Augmented Reality for Utility Projects with Alec Pestov

Centimetre-accurate Augmented Reality, digital twins and construction AI that crews actually use. Why sometimes field software fails and what makes it work outdoors.

Website: https://digitalconstructionpodcast.com/ Episodes: https://digitalconstructionpodcast.com/episodes Episode notes: https://digitalconstructionpodcast.com/episode/augmented-reality-for-utility-projects-with-alec-pestov Host: Andrea Ciaffi https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-ciaffi-548413113 Guest: Alec Pestov https://www.linkedin.com/in/alec-pestov

Augmented reality was supposed to change construction a decade ago. Somewhere at the bottom of that hype cycle, a small group of companies quietly worked out where the technology actually pays off and it turned out to be outside the building, in the trench, next to the utilities nobody can see. Alec Pestov is the founder and CEO of vGIS, the company behind vSite, software that lets field crews see underground infrastructure with centimetre-level accuracy. Alec came from strategy consulting, not utilities, and started the company by his own admission the wrong way round: building interesting technology first and searching for a problem afterwards. This conversation traces what he learned correcting that mistake.

00:00:00 – Intro 00:01:50 – Founding vGIS the wrong way round 00:08:10 – What vSite actually does 00:09:35 – Paper users, power users, centimetre AR 00:15:01 – Why indoor AR doesn't work 00:19:08 – How this differs from Dial Before You Dig 00:23:53 – The risk of spray paint records 00:26:44 – Designing software field crews trust 00:32:35 – Where AI actually helps on site 00:38:04 – AR's hype cycle and the next decade Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.