What Drone Tech Can Do for CRE Engineering

Fuscoe: “We’ve been doing this for about two years, where we can put a headset on a client and they can go into their projects and look around and decide if they like them before they’re even designed.”

SAN DIEGO—By following early adopters of drone technology —which are few—CRE engineering firms will be able to everything better, faster and cheaper, Fuscoe Engineering ‘s CEO Pat Fuscoe tells GlobeSt.com. The firm was one of the first engineering companies to adopt drone technology, and it has taken this technology one step further, allowing it to provide 3D models and virtual tours before a project is even designed. We spoke exclusively with Fuscoe about the technology, why it’s important and how engineering is changing for today’s San Diego developers. GlobeSt.com: What is unique about your firm’s new technology? Fuscoe: This is exciting stuff for us, and it’s a disruptive technology in our AE space the way Uber has been in the transportation space. It’s changing our business, and there are a few parts to it. Quite simply, it’s making our work better, faster and cheaper, and anything that comes along that does that will win out. We got a drone about three or four years ago, and we were one of the first early adopters to put it to work. Others were ignoring it. Drones got so much press, and other industries were using them—kids got them for fun and wedding photographers used them. In our space, we’re using them for measuring, mapping, photographing and development work. It’s more than just cute aerial pictures and sexy videos. We have four drones now, all FAA approved and all have tail numbers so we’re a legal commercial operator—otherwise you’re a criminal. (If you’re a one-man show, no one is going to turn you in, but as a working business we can’t do that.) Still, many others are ignoring this. The American Civil Engineering Council , which has 9,000 member firms, put out a survey of how many engineering companies own drones or were planning to buy one, and more than 90% of respondents said they didn’t own one and were not intending to get one. This is foolish—we have a tremendous tool at our disposal. We’re not unique, but only a small percentage of engineering firms are using this tool. GlobeSt.com: What else are you doing with this technology? Fuscoe: What we do is special. We produce high-resolution images with it, and we also have software that takes the video or photography images and converts them into a point cloud. It’s magic because the camera is shooting pictures of, say, a hotel , and it brings back hundreds of pictures, which we dump into a computer. The software can take pixels of the images—an aggregation 100 million of them makes an image—and the computer breaks them down and assigns a set of coordinates and elevation to each pixel. We now have, in effect, a 3D model of everything the drone flew over to within millimeters. It takes an hour or two to turn the images into a file, but that’s nothing. The way this is usually done, surveyors go out with a laser gun and measure everything, then come back with stacks and stacks of files and papers—measurements that get turned into a drawing. And this is a 2D drawing, not 3D like our models, which can go into the door of a restroom and around the windows of each building and measure them. We’re now running around for our developer and builder clients making point clouds for everything and turning them into files they can actually work on. We use the software Revit , which all the architects use for building—but all the engineers use AutoCAD . That leads me to the next piece in our technology story. We can convert our 3D models into Revit and can make Revit “talk to” AutoCAD. Revit does the vertical, and AutoCAD does the horizontal; we figured out how to make them talk to each other and create a virtual-reality experience. We’ve been doing this for about two years, where we can put a headset on a client and they can go into their projects and look around and decide if they like them before they’re even designed. GlobeSt.com: What challenges do engineering firms face in the commercial real estate industry today? Fuscoe: If you ask engineers or architects, 80% of them will list their number-one challenge as finding and attracting bright, activated and capable staff—finding good people. We are all a people business; that’s what we sell, our capability and responsiveness. All the good employees are gone, and the industry is hiring kids as fast as they graduate. The second challenge is overbaked regulations in California; it’s like a backpack full of rocks. My contemporaries in other states can get projects designed and permitted in three months, where it takes us a year. The number of regulations keeps going up; some are well intended, but some of the onerous restrictions are assuming worst-case scenarios across the board. The third challenge is getting professionals to open up and use the new technology. They’re reluctant to try something new; they’re worried about cost, but they’re missing out. GlobeSt.com: How is engineering changing as it relates to San Diego development? Fusco: First of all, technology is going through some dramatic changes, and it’s going to make our work way faster, better and cheaper. Also, our work in San Diego is much more focused now on saving energy and water—that’s the biggest change I’ve seen in the last 10 years—everything has to be extremely efficient for energy and water. The second is more social: everybody loves the outdoors. They will not work in a glass office building with a glass elevator and no balcony. They want to go outside and eat lunch on a lawn in the sun and maybe bring their dog. That’s the world we’re moving toward: the outdoor experience is coming to our world. It’s the future. San Diego is probably the best city in the country for that; we have the best climate and the mildest conditions. Also, people are going to have to accept density—more urban projects that are taller and closer together than in the old days. There are several projects going on in San Diego that will offer killer views of the Bay; people will die to get to live in them. Lastly, people are using transit; you won’t recognize San Diego in 40 years. We’ll live on the 10 ^th floor of a building with a balcony and a view, walk a quarter mile to the train station and go to work. GlobeSt.com: What else should our readers know about your company? Fuscoe: When Millennials interview for a job today, the first thing they ask about a company is, “Why does this company exist? What is its purpose?” It’s the right question: why should I work here? We’ve learned to answer that question, “We exist here to help make remarkable places in which people can live, work, play and learn.” If you struggle to define this, and the answer to the question of what would happen if your company went away is “Nothing,” then why are you here? You have to be making a difference that’s bigger than yourself, and we are totally committed to that: technology, being respectful of nature, being full-circle thinkers and creative, out-of-the-box thinking.