THE Donaldson Group has developed a new 3D house visualisation software tool, designed to help housebuilders market new homes.
The ‘fully walkable’ virtual home selection software, Spec3D, is said to provide everything needed to digitalise entire showhomes and manage and sell upgrades in full 3D.
The gives housebuilders the power to let customers select key elements – such as kitchen units, bathroom tiles and bedroom enhancements – and put them together to explore a realistic 3D version of their new home. The tool prices items as they’re added, and it has a customer management system.
Within just nine months, the Spec3D team has signed deals with a number of housebuilders, including Easy Living Developments for a site in Fife, as well as securing two clients to supply website visualisers for their brands.
The software creation is the result of an intern initiative with Entrepreneurial Scotland’s Saltire Scholars programme. MD of Spec 3D, Euan Gibson‑Smith, was initially brought on board at the Donaldson Group as an intern, tasked with a project investigating the potential of virtual reality across the 17 businesses the group.
After developing a visual selector tool for the group’s kitchen retailer business, Kitchens International, Euan recognised the technology could be effective for all parts of a house. On completion of his internship, he was given a full-time position and began work on extending the tech to include full house visualisation.
Euan said, “While showhomes, samples, plans, and photos of existing developments have their place, some people struggle to see the full picture. This software lets homebuyers really see what their new home will looks like, and all from the comfort of their own home.
“The reaction so far has been fantastic. Customers are finding that it dramatically decreases sales consultation times; reduces errors with a more streamlined management system; increases average upgrade order values and provides a more enjoyable house buying experience for all. Crucially, it allows housebuilders and developers to showcase all their new homes – and sell them – before they’ve even been built.”
Jacqueline Hutchison, sales liaison at Easy Living Developments, added, “I couldn’t believe Euan hadn’t been in one of our houses when he sent the initial models over — it looked exactly like our housetypes. The attention to detail was incredible, and it really feels like you are in the home when using the software.
“This software is going to completely transform how we sell homes and allow customers to easily customise their selections. We can’t wait to fully integrate it with our clients and see the impact and I can already tell it’s going to dramatically enhance the customer experience.”
