This could be the architects tool of the future

[Jaeger Kovich]

Its called "Augmented Reality Sandbox - Realtime Topographic Contour Line Generation". I think it could be an amazing design tool. It is certainly not a substitute for spending time in the dirt, or design/build, but it would be a really cool way to explore the possibilities on flat or difficult sites. One of the best things about it, is that the lines wont just be drawn to look good on paper, or drawn to look like "golf" they are a product of actual 3-Dimensionality... And it will always balance cut/fill, unless you still haven't learned to play nicely in the sandbox!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki8UXSJmrJE

[Frank Pont]

Cool, hypnotizing to look at....
But you can do this type of stuff on the computer, has been out for a while now, and it creates less of a mess  .
I like it for visual effect but doubt I will use it.....

[Jaeger Kovich]

I am no tech expert. I am quite fond of drawing by hand, and editing via photoshopping before climbing into the big yellow machines, so I doubt I will ever use it either, but I do think I would enjoy playing around with this rather than learning the various computer programs. Maybe its just the art student turn shaper who has a tendency to come home wearing his work

I think you could gain a lot by manipulating the sand in different ways, mimicking the construction process in different ways with pushes or seeing where you want to do something else. Perhaps as someone that really enjoys spending time on the bulldozer, dealing with material in different ways, this is most interesting to me. I also find that the fact that the material will always balance in real time pretty cool... unless you like to make even more of a mess than I do

[Jeff_Brauer]

That is cool.  Like Frank, and being used to plans, I think using tools available in Golf Games or Sketchup probably does this visually, but for some hands on guys, it might get them closer to their goals and let them fiddle with small contours before the big yellow dozers get there.

I could see specifying one of these for every field construction trailer......

[Forrest Richardson]

This is very neat. Thanks for sharing.

[Will Lozier]

Very cool - real time modeling.  Amazing really.

[RJ_Daley]

I assume the scale, which the link says on these examples on YouTube video are 1:100 but doesn't say elevation line contour intervals, is all scalable by inputting the perameters of scale you desire to model.   Can  you input an entire parcel of land's actual data points of elevation survey from an on site surveyor's work mapping program?

I can also see it as an on-site tool situated in a construction trailer or such and used mostly for hole corridors or a portion of the property.  Does it really calculate cut and fill yardage inventory? 

20 years ago already, I took some local night school vocational school cases in LandCad that could 3-D model and calculate cut and fill inventory and perameter sq footage and yardage measures.  That is nothing new just on a computer screen.  But, this 'hands on' is something interesting. 

Now, if you could hook up and connect the modelling platform data points of contour post 3-D design and desired shaping configuration that one can model on this application to a dozer with the lazer guided blade, well that would be both interesting but alarming in the displacement of workers lost to automation and robotics.  Imagine setting that remote robotic shaping task up one day, and the work goes on all night and you get there in the morning with it all pretty much rough shaped out!  Or, you get there in the morning and the program went nuts, and the dozer lost contact with program and went through a house a half mile off the property site! 

[Forrest Richardson]

When we built The Links at Las Palomas in Mexico we had a Siemens Satellite interface on the dozer. My shaper was able to look at a flat screen terrain model loaded with our CAD plans. He did not think he would use it, but found it very convenient when I was not around to be able to blade what we had drawn, even if we changed it upon the next site visit. He also used it to get around the site. No matter where he was, he could see exactly where the blade was…the precise elevation of the blade…etc.  It was very cool despite being way ahead of our ability to use it to the fullest!

What would be neat with the sandbox technology would be a small scale unit that could be worked with at green sites. Imagine the colors being set to be able to discern slopes greater than 2.5%…transitions would show up between tiers and levels. An awesome tool, much like the clay models of yesteryear…!

[RJ_Daley]

Yes Forrest, at the scale of a 3-12000 sq ft green with 30 or so yards of greens surrounds, that would truly be fun, if not applicable in reality of actually doing it 'in the dirt' for real.  I gotta think it would be very applicable for a morning meeting with the shapers, and then go out and 'git 'er done'.   

I think that for some of us Geekie Poindexter type GCA nerds, this would be the answer to the x-box nintendo computer games.  Who will be the first GCA.com contributor to get one?