HTC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with infrastructure firm AECOM to jointly develop and extend the reach of VR technology to benefit the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry.

Raymond Pao, Vice President of VR New Technology at HTC said, "We are very excited to partner with the world's leading AEC company. We have seen enterprises using Vive for employee training, product ID design, review and showcasing in the past 18 months. With the collaboration with AECOM we now can jointly bring the AEC industry to a new era by providing immersive visualization during designs, plan and build/construct stages”.

Sean Chiao, AECOM's president, Asia Pacific said, "Virtual Reality has the potential to be the biggest paradigm shift in history for architects, engineers and designers, providing incredible efficiencies and cost savings while empowering professionals to design with previously unmatched levels of precision. Developing these technologies into practical tools we can use is a powerful demonstration of AECOM's relentless commitment to drive innovation for our industry and our world."

Why XR FOR AEC?

Andy Thomas, Head Of Visualisation And Virtual Reality at AECOM wrote in a blog for the company, “With immersive technology it becomes possible to show the near reality and when people see the whole picture and understand what is proposed, they often switch to support the proposals”.

AECOM’s work is not limited to Vive, however, as Thomas stated that the company is also working with Rift, PS VR and ‘others still in development’, as well as AR/MR solutions such as DAQRI and HoloLens.