When you think of virtual reality, you think of fancy headsets used for gaming and entertainment, but what if the technology could be applied to make life decisions, such as building a house, easier?
That is one hope of architecture firm Ridley and Co, based in Sydney, which has a dedicated VR lab.
"Day to day we create 3D models of buildings and we use those models for documentation for builders to be able to build and [we thought] why can't we chuck the buildings into the app and actually walk around, and that was the beginning for me in terms of my interest," Mr Singh told ABC News.
Mr Singh formally trained as an architect and is now working as project coordinator for Ridley.
"[We are] putting the model into a gaming engine and allowing people to actually immerse themselves within it," he said.
"Recently we took the model we were working on here in Sydney and the guys in Manilla modelled it up in very high detail.
"We put it into a gaming engine, and putting consultants inside, and he was blown away, he was walking around, teleporting around the model, looking at aspects of design, way more spatial awareness as well."
Assists planning and remote buyers
The technology can help people envision what their house will look like, and also help with planning - for instance, how much sunlight and at what angle the sun may shine through a window.
For buyers overseas, it offers a chance to virtually experience and explore homes without physically being there.
Real estate brokers have increasingly turned to VR to market houses using mock-ups.
Mr Singh was interested in VR and undertook a virtual reality design course through Academy XI.
"That was my first exposure to VR and that's essentially when I started to realise the power that this platform, this technology could have in the construction industry in what we do in day to day in projects from the beginning of the design of a project all the way through to the construction of the project," he said.
Though relatively nascent, the VR sector has increasingly entered the mainstream market, with PlayStation, HTC and Samsung all providing products in VR technology.
Headsets can still be expensive, with some costing in the thousands of dollars, but technology analyst firm Telsyte has forecast that by 2020 around 22.3 per cent of households would own a VR unit.
Juan Gonzalez, growth marketing lead at Academy XI, said different platforms - including Facebook, WordPress and YouTube - are allowing people to share and consume VR more and more.
"Part of the main thing we're trying to teach people is user centric design, and to really build empathy into the businesses and products into whatever they do, it's about people first," Mr Gonzalez said.
"We are at the point now where even the little guy can punch above their weight and get their message across, because we can make people experience stuff and that is something we haven't had the power to [before]."
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