Lucid takes CGI to next level

Neil Small, director of Lucid, explains how the company’s interactive solutions help clarify and promote real estate projects by using a mixture of new technologies to create compelling visual aesthetics and technical information.

Name of product | Lucid Interactive Apps

Price | Based on scale and complexity of task. Entry costs £4,000.

Target Audience | Developers, asset managers, agents, architects, city councils.

Challenges | People find it difficult to visualise and understand future developments and buildings. Traditional 2D floorplans, physical models and static CGIs are difficult to interpret and passive. Data on how the building works and how future occupiers will interact with it is often complex hard to represent on a PowerPoint slide and boring.

Solution | Lucid creates beautiful 3D architectural visualisations and digital interactive presentations that reveal much greater spatial and design detail. By touching the screen on an app or website clients can interact with a 3D model of the future building – they can spin around, zoom into, move through and separate a single building into multiple floors. By clicking on hotspots on the screen they can be taken directly to different parts of the building and surrounding area and view specific floorplans, CGIs and photographs. If they visit the actual site they can hold the tablet up and view the future building on screen in the correct scale and orientation.

Key features and data are instantly accessed and accentuated by clicking on different menu buttons to bring up relevant data.  This can even be overlaid on maps or the 3D building so everything is intuitively connected. For example, options on numbers and types of desk space, price per square metre, vehicular access routes, occupiers of interest in the surrounding area, local hotels, bars and restaurants. This data can also be turned into animated infographics that can be updated live.

Users can take more ownership of the design using customisation options. When looking down at a 3D floorplan they can select different layouts and specifications to immediately compare design options e.g. comparing a financial office layout with a media agency, an industrial design with a minimalist design, swapping pine floors with walnut floors and granite worktops with marble.

Lucid’s augmented reality transforms static 2D conventional floorplans into detailed 3D models. When the tablet camera is placed above the floorplan the 3D model grows seamlessly out of it, therefore helping users immediately understand the design in a much deeper way. Lucid also creates realistic virtual reality environments. By wearing a VR headset, users can step inside future buildings and take a walk around and interact with the space by using hand controllers to vary lighting conditions or operate high-spec appliances. This is an extremely representative and immersive experience.

Results | Lucid’s solutions accelerate decisions and increase sales value because clients, buyers and investors gain much earlier understanding and confidence. The interactive Apps can be used to showcase individual buildings, complete city masterplans or entire asset portfolios.

A single interactive map can be used to click on all asset locations and present their data. This can all be consistently designed and programmed so presenters can tailor their presentation lengths and content to their specific audiences. Whether it’s an hour-long formal presentation or a 10-min update they always have everything they need immediately to hand. Presenting portfolios in this modern and memorable way leads to quicker purchase decisions.

Clients | Lucid works with companies that want to promote their vision in new and better ways. Our Clients include JLL, CBRE, Savills, Taylor Wimpey, BP, Jaguar Land Rover, Exemplar, The Mayor of London, TFL, Lloyds Bank, Hermes Investment Management.

The company’s interactive app helped JLL showcase a 300,000 sq ft commercial refurbishment opportunity in the City of London to a global client base. The solution helped drive investor pricing to in excess of 20% of quoting terms. A sale price of over £190m was achieved.

Lucid was also commissioned to create an app to help accelerate the off-plan sale of premium residential apartments near Tottenham Court Road in London. Sales accelerated by 20% (against previous projects), helping to recycle capital quicker and boost returns.