Good tech breeds new applications

It’s true that once good tech is invented then new applications outside the original function it was invented for make themselves known.

Virtual tour tech was created for the property market in the first instance but I’m finding the more this tech enters the public consciousness the more markets it is applicable to. Here’s one example:

A sub letting dilemma

A retail client approached me this month who was looking to sub let a retail space off a large high street brand. As the initial lease wasn’t in their name, they took the prudent step of commissioning a virtual tour of the whole space including store rooms and staff spaces.

This would then give them a detailed visual record of the condition and inventory of the unit before their tenancy began.

Furthermore the tour would also create a 3D model we could generate floorplans from as well as allowing repeat ‘virtual’ visits to the unit for measuring and planning purposes for the subsequent fit out.

Ground floor plan showing shop floor and ancillary rooms

The site visit took 3 hours to capture all the spaces and the completed tour and floorpans were delivered to the client within 48 hours accompanied by a suite of hi res images of the shop floor which would be used to create concept visuals of the proposed retail space at the design stage. Another satisfied customer.

The unit was spread over 2 floors inc. store room and staff space

First floor plan showing staff and store room areas

Wide angle hi res images of retail space included in quote

Thought Provoking

This job sparked a conversation with a surveyor friend of mine as to the tech’s integration into a full ‘Condition Survey’ document which historically is a spreadsheet containing text and referencing a set of photographs of the site.

We agreed that instead of photographs, url’s and deeplinks could be added to the spreadsheet allowing the client to click on links to see 360 views of the rooms with tagged report content.

This would provide a far more detailed and clearer report which has many advantages over the traditional method. I look forward to piloting this on a live job in partnership.

So to think that virtual tours are purely a fantastic marketing tool for a range of sectors would be wrong. The tech within that camera has a whole host of documenting abilities both visual and data based for example scanning a space to create a point cloud that can be used in Autocad or ReVit. It’s called reality capture and it’s revolutionising the building industry. Another emerging market!!!