saves a lot of time and allows [project teams] to do the work and test it without me having to spend half a day working on it. I really like the dollhouse view as well as being able to transport into the project. So I can look at a project, lift it up, manipulate it, then get immersed in it. That was a big win for us.
Dan: From the engineering standpoint if we didn’t have Brian here spearheading VR for us I don’t think we would have ever touched it because none of us have time or know how to start figuring out coding. Having Brian go in and do that opened us up into that field. [After] seeing that Insite lets us just export from Revit, I can see us using VR without having someone devoting hours and hour and days to get VR to work. Having the capability of being able to export straight from Revit and have Insite do the backend coding so we can just export and use it is really helpful.
Challenges
The Jones & DeMille team admits there were some initial challenges with presenting a design in VR to a client. Like many firms, they want to ensure their presentation enhances the client’s experience and delivers realistic expectations.
Brian: [It was hard to] make sure we were comfortable enough with the technology so that it would be a good experience for the client. We don’t want the client to be in experimental technology and have it be a dramatic failure. We want to have a good experience for the client. You want to make sure that at the end of the day your client is happy and is going to have a positive experience and prepare the best you can for that.
Advice for Others
Brian: Dive in. You just have to make sure you have confidence and a good Revit designer. InsiteVR alleviates the need for someone who can program. Having InsiteVR on your team dramatically increases your chance of success.
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If [the client] doesn’t walk away loving it and you don’t walk away with 7–8 design changes then it didn’t perform what was needed. If they got in there and they were a little nauseous but they still got some work done and it was a valuable experience then it’s still a small win. But you have to prepare for clients to be in there for 30 mins to an hour and plan on it.
The Jones & DeMille VR Setup
The Jones & DeMille office is equipped with 2 HTC Vive’s and 1 GearVR. One HTC Vive runs on a desktop that is set up in an empty conference room. Their second HTC Vive is newer and is powered by laptop which can be utilized on location.
About the Team
Kendrick is the Structural Engineering Department Manager who has been with the company for 10 years.
Dan is a Structural Engineering EIT and joined the company early this year.
Brian is the IT Admin and ensures all current technology needs are met, and the Jones & DeMille team continues to deliver high quality services by looking ahead into the future of construction technology.
