I have seen the future…

Last week I was invited to a tour of the Reynaers Aluminium campus in Duffel, Belgium. The Reynaers facility is second to none – look out for a full report in the May issue of Glass Times – but a particular highlight for me was the company’s in-house virtual reality facility.

The phrase ‘state of the art’ is one that’s applied to almost every press release I receive these days about a new factory or website, but in the case of Reynaers’ Avalon VR technology it is, for once, deserved.

The fact that Avalon has been in use since 2017 demonstrates just how far ahead of the curve Reynaers is with its virtual reality offering.

VR has become far more accessible in recent years, typically across gaming platforms as it provides an exciting, immersive experience.

Avalon, however, is not a toy. Nor is it just a fancy sales gimmick designed to wow potential customers with a virtual demonstration of products.

There are no headsets (although you do have to wear special glasses in order to see the images in 3D) and the Avalon ‘cave’ enables multiple users to experience the technology at the same time.

So, what does it do? Well, if you’re involved in a large-scale commercial project, it allows architects, specifiers and consultants to ‘explore’ a high definition, 3D rendering of that project at the design stage.

Different window, door and façade options can be uploaded in real time, which means a variety of designs and cost options can be visualised. You can interact (virtually) with the environment, view the building from the inside, outside and from any elevation or angle or look closely at the detail of Reynaers’ systems.

In short, it allows all stakeholders to visualise a project, or different variations of a project, spot potential snags, experiment with different solutions and collaborate at an early stage in order to avoid conflicts further down the line – saving a lot of time and money in the process.

And all that is very exciting but, in my mind, there’s scope for so much more in the future. Reynaers is already in the process of upgrading its software to deliver more realistic rendering of its products in a virtual environment.

For me though, it’s the potential for supercharging all of this with the introduction of the next generation processing power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and even the expansion of the Metaverse.

To be clear, Reynaers currently has no plans to do this…but imagine if all of its global offices were linked by identical virtual reality facilities, allowing colleagues and customers to interact in real time, solve design and testing challenges and even create new, bespoke systems and products virtually – all in a fraction of the time that is currently possible.

It’s an exciting glimpse into a possible future, one that could transform working practices in the commercial sector and the industry at large.