Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are poised to change the physical and digital retail landscape in the near future. First of all, judging by the amount of money invested in the various key players in the field and the HMD (head-mounted display) unit sales estimates available thus far, VR and AR are here to stay. This means that if you want to stay ahead, it’s essential to closely monitor these new technologies and, when the opportunity arises, adopt them into your work process.

There is a key difference between VR and AR. With VR, or virtual reality, the entire visual spectrum is digital, so the world you’re immersed in is entirely digital. AR, or augmented reality, is all about superimposing digital content on top of what you see through clear glasses. This means that the effective short-term uses of the two technologies will be quite different.

AR and VR are all about displaying data, particularly rich images. This means you can drive marketing, sales and offer data, highlight products, showcase product features and properties, illustrate product functionality and/or assembly where necessary. The opportunities for retailers are really vast. BIM is soon expected to assimilate these technologies, as BIM is all about modeling rich information and displaying that information in an immersive medium comes naturally.

Virtual reality is already being used, in some cases, by leading retail companies, such as Tesco, at the design stage. These companies place groups of users in a virtual reality gaming environment and ask them to make purchases, then analyze user behavior. They then iterate on their design and test it over and over again. This way, they can test many design options before implementing them in real life. For this to flow, BIM is the best option. Retail BIM Modeling coupled with VR can speed up the process of viewing designs and making informed decisions. With BIM, iteration is fast and cohesive, and you can easily generate sets of retail construction drawings that match what customers/prospective customers experience in VR. Virtual reality can validate not only the consumer experience, but also the structural and engineering aspects of a project. A valid set of Retail Building Plans is one that can be implemented on-site on time and within budget. When you have the ability to check the immersive VR design for conflicts, as well as review the 3D BIM model from any angle, the construction process is sure to run smoothly.

AR can have a similar impact on the physical design of retail spaces. At the moment, the initial AR experiments are carried out using tablet devices and are focused on product search (using virtual beacons). As technology evolves, we can expect retailers to reserve physical space where personalized virtual objects will be advertised. The use of virtual objects means that you can rely on the buyer’s history, clothing purchase, interests and personal physique, so that the user can see the items that are most relevant to him/her. The store may have such items, or at least some of the options, in stock, with more available on request. Navigation hints and item-finding techniques will also be more seamlessly incorporated into an AR experience by replacing a tablet device with full-view glasses.

What would this imply when considering the production of retail construction drawing kits? First, retailers need to recognize the complexity of the design process and determine to what extent they can handle all or part of it in-house or rely on specialists in the field. Outsourcing retail BIM modeling services means you can tap into a highly-skilled talent pool to deliver fast, quality results. With retail, it all comes down to experience and if you add new emerging technologies to the mix, it’s hard to get them in-house without significant costs.

Whether it’s real-time, interactive visualizations of a retail BIM modeling project using VR or considering integrating AR into store layouts, producing valid retail construction drawing sets requires professionals.

It is much easier for a company that is already proficient in retail BIM modeling to incorporate VR and AR prerequisites into their workflow and this, in turn, creates a great opportunity for retailers if they can outsource the skills of said company.