Our friends at Robert A.M. Stern Architects (aka RAMSA) have contributed this guest post - it details their precise workflow in Photoshop, Revit, and Rhino for creating realistic water in VR.

At Oculus Connect 5, Facebook announced Oculus Quest, the company's newest standalone VR headset. Image courtesy of Windows Central.

Each year, Oculus Connect offers the VR community a look at the future of the field. In the conference’s 2016 and 2017 iterations, Oculus presented their standalone, untethered VR headset, Project Santa Cruz. This year, at Connect 5, Santa Cruz took center stage, receiving a new name (Oculus Quest), a price ($399), and a release date (spring 2019). For design professionals, Quest should be a game-changer in the continual, well, quest to modernize workflows with VR.

Anglian Water performing VR design review with Prospect.

Anglian Water’s @One Alliance is a collaborative organization of consultants and contractors working together to deliver more than half of Anglian Water’s capital investment program. Together they design and construct water and water recycling (waste water) treatment centers that serve more than six million people in the East of England (and Hartlepool Water) and maintain and improve the water mains and the sewerage network in the region.

Image courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand.

Case Study Highlights:

• Reed Hilderbrand was a pioneer firm in using VR as a tool to improve how they visualize and explore projects. 

• They knew VR could provide a more accurate sense of scale and depth, giving them a better understanding of topography, planting, and more.

Rendering provided by BB+C Architects. 

Virtual reality - the AEC industry’s newest design tool - is making an impact in workflows around the globe, and the use of virtual reality in architecture has steadily increased over the past few years. Check out how this British firm, BB+C Architects, is using VR in their meetings to bring 2D drawings to life and increase spatial awareness at various stages of the design process.

SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design firm that uses regenerative living infrastructure and new forms of public space to create positive change in communities. They focus on developing innovative designs that connect people to the environment - whether that’s urban pockets or ecological parks. Collaborating with communities and using design tools to get people excited about each project is a major part of what they do, and virtual reality is helping them do just that.

Viewpoints can guide your walkthrough by helping you determine the narrative of your building - and letting you communicate this narrative on your own terms. But you may be wondering how to put this architectural storytelling to work.

This month, we're putting the spotlight on Sneha Keshav, our UI and Brand Designer. Sneha has been at IrisVR for a little over a year and shares her thoughts on how the company’s grown, what a typical day looks like, and her summer reading list.