The faithful readers will know that in a previous life I’ve done a stack of other stuff as well as running an architectural practice. I wrote THIS POST last year for #ArchiTalks on this work on what I was doing ‘Then’ and what I am doing ‘Now’.

Rendered 3D View from 1995
Let’s have a look at a potted history of Virtual Reality and where we’re at now…:
• My first experience of Virtual Reality would have been as a small boy with my ‘View-Master’ viewer. Kept safely and in still working order – incredibly patented in 1939 by William Gruber. Below is me now viewing ‘Batman and Robin’:
The principle of these glasses is that: “[the] brain processes the different two-dimensional images from each eye into a single object of three dimensions.” (http://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html)
• I worked with Virtus Walkthrough for a while (see demo YouTube below):
• This essentially was a lower cost version (that worked on Macs & PC’s) of the bigger systems such as that by Division but without headsets and gloves:
(original promo showreel from 1991!)
We then worked with photography and QuickTimeVR technologies to produce photographic and 3D rendered virtual reality scenes:
This brings us full circle back to where we once started, creating 3D models using Vectorworks CAD/BIM software for viewing by clients.
Next post charts how I went from 3D modeling using computers that were size of room to exploring Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House on a computer that could fit on a desktop. PLUS – exciting news of what we’re doing now with Vectorworks and Virtual Reality!