The games industry is ahead of everyone in creating a 2D or 3D interactive experience with high fidelity graphics deployable on desktops, laptops, or mobile phones. Unity and Unreal engines are the leaders in providing a game development platform. Over the years there have been various efforts to bring games engines to the AEC world, but this involves programming and is beyond the technical reach of most AEC firms. At SPAR3D/AEC NEXT 2018 in Anaheim in Anaheim, Sanjay Mistry of VIMaec, described how Revit BIM models can be dropped into VIMaec’s application to create an easily navigable, immersive mixed reality  3D model that contains all of the BIM data from the Revit file supplemented with building product data, all of the technical data necessary for architects, engineers, and builders to renovate or build structures.

VIMaec has identified why it has taken the average AEC firm so long to begin to use the Unity engine and built an application that can ingest everything in a Revit model into Unity in 15 to 20 minutes. The application, which supports a variety of virtual reality (VR) tools, allows people to collaborate in an immersive graphical environment. By working with architects and designers, the VIMaec developers created a solution that transforms Revit models to a 3D virtual reality model using the Unity game engine to create a Virtual Information Model (VIM) of a proposed design that lets users move around a proposed space as a virtual reality environment.

VIMaec has partnered with the renovation television show Office Spaces (same producers as the Emmy-winning show Designing Spaces). This TV program follows a company renovating its office spaces using the latest tools and technology. VIMaec software is used to provide the immersive experience of different renovation designs allowing viewers to walk through a building that does not yet exist.