Future Infrastructure Experts Are Current Roblox Players, Industry Says

Construction in the metaverse and virtual reality excites gamers; some companies say today's VR users represent tomorrow's engineers.

VR gamers share in a virtual 3d world of fantasy and interaction. Kids as young as ten or eleven years old design many structures found in this alternate universe with world simulator games such as Roblox.

At an online event hosted by graphics company Nvidia, speakers said that this new generation of world simulator users could represent the future of construction and design in virtual reality.

"The metaverse is a welding of the digital and the physical world that will produce better outcomes for infrastructure," said Bentley Systems vice president of engineering and collaboration Lori Hufford.

Hufford went on to say that kids prepare themselves for engineering by constructing in the metaverse. Their efforts resemble Building Information Modeling, or BIM.

"The world simulators that we have today are largely designed for games," said Nvidia vice president of omniverse and simulation technology, Rev Lebaredian. "We need to find ways of expanding these world simulators to be physically correct and accurate and take advantage of the computing power that's available to us to its maximum."

Autodesk executive vice president for architecture, engineering and construction design solutions Amy Bunszel said: "The potential to bring all the data and stakeholders together to collaborate and innovation will be revolutionary for the industries we work in.

"When it comes to architecture, engineering, and construction, we are really looking at design, build and operate and one of the great things about looking across that whole lifecycle and sustainability is that you can bring decisions that would normally be made in the build phase into the design phase using the metaverse. It will really help us to understand the downstream implications of those decisions and make high impact decisions earlier."

The experts agreed that young people get hooked on creation and building rather than on destructive games. "Looking at games today will tell you what adults will use [in their work] in 10 to 15 years' time," Lebaredian said.

Architecture and building extend from the real world into the metaverse. Young VR lovers appear to lead the curve on the future of virtual reality construction.

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