Grit Virtual, Inc.

Grit Virtual uses Forge to improve construction scheduling generation with 3D visualization: browser, tablet and mixed reality.

Construction teams use Grit Virtual to explore the resources, duration, and waste of millions of construction sequences to build more-efficient schedules with greater granularity (that’s where the Grit came from). Grit Virtual’s cloud-based solution drives out schedule waste through more efficient sequences and excess scheduling costs by replacing sticky notes and manual processes with 3D models and powerful construction scheduling generation.

Challenge

Most construction scheduling tools help construction teams portray the big picture of their schedule in order to stay organized—but they leave a significant amount of details to be determined by the field team. That’s because they fail to detail the day-to-day and hour-to-hour constraints of required tasks. Grit Virtual allows field teams to breakdown master schedules in a BIM-oriented, cloud-based Last Planner process while also making the process intuitive, visual, and mobile.

How Grit Virtual solved it with Forge

Grit Virtual wanted its solution to include a visual interface that linked schedules to 3D design models. While grappling with the many model file formats and the complexities of parsing geometries, the Grit Virtual team discovered Forge. As the team explored Forge’s APIs and capabilities, they decided that the platform could accelerate time to market for Grit by more than 6 months, while freeing the development team to focus more time on the solution’s schedule-generating speed, accuracy, and flexibility.

The Forge Viewer delivers what Grit Virtual needs in a viewer, including support for more than 50 file types, and viewing in mobile, virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) devices with the Oculus Go and Microsoft Hololens. To translate models and handle metadata, Grit Virtual uses the Forge Model Derivative API. The Forge Data Management API helps the firm manage model data, and delivers access to customer models and other data stored in BIM 360 construction management software.

Built on the Forge platform, Grit Virtual is driving better scheduling on construction projects. Everyone on a construction project team—the general contractor, designers, owner, subcontractors, and more—connects their expertise to the schedule through Grit Virtual. The 3D interface makes it simple to participate in the scheduling process resulting in schedules with 10 times the detail of traditional schedules. Accessible via the cloud on desktops, tablets, MR and VR devices, Grit connects all the way to the workface, helping everyone stay on track and on task.

Forge highlights include the following:

• Helps bring a better construction scheduling solution to market months sooner
• Provides a viewing and data foundation that frees developers to focus on smarter construction sequencing
• Makes schedules linked to models in the cloud available through desktops, tablets, and VR devices

APIs and Services

Data Management API

Model Derivative API

Viewer