Virtual Design + Construction

At STO, our VDC experts all come from the field and understand what it takes to build. They combine that real-world construction knowledge with expertise in a full range of tools and technologies to match the right tools and processes to a project’s needs. From laser scanning, clash detection, and true-to-scale models to our advanced precoordination process, our team helps solve problems and ensure quality, saving our clients time and money.

VDC Tools

• 3D laser scanning/point cloud surveys
• Model creation and coordination
• Animations and 3D printing
• Virtual and augmented reality

VDC Processes

• Constructability analyses
• Clash detection/mechanical coordination
• Accurate estimating and quantify take-off
• Construction sequencing/logistics simulation
• Asset tagging
• Digital O&M
• Advanced coordination

For especially complex projects, Structure Tone’s Advanced Coordination Team (ACT)—whose members have years of in-the-field MEP trade and engineering experience—develop models alongside the design team to eliminate the need for clash detection. By honing the design documents down to the fine details, they can identify and resolve clashes before the design is even complete.

In other words, rather than simply detecting clashes and returning the issues to the design team, our ACT experts use their MEP and field expertise to understand what the design intent looks like in real life, inserting the specific solutions—from beam penetration sizes to pipe fittings—into a design model that makes the design buildable. Then, as subcontractors come on board, they already have a complete, fully coordinated set of design documents to hit the ground running.

Whether it’s to demonstrate to an owner how a building will look or physically improve a design’s constructability, our VDC and ACT experts help solve our clients’ problems to imagine, execute, and realize their vision.