AEC Business

In this episode of the AEC Business podcast, Brian Toppel talks about Mixed Reality for construction.

Brian has over 30 years of experience working in the construction industry. He has worked for several of the largest general contracting companies in the United States. In 2003, Brian started Toppel Consulting, Inc providing services to owners, architects, and general contractors.

In early 2019, Brian began working with Avatar Partners as a Subject Matter Expert to assist in the development and implementation of Mixed Reality (MR) solutions for construction. Brian’s goal is to help bring this advanced technology to the industry to help contractors and owners deliver their projects with the goal of zero errors saving both time and money.

About AVATAR Partners

AVATAR Partners Inc provides software, logistics, hardware, and training solutions for government and commercial Fortune 1000 customers. Founded in 2003, AVATAR Partners is a woman-owned business based in Huntington Beach CA, Patuxent River MD, Crystal City VA, Norfolk VA, and Orlando FL.

AVATAR Partners was one of the first companies to produce military and industrial-grade augmented reality for the DoD/DHS and commercial industries. It has also developed the world's first fully extensible AR development platform, SimplifyXR, to enable the government and industry to develop AR applications 10x more efficiently.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn.

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AEC firms have a huge and constantly growing repository of photos and other digital assets. How to manage them effectively for marketing, sales, and PR is the topic of this podcast interview with Daniel Emmerson, Co-Founder and Joint CEO of OpenAsset.

"Our vision is to inspire people through visualization of the built world," says Daniel. "We're all about trying to make marketing teams more efficient so they can get down to their core job of generating business and not have to worry about obviously the data management piece."

OpenAsset is a project-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution that enables Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Real Estate firms to simplify workflows and manage their images and digital assets in a secure cloud-based location. Organized by project or property, the DAM makes it easy for firms to showcase their projects, from anywhere, at any time. OpenAsset integrates with platforms companies use every day, like InDesign, PowerPoint, Word and CRM, and ERP systems.

"There are obviously lots of different ways and channels in which the digital content is distributed and leveraged by our customers, whether it's putting together desktop publishing content, brochures, presentations, PowerPoint presentations, InDesign files, publishing to web..." Daniel explains. "Once we've integrated, we can search on market sector, location, client type of building, square footage and so on and so forth. So there are lots of advantages to having that structure information leverage inside the DAM."

About Daniel Emmerson

Daniel Emmerson co-founded OpenAsset 17 years ago with his friend from University Peter Walsham. They both continue to lead OpenAsset as Joint-CEOs sharing responsibility for all business strategy. They also share a passion for mountains, climbing up and skiing down them as often as possible. Daniel is now based in London but lived in New York for 5 years establishing OpenAsset’s North American office.

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In this episode of WDBE talks, we sat down with Rune Huse Karlstad of Varjo Technologies to talk through the real-world use of VR/AR hardware and the capacity for BIM technologies to integrate and visualise sensor data to help add value for clients. Our discussion covered the increasing role VR headsets play for the sector, obstacles to adoption, and what Covid 19 revealed about the reality of where we are with tech implementations.

Rune Huse Karlstad is the Business Developer for AEC, Oil, and Gas with Varjo. After starting his career as a skilled construction worker, Karlstad became an advocate for BIM technologies after retraining as a BIM Construction Engineer at Fagskolen Oslo. This led to him operating as a BIM Technician with Rambøll and BIM Co-Ordinator with ADF Gruppen before focusing on design review, sites inspections, and remote collaboration.

"I think people underestimate the potential of actually experiencing your models in 3D. Look at how things are done today – it's 3D models on a 2D plane, just a computer screen. That can make it hard to fully understand the design layout and for clients to engage with. It's often difficult for them to relate that to a drawing or understand the space they're given when starting to work on a project. Using 3D models and virtual reality allows us to experience the models one-to-one scale as they would if the building were finished. It's a huge benefit, especially when it comes to the time it takes for everyone to understand the basics and get feedback. People can lose days looking at paper drawings and not fully get the grasp of what you're building or what you're getting. But being inside VR? It's much more efficient."

Our discussion covered

The real-world benefits of deploying BIM and VR in unisonThe importance of securing quality client feedbackThe challenges of tech implementations during CovidThe need to remove obstacles to adoption for VR/AR technologiesFuture threats and opportunities for the industry

You can meet Rune at our WDBE 2021 event on September 28, 2021, where he will be akeynote speaker. You can review our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.

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In this episode of WDBE Talks, we sat down with Danielle Dy Buncio of VIATechnik to discuss the role sensor technology has when it comes to on-site integration and the potential it possesses for helping us quickly understand and act to address future challenges. Our talk covered the power of unified digital technologies, the need for issue resolution in the fast-paced modern built environment, and the difficulties – and learning – that spun out from the recent pandemic.

Danielle Dy Buncio is the Co-Founder & CEO of VIATechnik, a leading Virtual Design & Construction firm advancing the real estate and construction industries through innovative technologies.

"One of the major advantages of modern sensor technologies is being able to integrate data into BIM virtual design and add value throughout the process. Our whole thing at VIATechnik is enabling our clients to make high-quality, high-velocity decisions. That means making better decisions faster. You can't guarantee you're doing that without a good level of information which allows us to create what we call 'data insights.' Fundamentally, it's a process built around understanding. You start from the questions that you need to answer, the insights you need to make come from there," Danielle noted in our interview.

Our discussion covered-

The multi-strand benefits of sensor technology.The role Supersensing plays in rapid, on-site decision-making.The need for practitioners to pre-empt and collectively address climate change.The power of integrating sensor solutions with BIM to produce actionable insights.Best-practice approaches for modern problem-solving.

You can meet Danielle at our WDBE 2021 event on September 28, 2021, where she will be attending as a keynote speaker. You can review our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.

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How to manage construction safety risks intelligently with jobsite data? This is the topic of episode 112 of the AEC Business podcast where Aarni chats with Josh Kanner, founder and CEO of Newmetrix.

As one of the customers of Newmetrix had noticed, the industry had hit a plateau both in terms of the fatality rate per man-hour worked as well as the total recordable incident rate. That's what inspired Josh and his colleagues to start using job site imagery data and AI to predict and monitor safety.

"Instead of being limited by just the eyes and years of their safety team, they now had thousands and thousands of eyes every week gathering safety observations," Josh says.

In this interview we discuss

The background story of NewmetrixWhat inspired Josh and his colleagues to focus your business on construction safetyWhy construction lags behind other industries in terms of job site safetyWhat is Newmetrix’s solution and who are their customersWhat kind of results are possible by using the AI-powered solutionWhat's in the future

About Newmetrix

"Newmetrix significantly reduces jobsite risk and overall project cost by combining the best of human and artificial intelligence. Our platform is built on the industry’s first computer vision and predictive models that were trained and built specifically for construction and safety risk. Tuned using more than 12 centuries of incident data and millions of construction images, our AI can identify indicators of risk, rank projects by risk, and predict which 20% of your projects will have 80% of your incidents in the following week. Companies using Newmetrix reduce incident rates, improve their bottom line, and can negotiate better insurance terms."

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In this episode of WDBE Talks, we sat down with Dr. Sofie Pelsmakers of Tampere University to discuss the role of sensor technology in the modern built environment and the continuing need for sustainable change within the contemporary built environment. Our conversation covered the need to address the 'performance gap' within the sector, the ethical issues surrounding data capture, and obstacles impeding change. 

Dr. Sofie Pelsmakers is the Associate Professor for Sustainable Architecture and Sustainable Housing Design at Tampere University. She is a chartered architect with more than a decade of experience in building and teaching sustainable architecture with a specialty in low energy, affordable housing design. She also co-founded Architecture for Change (AfC), a not-for-profit environmental building organization that aims to change and challenge the way we currently design and build.

"It's been a strange summer of highest temperature records that we never imagined we would see in such close succession. Yet, we are not really getting into gear or getting into action. I don't know what it will take, but I never give up hope. I have to keep believing that we can make the changes required. Am I okay with that? No. But I think the key is to somehow frame the discussion, not as a disaster but to highlight the benefits for our health, wellbeing, and biodiversity. We can have spaces that are better for everybody, better for the climate, and work to address the damage we have caused."

Our discussion covered

The industry's understanding of contemporary 'sustainability.' The role sensor technology can play in the world of design. The ethical issues surrounding data capture and analysis.The often-overlooked 'human element' in the modern built environment.The obstacles standing in our way when it comes to tackling sectoral change. 

You can meet Sofie at our WDBE 2021 event on September 29, 2021, where she will be a keynote speaker.  You can review our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.

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In this episode of WDBE Talks, we sat down with Brian Ringley of Boston Dynamics to discuss the role robots can play on-site when it comes to scanning and data capture. Our conversation covered the challenges of operating autonomously in construction, the importance of digital twins, and the renewed need for remote site access in a post-covid world. 

Brian Ringley is the Construction Technology Manager at Boston Dynamics, a US-based robotics and engineering company. He currently oversees construction tech implementations and integrations for the Spot platform and recently collaborated with Trimble Inc. to help automate the capture of sensor data on construction sites. 

“The ability to explore the ‘digital twin’ side of things was a real driving element of our strategic alliance with Trimble. But we quickly realized that the real value wasn’t in just ‘doing it once and doing it right’. Even if your model was updating every second, you need human intelligence to answer questions. But you can leverage these sensor tools to do quantification. You catch mistakes. You plan better. You leverage models and algorithms to answer questions for you because they have access to that frequently collected data as well.” Brian noted in our interview. 

Our discussion covered-

The role dynamic sensing plays in pathfinding and adapting to challenging and changeable working environments.The often unrealized benefits of ‘closing the loop’ of sensor data capture.The potential role digital twins can play on-site.The disruption, insights, and innovation that spun out from Covid. The flexibility and practicality of modern, on-site automation. 

You can meet Brian at our WDBE 2021 event on September 29, 2021, where he will be attending as a keynote speaker. You can review our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.

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For this episode of WDBE Talks, we sat down with Aviad Almagor of Trimble Ltd. to discuss sensor technology in the modern built environment. Our conversation touched on the on-site implementation of robotics and AI-based solutions, the importance of data capture, and the challenges facing the sector today and in the years ahead. 

Aviad Almagor is the Division Vice President of Emerging Technologies with Trimble Ltd., a California-based hardware, software, and tech company that specializes in the development of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and recently collaborated with Boston Dynamics to automate construction processes. 

“AI in construction is a very exciting topic though the industry is traditionally not very well-equipped to adopt technology in a very effective way. AI is an enabling technology that can be used to support and augment work. This means we can automate processes; predict delays in schedule; cost changes; even design issues and prescribe and provide decision-makers with the right information to be efficient and to make the right choices for projects.” Aviad noted in our interview. 

Our discussion covered

The challenges in integrating automated robotics and sensor data. The need for integrated, on-site software solutions.The role automated robots can play when it comes to security and remote observation.  The importance of sensor-tech when it comes to modern pathfinding. The impact of the pandemic on the appetite for digital solutions.  

You can meet Aviad at our WDBE 2021 event on September 29, 2021,  where he will be attending as a keynote speaker. You can review our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.

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For this episode of WDBE Talks, we sat down with Microsoft’s Jeff Schumacher to discuss sensor technology in the modern built environment. Our conversation covers the role the tools play in helping us evolve our spaces, understand those living in them, and the renewed importance of privacy. 

Jeff Schumacher is the Global Workplace Services Lead at Microsoft, a multinational technology corporation that produces software, electronics, computers, and other digital services. 

“Technology plays a huge role in helping us understand how we evolve our space and then determine what is working and what isn’t. Ultimately, it affects the overall performance of the teams. We see more engagement, more activity, and more productivity in spaces that are inspirational and motivational than we do in spaces that aren’t.” Jeff observed in our interview. 

Our discussion covered

Modern sensoring’s ability to supply real-time understanding and drive decision making.The overlap between physical sensor tech and digital security.Details about the ‘One Microsoft Court’ and ‘One Microsoft Place’ development projects.The connection between physical, shared spaces and professional productivity. Learnings drawn out from the threat of Covid 19. 

You can meet Jeff at our WDBE 2021 event on September 29, 2021, where he will be attending as a keynote speaker. You can take a look at our program and register for the event at WDBE.org.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing another construction podcast host, Todd Weyandt of Applied Software. We discuss innovation and how to do it successfully. This is episode 107 of the AEC Business Podcast.

Todd Weyandt is the Director of Creative Marketing at Applied Software and host of the Bridging the Gap Podcast, winner of the 2020 Best Construction Podcast. He is a champion of industry dialogue to support companies as they try new things, advance and thrive. Todd has a deep knowledge of how to increase awareness of a brand, communication strategy and plays a major role in elevating corporate culture.

On the podcast, we touch on these topics

Todd's business and his visionWhat innovation beyond productivity improvements entailsHow to foster innovation in construction sector firmsHow companies in this industry can become more resilientHow to improve our communication regarding innovation and developmentWhat delights Todd in his business right now

You can reach Todd via LinkedIn and visit his company's website at asti.com. Also, subscribe to the Bridging the Gap Podcast.

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