Tech twist turns Xbox into virtual tour guide

Tech twist turns Xbox into virtual tour guide

by BRAD KREIGER, Hard Hat Hub | May 2, 2015

Performing maintenance and engineering in industrial settings is serious stuff. Stringent safety regulations and production downtime risks are only the tip of a complicated iceberg.

But for engineer Mike Falk, President & CEO of Falk PLI, it’s all fun and games. Falk’s firm, which specializes in 3D laser scanning & modeling services, now has a new toy for its clients.

Literally.

With a brand new offering, his clients can grab an Xbox controller to seamlessly tour and navigate very complex 3D models of their jobsites. "Point-cloud viewing" is the technical term for the offering, and it is built on top of highly complex data models produced by laser scanning a physical site.

“We’ve been scanning and modeling jobsites for a while now, but this new tool will make the visual experience of all that data much more smooth. Our clients will be able to ‘walk’ a site, just like they’re moving through a game,” said Falk.

The new offering is powered through a partnership with Australia-based Euclideon, which is best known for its extremely realistic and high-definition 3D visualization technology.  Check out their virtual tour of a St. Petersburg church to get an idea. 

“Our clients will be able to ‘walk’ a site, just like they’re moving through a game.”

— Mike Falk, CEO Falk PLI

Falk and the team from Euclideon connected at the SPAR International conference (a tech show for 3D measurement) and began to envision the possibilities for industrial applications.

“Everyone from power utilities to industrial manufacturers could benefit from being able to access complex, potentially dangerous work environments from the comfort of a laptop, reducing risk and downtime for maintenance and planning,” said Falk.

Next week (May 4-7), attendees at AISTECH Cleveland, a premier event in the iron & steel industry, will get to see for themselves by taking a test-drive at the Falk PLI booth.

The author is co-founder and chief marketing officer at Hard Hat Hub, the fastest-growing careers site and job search engine for the design, construction, real estate, and facilities management industries. A digital strategist and former marketing executive at Jones Lang LaSalle, he also oversees the content of Hard Hat Hub's blog, where this article first appeared. Email: bkreiger@hardhathub.com.