How the VR headsets used for gaming are changing the architecture industry

by | Sep 27, 2018

Tampa Bay Times

TAMPA — Clark Brown slides a set of virtual-reality goggles over his eyes and is immediately transported to a digital world of his own creation.

But Brown isn’t a video game designer in the Silicon Valley. He’s production associate at BDG Architects in Tampa, where he turns 2-D building designs into 3-D spaces that clients can explore with the right set of eyewear.

“It’s an amazing tool” he says, as he shifts his head around in the Oculus Go headset, using a joystick to “enter” rooms. “And clients love it.”

Historically, developers who deploy architects to design their spaces have a hard time visualizing what a structure will look like before the walls start going up.

But being dropped into the center of a virtual lobby and being able look around like you’re a character inside computer game The Sims? That’s something every person, regardless of their familiarity with blueprints, can understand.

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