Total Immersion
New communication solutions cater to all members of the real estate market. With products that help people envision what the final product will be like, everyone involved in a project can get in the same mindset early on.
Bobbin Wages

Virtual Sciences’ visualization tools help people who can’t read architectural drawings experience a project prior to completion.

With the communication solutions that Short Hills, New Jersey-based Virtual Sciences offers, prospective tenants and shoppers can not only view images and animations of retail projects but also visit those projects before construction has even begun. “We have taken the technology that Hollywood has made famous and brought it to businesses for their use,” says company president Steve Baum. “Our visualization services allow architects, developers and real estate professionals to envision their projects in various stages in a more intuitive and engaging way than with traditional 2-D documentation.”

The Virtual Sciences team comprises professionals from an array of backgrounds: real estate, architecture, graphic design and programming. “We play off of each other,” says Ted Plenge, director of sales and marketing with the company’s Rochester, New York, office. “We try to formulate what’s best for a project and to come up with a solution, whatever the problem is.”

Most of the firm’s clients are interested in creating high-resolution images of a project taken from multiple vantage points. Clients also may invest in animation that includes photorealistic effects such as wind, which generates movement amongst a presentation’s trees and other foliage. People that match the demographic profile that the project is targeting are also inserted in the animation, along with music that matches the intended audience’s taste. “These elements come together in an incredible experience of the user in terms of conversion and realism,” Baum says.

The most innovative of Virtual Sciences’ products is called RealTime technology, which far exceeds the limited interactivity of still images and animations that artists create and users merely watch. With the game-like RealTime technology, users are completely engrossed in a facility and can navigate it themselves. “RealTime is perfect for large-format projects that someone couldn’t possibly capture with one or two images,” Baum says. “It gives the user the control to experience a project’s architecture and design from an immersive point of view.”

Because a lot of retail properties are mixed with entertainment space, those centers are more complex than the customary strip center or mall. Moreover, a shopping center’s lighting and water features are difficult to reproduce. In order to evoke an emotional response from the viewer, realistic visualization tools are essential. “When people who cannot read architectural drawings can get a real sense of what the ultimate facility will be like, marketing can be moved back much earlier in the process,” Baum says.

Because retail developers largely focus on the tenancy they want to attract, the Virtual Sciences team often creates images of customized tenant spaces. “First we build out the architectural environment, and then various potential tenants can see their signage or any alteration that would pertain to their units,” Plenge says. 

Virtual Sciences’ products are not just useful in a development’s marketing stages, though. The firm also works hand-in-hand with developers throughout a project’s planning phase; if the building materials must be changed in order to meet the budget, another image of the property can be generated, visualizing the new end result. “We don’t help clients evaluate costs,” Baum says. “We help them evaluate the architectural ramifications of value engineering.”

RealTime technology also helps developers avoid issues that a rendering might not reveal, such as a blocked view that needs to be adjusted early on.

Such high-tech presentations are invaluable when developers are facing opposition to a project. Because architectural documentation can be perceived in various ways, 3-D visualization helps put everyone on the same page. “The emotional value of a project is very much up for interpretation,” Baum says. “We can put people on the ground looking at these structures, helping them make an informed decision about whether or not any oppositions are valid.”

Once Virtual Sciences completes a presentation, the client isn’t left with just a picture or animation to turn into a useful means of communication. Virtual Sciences incorporates those products into brochures, pieces of direct mail, Web sites, DVDs and posters, which the company also mass-produces. “It became clear very quickly that it’s not about showing a building from ground-level from the southeast corner,” Baum says. “It’s much more about surrounding these renderings with logos, lifestyle imagery or other graphic design elements and ending up with a complete communications package.”

From gaining governmental approval, to remaining within budget, to drawing in popular retailers, Virtual Sciences’ communication solutions run the gamut. With these value engineering strategies and more competitive marketing tools, better-planned retail properties might delight the bored consumer.