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Though most commonly associated with movies, and more recently television, three-dimensional (3D) imaging technology is beginning to make waves for its implications in real estate and senior housing.
With 3D imaging technology, senior living developers and operators have the ability to thoroughly visualize what their communities will look like before breaking ground on construction. For residents, this tech could ultimately mean touring every nook of a community before even leaving the house.
For the senior living industry, the potential of 3D imaging can provide returns on investment and potentially lower costs for developers or operators, while also bringing greater transparency to communities.
Take the example of Floored, a New York-based technology company that specializes in 3D data capture and visualization solutions for the real estate, architecture, interior design and furniture industries. The company is currently working to scales its softwar engineering team and brings costs down, says the company’s Co-Founder and CEO David Eisenberg.
“When we talk about ROI, we talk about doing things digitally that are much more affordable than doing them in the real world,” Eisenberg says. “On the digital side, someone can understand what happens at cost at a magnitude that’s less expensive than doing the work physically. That’s where we see the benefit of the investment.”
Floored’s team of software engineers scale a company’s building or floorplan within a three-dimensional program. The 3D model takes a first-person point-of-view approach to allow users to navigate the building freely, using their mousepads and arrow keys to look three-dimensionally within the particular setting.
The company says it is currently working on how to move furniture around within a certain space, which can help people like interior designers see what pieces of furniture fit and which do not on a floorplan.
The Software’s “walkable” capability will someday have a place in senior living, Eisenberg says.
“For senior housing specifically, one has to be able to see very interactively, like walking from one’s room to the cafeteria or social room, or more complex issues like how medical equipment will fit into a room,” he says
At 18 months since the company’s launch, Eisenberg says Floored is hoping to broaden its client base into the senior living sector in 2014.
“As we continue to bring our costs down, I see us being able to move into different fields, such as the healthcare space planning industry,” Eisenberg says. “It usually takes one developer who’s interested in being the pilot for us to be able to learn more about the industry and find the right pricing.”
In mid-December, the company closed $5.26 million of Series A financing with the help of capital partners such as RRE Ventures—which led the financing—Greycroft Partners, Two Sigma Ventures, Lerer Ventures and Felicis Ventures.
Commercial real estate investors such as CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, and several other real estate investors have enlisted the company’s services to visualize commercial space that is not yet built, which assists companies that are evaluating a move into another building.
“We’ve conveyed to our customers that emerging technology in the 3D scanning and real-time visualization fields can provide substantial ROI to their marketing, leasing and developmental efforts,” Eisenberg says. “We’re excited to have growth capital to help us execute more quickly on our goals.”
Written by Jason Oliva