The Guardian features ArX

We recently had a wonderful opportunity to sit down with The Guardian to explain the ArXperience and how virtual reality is revolutionizing the real estate industry.

Our COO and Co-founder Gonzalo Navarro sat down with The Guardian’s technology reporter Olga Oksman to explain more about the technology behind the virtual reality tools that are growing in popularity among real estate professionals.

Oksman opens up her article with a walkthrough of the ArXperience using the Oculus Rift:

“I am sitting in a Starbucks with an architect. He hands me an Oculus virtual reality headset with a Samsung phone slipped into the goggle area. In his hands is an iPad. I put the headset over my eyes and the cafe disappears. Suddenly I am in Miami, inside a sleek luxury apartment. I can see white condo towers and water views from the vast windows.

“I move out to the pool, a must for any luxury condo in Miami, and a menu appears offering me the chance to change the time of day simply by looking at the choice. I select sunset, the water in the pool moves with the breeze and I feel myself start to relax when the architect’s voice, seemingly coming from space, startles me”, describes Oksman in the piece published in the August 21 Sunday edition of the prestigious publication that you can read here .

Watching the reporter, or any other person who tries our ArXperience, fully immerse in the virtual space that we have created for the first time is one of the most rewarding moments we can have.

“In fact, he is still sitting across from me at the cafe, and I am now clutching the edge of the table to give myself a sense of where my body is in space. My eyes are telling me that I have just walked into a generously sized kitchen where different countertop marble color choices are now floating in front of me. My body says I am sitting down in a loud cafe and if I keep moving my head backwards and turning to look behind me, I am going to fall out of my chair”, details Oksman.

“Instead of spending the money to build a model apartment and furnish it, real estate companies can have virtual versions created that can go where the agent does. While virtual mockups are not cheap, they cost a fraction of the $1m or so that a furnished and decorated model luxury apartment would cost”, tells Navarro to the reporter.

“The entire process of creating an oversized condo, with tastefully bland furniture in neutral tones, out of thin air takes only about a month and a half. A bathroom can be generated in just a week. The paintings on the walls, fancy light fixtures and furniture are all based on real items. Views are stitched in from actual photos taken at the height of the future condo”.

This is said easily, but the truth is that to give our clients this quick and precise results we have put together a team of many nationalities, that works from three different continents, and which has the best artists and developers that we have recruited to make you feel and experience the most beautiful spaces you have ever imagined.

Thank you The Guardian for featuring our work!

ArX featured in American Way Magazine

This month we had the honor of being featured in American Airlines’ American Way Magazine.

In its latest issue, author Joseph Guinto sits down with co-founder Gonzalo Navarro and chats about how virtual reality is changing the rules of real estate in his article, Property Portals.

“Real estate makes sense for virtual reality,” said Navarro. “If you get a buyer from Shanghai who doesn’t want to travel to look at a property, or if you’re trying to sell a building that isn’t even built yet, virtual reality is the best way to show it.”

Guinto opens his piece by narrating the immersive experience provided by our latest virtual reality tools. Despite the icy winds blowing right outside of his Tribeca office, he recalls “jumping” into a pool and enjoying a nice swim outdoors.

“It’s a frigid, gray day in New York, and an icy wind is blowing through the city’s concrete canyons,” said Guinto. “The water splashes around me. I feel warm and relaxed. Then I remind myself: This is only virtual reality. In real reality, I’m not swimming, but sitting. There’s a long conference table in front of me, and on it a flat-screen monitor projecting a 3-D rendering of a luxury-condominium property in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.”

Behold the magic of virtual reality.

“The development doesn’t exist yet. Construction only started this spring. But high-end computer-graphics studio ArX Solutions has brought it to life — from the grand lobby to the outdoor pool to the residential units — in a virtual-reality product called ArXperience,” writes Guinto.

As he explains, the software works with an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.

“Strap on the headset (as I do before my ‘swim’) and you are immersed in a startlingly realistic digital space. Stand on the patio and you can hear the ocean. Use the video-game-style controller to step through open doors, flip switches, move between units and, ultimately, decide which property might be right for you. Virtual reality also allows for customization: Don’t like the granite countertops? One click and they become metal. Want a brighter backsplash? Click on.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

“The Miami-based ArX Solutions — they also have offices in New York and Madrid — is not what you’d call a startup, having been around in some form since 1998. But the work the firm is currently doing for more than 100 global clients is very much on the cutting edge. ArXperience is one of the few market-ready applications for virtual reality that’s not made for gaming or entertainment — both of which still dominate the field,” explains the writer/editor for many other publications.

If you haven’t read it yet, you can do so in your next American Airlines flight or by clicking here to go to the digital version of the article in American Way Magazine.

New Waldorf Astoria: When our work becomes a case study

Creating images, films and animations is our bread and butter. We do it everyday and it is something that we can confidently say that we master. But not everyday are we asked to show the vision of the New Waldorf Astoria with live actors .

At the beginning of 2015, we were asked to create a film for the New Waldorf Astoria, but it had to be finished in less than 30 days from beginning to end, one quarter of the time we usually take. So we started working on it!

See what we created in those four weeks:

After achieving this in such a tight timeframe, our Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder Gonzalo Navarro was invited by Autodesk University to Las Vegas to share our tips and tricks on how to create a script, the storyboard, the charrette process and the green screen production.

You can see the 50 minute case study here.

Impressive, huh?

For us, this project, like every single one, was not only a challenge to do our best, but also a great learning experience to solve the different challenges that our clients face.

We feel very proud of it and definitely wanted to share this with you!

The Estates at Acqualina

It is no secret that one of our specialties is luxury.

And among our specialties we feel specially proud of the work our team did on The Estates at Acqualina, which is a splendorous Mediterranean village in a gated oceanfront metropolis, located 30 minutes from South Beach and Downtown Miami, in Sunny Isles Beach.

We are not only very pleased with our 3D renderings, but with the different outcomes they took, like this beautiful and luxurious hardcover book that shows in paper how magnificent this project is.

Continue reading →

ArX 360: We take 3D on a whole new dimension

Imagine to be able to show your client the space of his or her dreams with the help of just one link.

Yes, just one link that you can click on any device, like your cellphone, tablet, laptop or even a big screen. You just need to stand up in one place and through the device take a sneak peek of every single corner of the space. You can go up, down, turn around and see everything!

Do you want to try? Just click here.

Amazing, huh?

Gonzalo Navarro, our Chief Operating Officer, was proud of featuring this new product at the last edition of The Real Deal South Florida Forum. You can see how it works in this video:

ArX 360 from ArX Solutions on Vimeo.

ArX 360 is a complete and sophisticated tool that basically needs the same information we use to create 3D renderings, it is easy to use, gives more precise information about the space and even though it takes a little bit more time to create it, it is faster than producing a full animation.

In few words: It is a simpler and faster solution than our ArXperience, but way more complete than a simple rendering.

We fully recommend it for sales centers, websites or any kind of events.

Do you have more questions about it? Feel free to contact us we will happily explore with you all the possibilities that this new tool gives!

2015: A year of growth

The end of the year is here, and we want to thank you for being part of it. But not only that, we take the time to remember all the things that made 2015 so special for ArX Solutions.

We are grateful for having this space in which we have a direct communication with you, and for many things that brought new experiences and growth to our team. Today we want to share them with you.

1. The new Madrid office

It seems like just yesterday that ArX Solutions opened offices in New York and Miami, but progress marches on as we continue to go global and plan for a strategic expansion into the European & Middle East market.

The Madrid office, in Pozuelo de Alarcón, started operations this 2015 under the leadership of Patricio Navarro, CEO and Co-founder of ArX Solutions, who is joined by a team of talented 3D artists and designers.

2. Turnberry Ocean Club: The Sales Gallery of the future was born
Real estate visitor centers are never going to be the same thanks to the Miami-based Turnberry Ocean Club, who opened its state-of-the-art sales gallery in Sunny Isles Beach this year.

Turnberry’s main goal throughout the collaboration with ArX Solutions was that we create a program that allows all the materials that we produce to be accessible via one platform. As a result, we developed the ArX multitouch interphase, which will be a viable tool for sales centers in any part of the world.

3. ArX Solutions nominated for SBJ 2015 Business of the Year Awards
The ArX Solutions team was honored to be one of this year’s finalists for the South Florida Business Journal 2015 Business of the Year Awards. Nearly 250 people attended the awards ceremony, which took place April 30 at the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame & Museum in Dania Beach.

4. ArX Solution’s renderings at The Real Deal South Florida Forum and Showcase 2015
ArX Solutions was an exhibitor at The Real Deal’s 2015 South Florida Forum & Showcase on Oct. 15. The event was extremely successful, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that almost every booth at the forum & showcase had at least one rendering done by ArX.

We love to see the creative ways our clients have to display our work!

5. The Real Deal NY
Over 3,500 real estate professionals attended The Real Deal’s New Development Showcase & Forum in New York, and we had the opportunity to show them our latest 3-D rendering products, which included animations, interactive renderings and real time solutions.

6. The Real Deal Broward: A great opportunity to showcase our work
were among the more than 2,000 real estate enthusiasts that mingled at The Real Deal’s Broward Forum and Showcase at the Design Center of the Americas in Dania, Florida.

In the booth of our Turnberry Ocean Club friends, we showcased the most advanced technology in 3-D animations and renderings in products that we designed for them.

We wish you a very happy 2016!

Our 2015 year-end celebration

Our Miami, Madrid and Buenos Aires offices had a lot to celebrate this end of the year.

2015 was a year of many of changes and growth for ArX, and we are really proud of having a great team not only professionally, but on the human side as well.

In Miami , like every year, we went on our year-end getaway, and we have to say that it was not only fun, but a great opportunity to get to know each other better.

We had 24 hours in which we arrived at Club Med on Friday afternoon, went to paddle board and sail on the hobby cat, played volleyball, had a dinner with all the team, toasted for this year, did our Secret Santa exchange, showed our best singing talents at the karaoke and danced!

In Madrid, our team went for a very nice and fun dinner to an Argentinian restaurant in Barrio de Letras, ate typical Argentinian food, and toasted for a great first year in our European office.

Our Buenos Aires team enjoyed the beautiful summer weather and took advantage of it in a fun picnic with their families in which they played football and ping pong.

There is no doubt, we really enjoyed our year-end getaway!

And if you are not yet a believer, just scroll down and see our pictures!

Happy Holidays to all of you!

The Magic Hour in 3D renderings

It requires a lot more than skills and a computer program in order to create beautiful and appealing renderings.

For us here at ArX Solutions, every rendering is a piece of art for which we strive to create the perfect lighting and the right composition. Now we want to let you in on a little secret to achieving the perfect lighting, it’s called the magic hour.

Yes, you read that right. There is a time of the day that we refer to as the magic hour in which everything looks more beautiful, peaceful and inspiring. It is that period shortly after sunrise or before sunset where the sun sits lower in the sky and the daylight gleams with soft hues of red.

During this very precise moment, we capture images of the location that we are working at to create the peaceful and relaxing feeling needed to make each project standout.

The magic hour creates the perfect warm lighting for each rendering and enhances the colors of the surrounding environment setting the scene for potential buyers.

Do you want to experience the magic for yourself? Keep scrolling down to see the magic hour at work in our renderings!

ArX Solution’s renderings at The Real Deal South Florida Forum and Showcase 2015

As you all know, ArX Solutions was an exhibitor at The Real Deal’s 2015 South Florida Forum & Showcase on Oct. 15. The event was extremely successful, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that almost every booth at the forum & showcase had at least one rendering done by ArX.

Our work was beautifully displayed in the Privé, Turnberry, Trump, Related and Paramount booths, among others.

Just take a look:

The Real Deal event, which was held at the Moore Building in Miami’s Design District, was a great opportunity to say hello to good old friends and to present our latest product, ArXSolutions 360.

If you didn’t get to see it with your own eyes, ArXSolutions 360 allows you to virtually walk through a property with the use of a tablet, giving you a full 360 degree experience. The device enables you to share your product with clients around the world

Just like last’s year edition, we were honored to be a part of one of the most important South Florida real estate events and to have the opportunity to invite our clients to see our products and just have fun with them. Not only is what we do a great marketing and sales tool, but also a very fun experience.

Stay tuned to learn more about ArXSolutions360, and scroll down to check out the fun moments that we had at this impressive event!

Have a fun and spooky Halloween!

Definitely Halloween is one of our favorite days of the year, and this time we made it even more fun celebrating with our offices in Madrid and Buenos Aires.

We had great costumes like a huge ginger cookie (yeah, very creepy!) a scary clown, a not-so-scary gaucha, and even a pregnant nun!

Wigs, masks, sunglasses… Do you want to see how much fun we had? Just keep scrolling. Boo!