Viability of Architectural Visualization on Android/iOS powered devices using Unreal Engine

Almost every client that I am coming across is demanding real time architectural visualization for android or iOS , which I personally think is not practical. There are very limited and less diversified clientele for this type of technology. Either they are large scale developers with million dollar budget or small scale architecture firms with keen eye on future technology for product marketing. There is always a dilemma for price quotation and end product delivery method. So here I’m trying to present my perception regarding this paradoxical problem that I’m facing now days.

There was a time when people were thinking about future of PC gaming when XBOX and Playstation started to dominate the gaming market (still is a very debatable issue) but PC gaming is still surviving or I can say thriving. Then came the age of Mobile gaming, everybody got their views and predictions  about how it will going to change the future of gaming (it sure did, now we can play angry birds and candy crush using our smart phones).

What I am trying to imply here is that not everything is meant to ultimately go down smart phone or tablet friendly path. There may be certain amount of flexibility or usability involved but developing everything according to mobility is not conducive to creativity.
Smartphone and tablets are there for us to provide second best option when we are away from home or office. They never were intended to replace our primary hardware. Who wants to watch their favorite Hollywood flick on a 5.5 inch display? And who will not choose to play Battlefield on their 4K UHD monitor? I know these are tailor made examples of things Smartphone and tablets are not meant for, but certainly Real Time Architectural Visualization is not for these inferior devices as of now.

For real estate developers who are funding super expensive advertisements containing walkthroughs and animations in traditional 3D packages, Unreal Engine real time visualization can certainly cut overall cost with better experience of the actual property.

Why a million dollar house buyer would want to see his/ her property in substandard quality? I think the best place for real time visualization is in the real estate advertising agency’s office or on the actual ongoing construction site where potential clients can see the actual physical place and experience their soon to be constructed house in virtual reality and other option which may or may not be viable because of hardware constraint is availability of interactive file on cloud so anybody can download and play. Investing something around thousand dollars for decent graphic card with VR device is a meager amount compared to traditional VRAY animations and renders.

Here I ‘m not implying that unreal engine can replace 3ds Max and Vray but they both have their advantages to live and flourish alongside.
There are other options which I think are more viable for end point delivery than android or iOS some of them are as follows:

360 panoramic renders
Amazon web services and similar ones
HTML 5

Your critics and comments are welcome. Need your esteemed views regarding the same.

3 Comments

  1. I think the most needed case for architectural visualization on mobile devices is when you want a large number of people to experience the design. Which is perfectly matches the real estate market. The real estate developer can have an app that can be downloaded from the app store by potential payers ,and they can experience ,walk ,explore large number of apartments from the comfort of their couch . They can decide which one suit them better. But for big houses and large scale projects which have one client , the vr experience like the rift will be an excellent solution.

  2. Because they want to go to their Golf Club and show off their house.
    – Hey look look I have my new house in my pocket.
    Remember that lawyer scene from American Psycho?

  3. cardboard VR realtime is very immersive

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