this coming through how’s your mic sound
all right great so yeah I’m Shane Nate
we’re going to talk about virtual
reality which also happens to be the
thing sitting on my head we thought it
would be a good way to introduce the
technology and here we are this was
about a year ago for both of us both
total nerds I was studying architecture
at Middlebury I graduated and decided to
go into consulting this is me playing
with three different computers at once
figuring out how to do renderings for
architects and designers generally
working with 3d for people in New
England Nate state physics and math and
and in this consulting job we were doing
a lot of visualizations right so this is
a 3d model that I made for Connor homes
we photoshopped it into a photo and then
they use that to sell clients on
projects Nate was doing a lot of the
backend stuff I was doing more the
front-end design and we worked together
a lot on that on that company and then
about a year ago as well I finally got
my hands on this and I’ll let Nate sort
of walk through the technology of the
oculus rift thanks Jay so this is the
oculus rift and just by way of
introduction it is a pretty goofy
looking piece of hardware right now this
is a development kit right so this is
really early and it’s a prototype and we
were able to get our hands on one you
can go online and order them but they’re
pretty limited this is the second
iteration of what will ultimately be a
much sleeker looking device right but
essentially what this is is its
technology that’s being developed for
gamers there’s a screen right in the
front here and a couple of lenses and
there’s some sensors on the inside that
are fairly inexpensive to track your
much right so as you look through the
you put this on it’s cute i feel like a
flight attendant and you put it so you
put this on and you can actually see
what’s on the screen through the lenses
and the lenses warp the image on the
screen
so that as the image is projected on the
back of your retinas it provides a full
field of view image into a into another
world right so you can completely be
immersed in some other place and again
it tracks your head motion as you look
around so they had a pretty successful
Kickstarter campaign and and really it
really took off as you can see ten times
what their goal was and the reason being
I think because the price point is very
low and ultimately the technology is
pretty accessible to the masses so
that’s what makes this device different
than virtual reality that’s come before
it the oculus is selling right now for
$350 love headsets from the 90s or
around forty thousand dollars so it’s a
big price drop and the main reason it
took off besides being immersive was
gamers got really excited about it their
Kickstarter video I mean I think right
up there right said step into the game
there’s a big market for gamers and
people got really excited about it
facebook bought oculus rift for two
billion dollars in April so there was a
lot of press around at than two so
anyway I was doing 3d work doing
consulting work Nate and I were working
together and we saw right at the bottom
here it said the first truly immersive
experience and I thought oh I’m already
working in 3d let’s see if I can get one
of my 3d files into the oculus rift so i
got my development kit it was even an
earlier one than that and this is a
model of the house I grew up in and I
that’s I guess the perk of having a son
who does remodeling my dad was doing
renovation and I bottled up the house
and I thought let’s see if I can make a
little video game out of the oculus rift
and out of this model and walk through
it so this was the first file I ever
made for a virtual reality walkthrough
and you can see it’s tracking my head
movement as I look through the space
it’s the inside of my house it’s
untextured the lighting is pretty bad
it’s all pixelated like everything is
essentially horrible about it except for
the fact that when I was in the goggles
walking through the space I really felt
like I was standing in my house and I
couldn’t believe it like we were we were
we were holding these goggles up to my
face and I felt like I was
I remember my parents tried it on after
that I said oh it’s snowing out and it’s
not snowing out it’s a white plane that
goes into nothing but the reason they
said that is it feels like you’re there
and the model is unfinished but at the
end of the day you get a sense of scale
you get a sense of space so that was
pretty much the job everything moment we
can believe that you could get this from
a 3d model and then the question was
like is this a company and is someone
else doing this and like what what does
this mean for our industry so we kept
making more files I like this video
because you’ll see my head actually
moving and you’ll see the camera
tracking with with the movement but this
is how I we got this in here because
this is a lab and by Hall that we were
made for a demo what the question was at
this point was who’s doing it in the
industry right we’re in architecture and
three modeling is there someone taking
3d files and putting them into the
oculus rift and even more than that this
process is inherently horrible right now
to get from a 3d file like the one I
showed originally in my house into the
oculus rift there’s a really a lot of
time commitment you have to import and
export and you essentially have to make
a video game out of each file and that
kind of sucks it’s really really time
consuming and it’s finicky and it
generally breaks your computer so we
were thinking how do we exit how do we
expedite this how do we automate this
and we saw a need for software
specifically software that would take
these architectural three files and put
them immediately into VR without the
need of a hands-on approach and that was
sort of the question you’re asking is
can we build that and it must have
already been done who’s doing it we
embarked on this quest right to find a
way to get 3d models into this hardware
really easily tried to look for you know
software that automated it it actually
started out like you know we really
didn’t even know how this whole thing
was going to work you know is it was it
going to require specialized hardware
where we’re gonna have to write
something with somebody else doing it
already so we tried to figure this out
and this is before Shane had even gotten
his hands on this we started looking
into the process of getting a digital
model in to virtual reality in a really
efficient way so Shane and I took off
around the country pretty much to find
that software and to find that solution
in to get feedback from the end
see if if people actually wanted 3d
models into virtual reality and if
people were doing it right so we talked
to people out in California as you can
see in the lower left-hand corner there
we played with different solutions in an
office here in Middlebury and hack
together a bunch of different demos to
get 3d models as I was saying 3d models
into virtual reality and the demand
there’s there seem to be a pretty pretty
wide demand for for an automated process
an easy process and nobody else was
doing early this spring and we realized
pretty pretty quickly that not only was
Adam and but that that we could build an
entire suite of tools to pull 3d assets
into virtual environments with just a
click of a mouse so we showed a lot of
architects and that was we I mean Lydia
what Nate was talking about as we sat
down in googled first to see if we had
something Google then for cure anything
so then we started traveling but we
found pretty quickly that architects in
particular this is Doran Whittier up in
Burlington and engineers and people that
work with unbuilt space and getting
those things built we’re really excited
about our stuff we’d go in with there’s
a little black briefcase that holds the
ocular so if we’d walk into firms like
Gensler and Perkins will and the only
these are the biggest firms in the world
we were we were welcomed with lots of
skepticism but once the goggles were put
on their faces they said oh my god we
have you know XYZ client that doesn’t
understand what they’re getting with the
space and we would love to show them the
goggles so that they can walk through it
and get it so we’ve showed I think in
person around 500 architects and
professionals at this point and we’re
really validated between january and
april of this year of people saying like
how do we buy your software and we were
like well we need to build software we
don’t have software yet and so as a
result we built our team
this is a reaction to the good we had it
we had an applicant who started working
for us our chief marketing officer who
gave us a profile shot like this so we
thought we had you know do it as well so
we built the team and then we we built a
beta product and that’s sort of where
the company is out right now where we’re
early stage beta I mean we really should
call it a prototype where people can
drag and drop their files and view in
the BR and that was sort of that was the
company in a nutshell right that was the
span from idea stage to like can we do
this to validated to being like yes like
this is people want it and now we’re
kind of at that stage of like pacing and
when does this take often and when is
this become the company not just a
company and it gets into sort of this
larger this larger pain point and design
that I get really excited about and I
can talk for hours of eight about and
boerum of that is that when you’re
dealing with unbuilt space or really any
space like designing this concert hall
you’re inherently going to be sitting
around a table with stakeholders who
don’t quite get it and they’re going to
be signing up on a project by looking at
plans by looking at renderings and
animations but at the end of the those
are metaphors of space there are
extrapolations of how the space is going
to feel your brains left to figure out
what happens but what virtually virtual
reality does is is totally takes that
barrier away it’s no longer a metaphor
it just feels like you’re there and I
think that that fundamental difference
in technology and it’s a very new
difference in technology is very
exciting and it’s very exciting for
design as a whole capital d design but
also just understanding of space which
can get much larger than this and yes we
have very happy architects so ultimately
I mean that gets into we go back and
forth our tagline and I think it’s
inhabit your designs right now for our
company but that ultimate is it is that
you is the idea of inhabiting but
someone inside something and that is
very powerful interface with technology
so the reason that i like the word
inhabit is i think it it really gets
across what what this does right and
it’s so hard to describe in words the
how immersive this this experience is
and when I say this experience this is a
development kit and it’s only sort of a
glimpse of what is to come but I was a
sort of a virtual reality skeptic
right I thought well you know it’s sort
of a gimmick but you know and it doesn’t
it kind of makes people sick you get
kind of this nauseous motion snake it’s
really sad I get ready yet yeah I use it
for more than about five minutes so
that’s that’s a little embarrassing
because I’m a i have a dr company but
anyway so it’s a i tried a demo that was
made by a gaming company out in
California called valve they have a
hardware had a headset that’s much
higher performance than this and I tried
it on and they put me in a pretty cool
room and then I tried another demo where
I was standing on the edge of a
skyscraper right but I didn’t realize
that it first looking at this beautiful
city scape and it was pretty neat I was
I was out in a room in California and
you know I knew that I was in this small
little bike cubicle sized room but you
know it was cool i was looking around
and then i looked down at my feet and I
was on this ledge at the top of the
skyscraper and even though I knew I was
in that little room in California my
stomach jumped and my legs tensed up
totally involuntarily and i felt like i
was there i mean it was the first time
that i really really felt like i was
there in a way that i can’t describe and
that’s what convinced me that virtual
reality really can convey an idea of a
space and a place in a new way and
transport you to another place and bring
other places to a little room in
California say right and that I think
there’s going to be a fundamental
difference in how we talk about space
how we share space with each other and
communicate 3d ideas in the you know in
the coming weeks months and years and
that that that that demo gave me a
glimpse into the technology and what’s
to come and the the fact that this is
going to hit the market soon and what
we’re trying to do with our software I
i’m convinced that virtual reality is
going to be more and more accessible and
this marks a growing trend and this is
sort of we’re going to leave you guys
with this marks a really exciting and
growing trend
in technology as a whole these were all
products that came that we’re announcer
came out in 2014 some in 2013 i guess to
and so structured sensor it’s going to
measure your space with your ipad it’s a
3d scanner google tango which is out of
Google Labs it’s a smartphone that will
allow you to scan you know wherever
you’re at and you can interact with it
magically no one knows what they’re
doing but they’ve raised 550 million
dollars from google so they’re doing
something right and oculus of course
which we’ve been talking about but all
of these devices fundamentally they’re
no longer there are handheld devices or
our personal devices but they’re no
longer showing us projections they’re no
longer like screens that we be look at
they’re actually trying to inhabit our
space with us and interact with our
space and I think that that’s ultimately
what we’re so excited about is that we
have this new wave of technology that
deals with immersive and inhabiting and
feeling immersive in space and I think
that that’s going to change all of our lives in the future thank you