5 Best Apps for Architects

Your client has a dream. Whether it’s a house, office complex, hospital, hotel or convention center, it’s a vision fueled by personality, taste, lifestyle, desires, and any of a long list of intangibles. In the not too distant past, translating that dream into reality was a grueling process of trial and error, with a huge miscommunication potential.

Fortunately, today’s building professionals do not have to be psychics to guarantee client satisfaction. Instead, thanks to ever-evolving virtual and augmented reality apps for architects, they can easily collaborate with clients, engineers, and contractors to keep projects precisely on target, down to the last detail, before one stone is unturned—and valuable time and money are wasted.

Though many of these groundbreaking technologies are still in the developing stages, here a few that are already out there streamlining the architectural process.

Compatible with any iOS or Android device, ARKi is a real-time augmented reality visualization service for architectural models. It supports for both the design and presentation phases of the building process by overlaying 3D models onto existing 2-D floor plans, and providing interactive functionalities including real-time shadow analysis and material selection. Custom views of models in both movie and 3-D still format can be captured, recorded and easily shared via email or social media.

Designed bridge the gap between designing and developing a VR experience, Storyboard VR allows users to pull in, arrange, scale and animate simple 2-D assets. To enhance project planning, architects can create and upload transparent drawings and environment maps to build virtual storyboards. Unlike traditional presentation boards that lose their impact unless shared in person, Storyboard VR creates presentation boards that are designed to be shared online.