Contractors are benefiting from the new advances of technology, and in this case it's a new virtual reality application that digitizes the jobsite. This application, which launches this week, casts a net over the job site with spider man efficiency and promises a lot of future payoff to the industry.
Using the app, work crews can identify trouble spots, photos become a time-stamped affidavit of condition to protect against claims and liability, and a birth record of the building is created for future maintenance and renovations/additions.
Dmitri Bouianov, Context VR founder and CEO, said workers can do a safety walk of the jobsite, taking photos as they go. That information can be used to show risks on the site to new workers.
“By the time they are at the construction site, they are already oriented to the site,” he said.
Dan Barrett, executive vice president of strategy and corporate development at Sellen, said they are testing several different software programs in an effort to streamline as-built photo documentation.
Sellen is testing Context VR on an office tower and a residential tower, both in downtown Seattle. “It's been helpful to see their solution,” he said. “Technologies are helping this product become more efficient.”
One of the drivers of the software programs are 360-degree cameras, which are becoming cheaper and more durable. Barrett said Sellen started using 360-degree cameras this year.
Barrett said pairing a 360-degree camera with a mobile app is more efficient because the photos don't have to be taken back to the office and uploaded onto computers. He said they also create a more holistic image capture.
