How Will Augmented Reality Help the AED Community?
Increased efficiency, enhanced interaction, data-rich product ecosystem.
In today’s blog we explore three potential avenues where we predict Augmented Reality (AR) will help architects, engineers, & designers (AED) become more efficient at capturing and accessing relevant product knowledge, discover new product information through seamless interactions with product manufacturers, and create a unified transparent product knowledge ecosystem.
So what is AR? AR overlays digital content onto real-world imagery. Or just think about the highly popular Pokemon Go where users catch digital Pokemons superimposed on physical locations in the real world. While video games are the first obvious realization of AR technology, the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas revealed how this technology is already trickling down into more “professional” industries like ours. Real estate viewings and construction site walk-thrus are just some applications already in development.
Here’s how we think that AEDs who invest now in a digital product knowledge management platform can establish a competitive advantage in the emerging world of AR.
Increased Efficiency. How many times have you passed a building or an interesting installed material finish and wanted to learn more but didn’t know where to start your research? Typically, there’s no way of quickly accessing that information besides digging through tons of Google keyword searches. With AR, there will be the ability to look at the physical object through your smart phone and capture relevant information. With a few clicks, you will be easily able to save this information to your digital product database and share it with a client or colleague. Re-accessing this particular information when a future project application opportunity arises will be a super easy process of utilizing digital tags to find that product.
Enhanced Interaction with Product Reps. Like it or not, more and more we are knowingly (or unknowingly) transmitting our physical location from the GPS applications in our mobile devices. AR is evolving to where an AR user will be able to look at a physical building through their device and see digital tags on products and materials provided by the different manufacturers that reveal local product rep contact information. Once an AR user gathers the appropriate product information, it will be crucially important to save that information to a cloud based platform that enables his or her colleagues the ability to quickly find and supplement that info in order to better collaborate with project teams and product reps alike.
Data-rich Product Ecosystem. As AR becomes more entrenched in the AED world, the time will come in the not too distant future where design professionals will be able to utilize their devices to view buildings and relevant costs associated with products generated through crowd sourced knowledge as well as manufacturer provided data. As more and more of this data is assigned to products and materials in the physical world, a digital product ecosystem will emerge. Firms that establish a data rich product and material library now will have a significant head start to take advantage of the new opportunities that AR presents.
Architects, engineers and designers who invest in digital knowledge management platforms will give their firm a competitive edge against other firms in the industry. As always, we welcome your questions and thoughts on learning more about adopting a digital knowledge platform.
