Inman

Latest 3-D tech triggers vertigo

I have a mild fear of heights, so when I peered over the balcony of a luxury apartment located near the top of a high-rise in Miami, naturally I felt a bit dizzy.

Except that it wasn’t natural at all. The apartment didn’t exist.


Gonzalo Navarro, principal of ArX Solutions, demos an “ArXperience” that begins focused on a TV living inside the virtual 3-D model.

I was staring over the edge of a virtual 3-D model produced by Miami-based ArX Solutions. It’s the latest 3-D offering to hit the real estate market and may be the most realistic of its kind.

While you can tour Matterport and Floored models online, you can only experience “ArXperience” offline. The reason why is that the ArXperience files are too large to load on the Internet, according to Gonzalo Navarro, principal of ArX Solutions.

Viewers use a video game controller to stroll in and out of rooms. If there’s a prototype of the virtual reality goggles Oculus Rift handy, as there was when I toured a model, then you can throw that on and feel like you actually are in the space.

“It’s like a video game, except you can’t kill people,” Navarro said.


Curved TV displaying an “ArXperience”

ArXperiences portray spaces that don’t exist yet. That distinguishes them from Matterport models, which are based on scans of existing places.

Like many of Floored’s models, ArXperiences are built off computer-aided designs (CADs). Navarro says his models stand out from Floored’s because they are more realistic.

While Floored’s models are also compatible with Oculus Rift (Matterport’s are too), ArXperiences do a better job of showing the fine details of furniture, cabinetry and floors, according to Navarro. They also can emit sound, like the crackling of a fireplace.

ArX Solutions is going after big fish — builders of homes worth tens of millions of dollars.

And its got the price tag to prove it: Navarro said one of these puppies will cost you at least $100,000.