Nicolas Fonta, General Manager of Extended Reality at Autodesk, joins us for episode 280 of Art of Construction.

Extended reality (XR) is the umbrella term for a spectrum of immersive and interactive technologies. It encompasses augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR). You can access XR through mobile devices, VR headsets and glasses, and other technologies.

We've poked fun at these terms in previous episodes, but also explored them in detail with companies like Trimble and Enscape. Now we're learning how Autodesk is taking things one step further and combing everything we've talked about before into a single immersive experience that connects the jobsite to the office. With Revit and the Autodesk Construction Cloud at their fingertips, Autodesk is already the largest ecosystem of project data. Now, with XR, their goal is for users to be able to interact with project data in an immersive environment on demand, and in context of who's viewing it and for what purpose. 

These are certainly high hopes considering the messiness of construction. But Autodesk is putting their money where their mouth is with their recent acquisitions of The Wild and Prospect by IrisVR, two VR collaboration tools for the building industry used by BIM and VDC teams, design firms, and engineers. 

Join Devon and Nic as they discuss Autodesk's journey into extended reality from media/entertainment to AEC, his mission to encompass the whole construction project lifecycle in an immersive experience where data is always in context, digital twins and digital octuplets,  and what the future holds for blending the physical and digital worlds to build as many better buildings as possible.

Autodesk Extended Reality 

The Wild

Prospect by IrisVR