PrismArch: AEC Collaboration in VR

After two years of development and research, the PrismArch project has released its latest version of an immersive platform that implements a VR-aided design environment for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry.

This need for a “prismatic” decomposition of AEC projects was addressed in PrismArch platform by extending the connectivity with the Speckle database through the development of the Unreal-Speckle connector, that allows not only to receive data from the Speckle database – such as  3D models, but also send data back to speckle, namely the edits done in the 3D models. In addition, Speckle also provides interconnectivity plugins with Rhino for Architects, Revit for MEP Engineers, and SAP2000 for Structural Engineers, which are among the main tools for editing architectural projects. In this manner, we have managed to establish a bi-directional communication across all AEC disciplines.

This aspect is presented more thoroughly in our latest demo video, showcasing all latest developments in PrismArch platform and how it blends cross-disciplinary aspects of architecture in a multi-simulation environment in VR, where users can:

  • Import to Speckle and PrismArch the Architecture Design initially created in Rhino
  • Join a cross-disciplinary collaboration session and view model in Work Space
  • Join a cross-disciplinary collaboration session and view model in Physical Scale Space
  • Assign tasks and leave comments on model
  • Import to Speckle and PrismArch the Structural engineer modeling initially created in SAP2000
  • Import to Speckle and PrismArch the MEP engineer modeling initially created in REVIT
  • Combine, inspect, view and address comments in physical scale space
  • Navigate and share 3D files in Physical Scale Space
  • Create 3D designs while in physical scale space
  • Pull 3D samples from Speckle to Rhino by creating e.g. furniture models, push them back to Speckle and view them in PrismArch in Physical Scale Space

PrismArch platform aims to enhance the collaborative capabilities of AEC professionals by allowing them to perceive and understand how their decisions affect other disciplines and the project as a whole: among PrismArch’s functionalities is importing and loading 3D assets, 3D modelling, saving and tagging, collaboration in multi-user sessions and AI tools that generate new design variants based on selected designs. All these functionalities are essential for AEC professionals to work efficiently and effectively while creating complex designs that require multi-designer presence and complex visualizations, which are currently missing from the AEC workflow in VR.