Software for virtual reality walkthrough (3D VR model) to facilitate Home buying and and interiour configuration
I am looking for a software product that could provide virtual reality walkthrough (3D VR model) to facilitate real estate buyers to select a home / flat and simulate changes to interiours and fittings.
Have you seen such products / demos? If yes, pl. advise the product name and share your opinion.
Good Answers (2)
Mike W
Multifamily Technology, Social Media, Marketing Professional and Entrepreneur
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If you're looking for software, try AutoCAD by Autodesk ... It's one of the most powerful systems out there. Google SketchUp and Scenecaster offer more basic alternatives.
If you need a provider to lay out the renderings and animations for you, try Renderings.com -- they offer a great service with lots of demos and portfolio pieces on their website. There are many providers of these services ... In India, ViRSES is another provider that offers low cost illustrations and animations. Aareas Interactive and Spine 3D are two other examples here in the U.S.
If you're looking for a company that can integrate the plans into an touchscreen kiosk, talk to the folks at Computer Presentation Systems. Their products can display video demos, floorplans, upgrade options, pricing and availability in a very sleek interactive package.
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While not completely geared towards architectural rendering, there are several solutions that may meet your needs, depending upon price point and desired presentation method.
If your presentation is going to be an in-person demo (eg, with a laptop or desktop PC) you might be able to get by with common video game engines. They're pretty powerful, can get things to look nice, and should support the interactivity and conditional logic necessary to swap out parts dynamically. There are plenty of options in this category, all depending on your requirements.
If you're looking for something Windows-only, you'll be looking at pretty much any game that supports Modding. That includes Half Life 2, Unreal Tournament, Crysis, and probably many more. If you're looking for something cross-platform, that will likely limit your options. I would look in to the Java-based engines like JOGL, LWJGL, or OGRE. It might be worth trying to find engines based on top of these, as they are rather low-level and will require building a bit of the more basic functionality. Blender's game exporter might also do the trick.
If you're going for a web-based presentation, you may be in for more of a challenge, as you have less control over the presentation environment, and the presentation tools might not be all that mature. VRML may be an option, but it looks like it's a rather unpopular technology that's not well-supported, but I could be wrong. There are several open-source solutions that may work in this case. Blender's game exporter might also be able to export to an IE7 plugin, but it doesn't sound fully-developed yet.
In any case, regardless of your choice of technology or presentation, substantial amounts of time and resources (and thereby money) will be sunk into recreating the homes in 3D. It can be a rather painstaking process, depending upon the approach used, available data (eg, architectural blueprints) and skill of the artist involved.
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More Answers (1)
I've heard of this company called Anadocs which does this stuff. I don't think they have a ready to use software -- I believe they do this on turnkey projects.
