CCCT with Dijam Panigrahi, Co-Founder from GridRaster Video

CCCT sat down with Dijam Panigrahi, Co-Founder of GridRaster. They are a strong team of passionate technologists, with a combined experience of 50+ years in building, deploying and taking to market next-generational mobile and network-based products. They have shaped some of the defining technologies such as 3G/4G/VOIP/Optical, having previously worked at Qualcomm, Apple, Broadcom and Texas Instruments. They are using their deep expertise in computer graphics, cloud computing, AI, wireless infrastructure, optical, mobile and software development (14 patents) to shape the future of next defining computing platform – Mixed Reality. This is the wave of the future so enjoy the conversation.

www.gridraster.com

#ai #artificialintelligence #virtualreality #augmentedreality #integrators #software #technology

Transcription

Hey there, Commercial Construction Coffee Talk fans. Thanks for chiming in. My name’s David Course, and I’m your host. I’m also the publisher and editor of Commercial Construction and Renovation magazine. This is what it used to look like. Oh, I’ve gotten a—actually, I got one that was mailed to me. This is the archive, March April 2015. Mr. Joe Mafa, president of Riley and Hotel Group, Joe, thanks for gracing the cover. This was a good looking issue. And I always look and see what my picture was here. I had my lacrosse shirt on. I have more lacrosse stuff going here, but that’s what I was looking like back there. My hair—I had a little more hair, and it was a little darker. I’m getting gray up there, so in eight years, I’ve—you know, I’m trying to keep it up here, but you know, every day it gets a little less. So, what are you gonna do? But sure do it. Yup, love holding the magazine in my hand, but we went digital in August of 2021 and haven’t looked back since. It’s been a wild ride on the Wild Wild Web, and being digital, and don’t miss the post office or the printer and all that good stuff. But it’s always nice to hold a magazine in the hand. We still have a print-on-demand server, so if anybody is in the magazine or gets featured and they want to get a copy, we can do it because we still lay it out, you know, with tires and all that kind of stuff, but we’re, you know, we’re a digital guy now. So, but I want to thank everybody out there that’s tuning in, and if you—you know, you’re hitting the website and consuming our content. I know we had 29 million people hit the website. I’m just looking at my stats the other day, and if I keep my momentum up, I’ll probably break 30 million this year, which would be great. And we have some software tools to get rid of all the bots and all that stuff, so my stats are legit when I say what they are. And it’s nice to see, you know, all the unique users coming back. I always tell people you should go back; you should come to the site once a week and see what’s going on because we post stuff every day on all the channels. And, you know, listen, commercial construction, facilities, real estate in the sector, it’s just—it’s a wild ride. The day goes like that, and boom, the next day comes, and all sorts of stuff can happen. So, marking it as a bookmark, you know, once or twice a month is a really good place to go and just to see what’s kind of going on. So, I want to thank all you for out there for—you know, being loyal visitors as making CCR magazine a destination site.

Listen, today’s almost the weekends. Thursday here in Atlanta, and it is sizzling hot. Not a cloud in the sky, hot and humid, dog days of summer. And school’s gonna start here in about less than two weeks here in the South, where they get out in the middle of May and then they go back in early August. So, up north where I’m from, outside of Philly, it’s Labor Day weekend, and then you went back to school. So, you go to school until June, get the summer out, and then you go back in early September. But here, the buses will be back on the road, kids at the bus stop, and all in all—you know, I’ll take another month of the heat, maybe a little hot in September, but then it starts cooling down so nice here in the fall. It’s just really, really nice once the humidity gets out of here. But it’s really, really hot, so if you’re out there on the construction site, make sure you’re drinking lots of water, stay hydrated. So, with that said, gotta—I’ve got a really cool guest. A publicist reached out to me, and I was reading the press release, and, you know, I’m a digital guy these days, so I’ve taken some boot camps, and I’m learning all this stuff. And this gentleman’s out in the Bay Area in the tech area. His name is Dijon Panagrabi. Did I say it right? Yeah, that’s a bike ride. That’s all right. There you go. And he’s the co-founder of a platform called Grid Raster. And that’s correct. Hey, thank you. And it’s basically—he helps construction companies, and it could be end users or people that are affiliated to the field.

Technology progresses in the AR and the VR, which is augmented reality and virtual reality. In the metaverse comes into play construction companies really need to really know what the technology can do and being at the forefront might be able to land you know projects but also help your projects as well along the way. That’s why I had to jam on to talk about his platform and you know you know where it came from and where it’s going to go. And like I said, it might be something that you might want to look at because being at the beginning of anything you know it’s just like Walmart. They had they had one store. So if you were at the beginning of that stage way back when in Bentonville, Arkansas, and now look where they are today, look where you’d be. So here’s an opportunity to find out about new technology and you know see where it might be able to you know assist you and maybe you know scale your business and so forth. So to Jean, the way this is going to work is we’re going to do it in three parts. You’re gonna tell your story where you grew up, you know life, kids, where you went to school and how you ended up in the Bay Area at GridRaster. And then we’ll talk about the last three years of the roller coaster that we’ve all been on and lessons learned that some of our listeners out there are commercial construction Coffee Talk might find of interest. And then you’ll leave one positive thought or phrase your contact info and then we’ll close this episode down. So with that said the floor is yours tell us your story and thanks David thanks for having me here. Pleasure yeah I I it’s a long journey. Um I need to get back a little bit okay so yeah so pretty much like I I have always been um you know intrigued by science and engineering throughout so that’s what kind of I landed up um being part of um an Institute I think everybody knows right now like um Indian Institute of Technology right you know a lot of the CEOs you would see today like all around the world really have some background coming from there. So for example, Sundar Pichai who is the CEO of Google he is my alumni so context yeah. Uh so yeah I’m sorry I I kind of uh did my engineering over there mostly on the electrical electronics side of thing.

I’ve always been fascinated with all that there around um the the stuff that you’re doing the instruments and the tools and everything else um and then I I kind of landed up in one of the companies that everybody knows that’s Texas Instruments right so um pretty deep Tech working on like maybe the first headset that you would have ever had calculator the calculator starting from there. Yeah, you you got it right. So the calculator is starting from the calculators to even the first dual used smartphones everything basically if you ever had a Nokia Ericsson motor any of that like you pretty much had that TI chipset there. So I kind of worked for six seven years on those um you know high-tech background like nobody sees kind of a thing futuristic um and I did work there for for a while and then we got some really great products coming out from there um so I I personally for me the journey from from The Medium like enabling voice and then enabling video enabling the Voiceover IP that whole generation how that Medium has evolved over the years and something that I have been part of throughout uh in summer whether it’s Texas instrument freescale semiconductors then getting into the Telecom world like the in India the Airtel of the world and all of that I I kind of made my journey to enable this new immersive medium and that’s what kind of landed me here in in the Bay Area um and we started the company back on back in 2014 actually conceived the idea.

In 2014, but formally kind of started that in 2015 as a company. And uh, and it has been a roller coaster ride for us. Um, a lot of that work that I have done over the last 20 years kind of is a great culmination that is happening here and the company. I mean, we’re taking advantage of other advancements and so not only like you’re enabling AR but how are you leveling urging the technological Improvement that is happening on the headsets, the network, the cloud, and even now the AI, right? So we’re kind of getting it all together to serve different industry whether it’s Aerospace defense construction Automotive so honestly the technology I think this is this is the technology which empowers the front line workers we have seen technology which have powers the desk workers enough of that right now but this is something that brings such an ammunition to the Frontline workers it’s just mind-boggling. Yeah, yeah listen I I had a Texas instrument calculator I’m giving my age away. I also learned you know when I was in junior high school we had you know at shop class and we used the slide rule so I’ve progressed you know through the area now I’m a digital guy and I’m I’m doing all this stuff and it uh technology right now is it warp speed um I’m in this I’m in this uh digital class I’ve taken three boot camps this year and I’ve learned all sorts of stuff click funnels get resign all that stuff and then I did I did the AI and chatting and and now I’m in uh this Tick Tock class and learning how to you know you know scale my business and I’ve got you know hundreds and hundreds of videos and all this stuff and tick tock’s kind of the new uh it’s like the new platform where people are you know marketing you know it’s just unbelievable.

I mean I’m up to almost 12 000 followers and you know all over the world and I don’t and I just put up maybe four or five videos and it’s insane it’s just you know and now I’m gonna get them to opt in I’m gonna Market to them and and I’m putting in these applications on my magazine with cloning my voice and you know making my magazine interactive and trying to do all these things but it’s so exciting but like I said my uh you know technology you know my instructor said hey you know by the time you finish this class everything you learn is going to be obsolete because everything’s moving so quickly you know whether it’s AI or just technology but you’ll have the foundation and uh in fact like you’re you know your your software Tech guys so I you know for my funnels and stuff you know I had click funnels I had a get response cloudflare uh click magic keep uh you know I have all this stuff and all the designs I must have like 15 different things 15 different so now I’ve just so these designers that are uh hooked up with these guys and a lot of these guys have been eight nine ten figure I mean we’re talking and they’re all and they’re all young they’re all real guys anyway they have this new platform that I’m going in and they put everything into one so I’m getting rid of all that stuff and I got one login and the biggest thing is is that on the one platform everything is is in there zapier too kind of like uh anyway everything works together before if you had one little thing not clicked or just set up correctly nothing would work and uh it was you know it just not frustrating but it can be aggravating you know you have to look at and go where you know what don’t I have check why isn’t this working and uh so These Guys these guys were agency and software dudes they said and they put it together I’m like thank you so much for doing this for me because it’s so much easier to log into one and and but technology you know it’s it’s just crazy you know and listen I was a print face-to-face guy so when uh you know March 2020 came and everything got shut down everybody had to make reasons.

I was just lucky I had a digital magazine forever I just ignored it I had it there because if someone wanted to go there they could have it and uh now uh you know I’m just addicted to data and learning and uh a lot of my visitors that come to our our site ninety percent of them find me on. Google on page one. I’ve never bought a word because I have all this content, so I built it up, you know, organically and um they get into the backside, they come to the back end. I say it’s the back door of my house, they come to the back door through Google and then you know they look and they see other stuff and it’s just uh I learned something new every day. The day I stopped learning is the day I should go do something else, you know, in my opinion am I right am I right? No, I think if you’re somebody who’s kind of closely kind of following technology not really getting uh what I say, I think overall by that I know it can run at very speed but for your purposes as long as you know what you’re doing there’s enough that will be happening that will keep you busy forever oh yeah oh yeah, you know, and of course they’re always trying to come up with new stuff to pitch you and uh yeah I was funny I had a guy that sent me he was doing follow-up he sent me this thing of hey I do this newsletter you can do this and that and and it can talk to all the other software programs he called me up today and I said brand listen I kept your stuff I’m in you know and I’ll take a look at it but really you know timing your business is everything and uh you know if it’s applicable and it’ll save me time and it’s worthwhile uh you know we’ll go for it but at this point you know right now uh you know I’m doing all this other stuff I’m going to production for my magazine so it uh uh but really technology it’s just an amazing thing you know this phone this is your gateway to the whole world this is the most important tool that you can have right here personal email and phone if you have that you can you can be whoever you want to be on the web there’s eight billion people on the planet they’re all on the web and they’re all doing stuff and uh it’s you know what whatever you’re marketing you know good raster you’re marking my magazine whatever it might be so the it’s just an amazing amazing uh I’m enlightened every day that I I go and I look at stuff.

So uh but that’s really why I had you on there because I’m interested in in the AR and the VR and the metaverse and you know you know buying you know digital real estate and you know all of these things that are out there so let’s uh you know give a give give our audience out there a commercial construction Coffee Talk kind of just uh you know you know a ballpark you know as far as what grid raster really does in terms of you know construction companies and then we’ll talk about like the last three years and things that you went through that our listeners you know can take a couple of your knowledge nuggets and say hey that was a really good idea why didn’t we do that so please expand absolutely yeah um I think one one of the one of the easiest way I can put like grid raster is like we have all gone through this journey in the in the movie world right like we had at some point of time you know in order to watch a movie you had a DVD player you used to get the CDs put it there and play it and see the movie and you know get his own brand and just or if you really like it you buy it and keep it that’s how it has been right and then came somebody called Netflix right which allowed you to kind of stream those movies without even having any of those DVDs physically right so in a way like um uh why I kind of gave the example is today like it’s the world in terms of getting those experiences on on the uh on all these headsets whether it’s a VR headset or IR headset today you invariably go and download those stuff put it on the device then you watch whatever you need to do or you get some some of the work done when it’s on the Enterprise side right.

So what we are envisioning that that okay this this is something particularly for the medium that this medium is almost like you know uh you putting you remember the days When you have to have the buffering thing that used to come when you used to download something and then something happened at the back end and all of that went away. That back end was what we are kind of doing in it in a way for the immersive side, right? So for example, the buffering thing went away because there is a company called Akamai who came in and they brought all the storage closer to you where the content is and that way they can quickly over the network be able to provide you the content that you’re looking for. And but there is at the back end there’s a lot of algorithms that are running to ensure that this really happens. The same problem is going to be the problem is maybe going to be 100 fold when it comes to the immersive medium compared to the video because all of a sudden when you put this device on front of you, you’re not no more looking at like a in a 14-inch screen it could be 100-inch screen right you’re right in front of there and you’re trying to mimic that I’m I’m creating a realistic environment for you so every pixel has to be picture-perfect like absolutely right. So in order to do that, there’s a huge amount of computing power that is required there’s a huge amount of storage that is required right and we believe that and and the need for the devices is to be something like this devices of today is pretty bulky yeah yeah, it’s pretty heavy it’s it’s not something that you know a large mass of people is ever going to you at it so what is going to go is it is going to go this direction if it has to go in this direction and we know there’s a huge compute need that is required to be there the Computing um the processors the battery the memory and everything all of that has to come from somewhere so the way we see it is that somewhere is nothing but it’s the cloud right.

Not the cloud the way everybody knows today that you know there is a some big form of a service where like everything is there and you basically get some no that’s not the cloud anymore the way the cloud is going to happen is that they’re going to be like distributed in nature like there’ll be chunks of servers that’ll be there pretty close to you like maybe the base station of your Telecom tower that could be a huge server um a farm which is there that’s the only way you can really ensure that you are able to bring in the compute resources that is required but also bring in the latency basically once you move your head the scene should move along with you if all those things has to happen the trip has to be very small like cannot be more than 20 milliseconds right so this is what is basically at the back end that is happening not many people are aware of but this is the infrastructure that has been laid out at the back end what we are doing is we taking advantage of this you know disruption that is happening on the infrastructure piece on the cloud side of the thing and this drive towards the devices to become this we basically kind of build our algorithms so that we can bring in the Netflix kind of experience streaming from all this new Cloud environment which is building up so that you can consume any kind of immersive experiences seamlessly without any latency and without the need for kind of having some bulky device like this so that’s that’s our goal like and that’s what we are working towards and primarily it will reach to the consumer at some stage but as with most of the technology like it will find its ways to the Enterprise so you most likely most of the people may get introduced to this like a PC right most of the people got introduced through their office work or their you know the part of their work and then slowly they got we got our personal computers right.

That’s the journey that’s pretty much is going to happen for here as well so so talk about like uh you know like we’re in the construction sector you know so build maintain that’s kind of our you know hat store. But today, unless they travel, they can’t do that. Today you can bring them into that virtual environment and get whatever you know advice or any, you know, look or the review of that anywhere in the world, right? So you do that even if you go to the site once you, the site walkthrough that they do, right? Like, do you, does it even, like, we know maybe the look of it it can fit, but can I take that even, Ricky? Because you can now, today, map using a hololens or even a tablet, you can map the environment and bring that environment back to your construction 3D model that you already have it and try to see like if there is anything specific that can bother because of the site and the location, right? You can simulate each and every element of the store in the virtual environment and just see that like, would it impact for whatever reasons, all of that variables you can really create and you can even see that, okay, would that pose, you know, all that in the pipings or, I mean, all that construction elements that are the electrical wirings and all of that, is there anything that’s going to pose a problem when you’re going to kind of do the maintenance of that, right? All of that actually you can simulate end to end. Even if you take a decision that what that store is going to look like, right? That’s the first piece. So that allows you, you know, saves you a ton of cost if you detect all those mistakes down the road, right? That’s first. Yeah, up front. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, it can, so practically, you could eliminate maybe like the usually like we have seen in this industry, like, for example, in Aerospace industry, they have seen like seven out of the ten issues that really creep in, you know, after the aircrafts are made. Just, just it’s, it’s primarily it could have been taken care of at the design stage itself. And the and all of this are high Capital, you know, um, all the construction, Aerospace, all of their pretty high Capital intensive, you know, um, sectors, right?

And anything you build, if you don’t take it early in the cycle, it can cost you a ton, right? So, that’s that’s that’s what, like, that’s the biggest thing that’s kind of happening there. The second is like once, once you are there, right? Like, in the construction, work kind of begins, you can actually use the because you already have what my construction site need to look like, right? You can use those in holographic inspection, basically you can use those headsets to look at how this construction is happening and you can actually compare that is the progress happening the way that it should be, right? Today, like somewhere like the drones and all they use this can give you a com, you know, a spatial accuracy that which doesn’t exist if you don’t have the depth cameras and all, right? We can, it can give you a spatial accuracy and that you can do track the projects how that kind of is coming up and there are our dashboards that are companies who made dashboards that automatically fetches all of the way you got everything integrated, right? It’s similar to that, right? It can tell you how the progress is, it can even detect that, okay, the, the, the structure should look, the ideal structure is this but I see a deviation there it can actually highlight without the visual inspection of the humans that, okay, I see a deviation because you’re creating a digital twin of it then you’re trying to compare them so once you are able to compare them you can tell no the I see a difference here from how it should be you can catch all of that pretty early in the cycle which ensures once you have this entire site, you know, even done like what two other construction process it, it will kind of expedite that process as well, right? And ensure that there are no more, no, um, mistakes that are happening and which, like anywhere the humans are involved there is going to be some mistake I mean to err is human, the, the saying goes, right? But it can eliminate a lot of that and this is huge particularly for this kind of industry and of course like after that, like even in during operation of whether you’re talking of retail and all now you’re seeing like Walmart has almost, uh, mandated like any employee who come in to work for Walmart they go through a VR training, right? The VR training, the, the beauty of of this medium is that this is the next best thing to you being doing something on job, right? But some of the mistakes or the corner cases that may happen which you ideally don’t want them to happen, right?

How do you train people in a visceral way that you know they respond to those scenarios, right? Whether it’s a, it’s a fire that happens or there is some robbery atom that happens then how somebody should behave or how they need to, all of that you can really simulate in a VR environment without risking anybody, risking assets, risking, um, employees and obviously on a day-to-day basis because you are training them in the VR environment you’re basically creating a visceral feeling, it’s, it’s almost like you’re doing it in the field it kind of the, the, the signals that you generate on the mind, uh, is exactly same as if you are doing it physically there so training has been humongous like and that’s something that’s been scaling in a big way and there is a reason for it, um, overall because uh, you know, it’s it’s kind of little decoupled from the real day-to-day operation training and as the technology kind of matures and people and a lot of times it is about people having the confidence on the system right, uh, technology once you start developing the, uh, confidence on the technology you begin to kind of incorporate across the across the world and that’s what we’re going to happen and that if somebody who’s not going to be using, uh, matter was or whatever we talk about I mean they’re going to fill the pinch very soon, yeah, yeah like my my opinion share designer so we’re building our empty nester house on the lake so we’re, you know, we’re working on getting, uh, you know permit is going to take a couple months and we got cleared out we are our architect, uh, she she designed it and it was in 3D it was on Cad and you know we’ve got the blueprints and you know we’re acting as the contractor uh but I know my wife would be you know if she had a pair of glasses that she could go in there and like she’s like she goes on a color consultation yeah she can she can take the her software that she does and she can say hey this is what uh sky blue will look like but if you go with the baby blue that you know but it’d be great that if that if you know the way I Envision it is uh she would go on a call a consult and then she would have a glasses and then she could be in the room with the client and say hey this is what we’re going to do in the kitchen.

Or the pictures you know and I was thinking maybe we would do this what do you think and the other person’s in there looking am I right yeah yeah absolutely that’s that’s exactly what I’m saying so you you want to give them an example okay okay I want the grill to look like this right and you basically said okay maybe not how about this you you you it’s not just trying to the way we do so it on the pages so think of it we are actually having something physically right on front of you and doing it just you know you’re just clicking your face yeah yeah no this is not only like the not only the it’s it’s a huge like um what is The Confidence from a customer angle and that they feel they are getting what they want right and Even from a, uh, from whoever is kind of trying to sell the interior designer and all that it’s for them a better way to shrink the cycle of conviction, right? So you basically remove the doubts by giving them how things exactly will look like after it’s actually built, right? Because a lot of times we have seen surprises, right, when I get even I got couple of my, um, apartments, uh, you know the same thing, okay, no this is not what I thought about, right, and they’ll surprise quite a few, right, and, and I, I thought it should be like this, you know, you can completely eliminate all of that, yeah. Um, so talk about, you know, you started your firm at 14, you know, uh, then you know March 2020 came, everything kind of shut down, now we’re three years later, uh, talk about, you know, obviously you were, you were working like probably going crazy, you know, the last three years, you know, just weathering the storm per se but now this is actually coming into the mainstream, I mean, that goal so talk about, you know, how you weather the storm and maintain your, your, uh, you know, your consciousness of your in your direction of hey we’ve got to keep going this way but we also have to kind of deal with whatever, you know, everybody else was dealing with, yeah, you know that those three years were I mean obviously nobody was prepared for that, right? So when when these things happen, right, so and, um, you know, same thing for us, uh, uh, luckily the technologies that we are working was what kind of yeah, you guys were already set up the day, yeah, that’s what I’m saying, right.

So like I know I mean it doesn’t sound good but I mean overall the whole you know, uh, three years was pretty bad overall for everybody but if you look at for the AR and VR industry as such it it was the most decisive thing that really happened so everybody if you run a poll with most people who have in ARVR you tell them like what is the technology this thing that happened that moved the needle the most and you give him an option you know the the covet or whatever you give them the option I think 70 will say that the needle really move because of that right because a lot of thing what was happening was before prior to that uh it was mostly like you know people were dabbling okay this is a new technology and all of that and I have seen in my 20 years that there are two critical thing that needs to be in place if you really want any new technology to be adopted first is obviously the relevance right there should be a value okay the second which a lot of times what we a lot of people say timing right it’s the urgency right when covet happened there was like so many places they absolutely didn’t know what to do right you cannot travel but I still have a medical equipment to be taken care of my maintenance guy can’t travel because that’s it though no more traveling is happening like everybody’s distancing right the tool that could really save you is AR right you wear the hololens like you can really you can really turn somebody who is not even have even once kind of repair a A or kind of fix any problem on a on a an instrument and where give them a hollow lens and overlay instructions tell them you just have to tell him take this take this latch out take this tool remove this it’s like step wise right.

And this this was huge right and all of a sudden you see that okay the business still has to run and that’s where like a lot of that traction like move from people dabbling with some POCs and pilots to really strategically thinking about how they can incorporate the tool part of the entire digital transformation and that is I think one of the biggest uh push that really gave ARVR as an industry overhaul that where we are now kind of able to move that for us luckily there was um you know the there’s a lot of work actually we were doing with the Department of Defense as well at that time and um I think that although the macroeconomics on on overall the whether it’s all in gas or automotive and all of that kind of really crumble but somehow um you know we were able to see that through pretty fairly pretty well and once and slowly begin to get more and more engagement and traction as the things kind of progress and now I think I would say we are pretty well placed with all the engagements that we have. Well, I could definitely see the military, you know, with heads-up displays and all that and then you know if you could, you know, put your pilot and your, you know, they’re, they’re flying a 200 million dollar plane and you know what things can we make it easier because the pilots got to go through all these different decisions even though the computers there help him he’s still you know basically there and uh the same, you know, and you listen drone technology has just been, you know, it it’s amazing what you know and my son he works for Boeing so he’s a he’s an amp so he’s on the flight line he fixes all the 787s that come off the line before they’re delivered and anyone wants to come back.

But some of the stuff that you’ll look at they should have caught in the beginning of the manufacturing page that you know if there’s stuff to take a tweak if they had the AR and the are in there which they do I’m sure you know you know but the bottom line is it you’re still going to have those things that come up even though you know it’s like me I can look at my my magazine 500 times before we post it or when I had when I was printing it and then I’ll after it’s done I’ll find a typo and it’ll be glaring and I’ll be like I’ve looked at it 500 times how come you know so you’re always going to have that kind of stuff that’s gonna come nothing’s gonna be perfect but you know it’s like I always just think you know I use AI this example you know if you’re if you’re building a a high story building and all all the ac ducts are all the same way if a human puts it in there it might be straight but it’s not going to be perfectly straight but if you had an AI and a robot doing it all those ribs are going to be perfect you know or they’re going to be a lot they’re going to be like a millimeter you know I mean you know so I always use that example as uh you know you could do it but uh you can use it to improve your efficiency and then find all the little things that are are they’re going to come up if you didn’t know it they’re going to come up but yeah always going to be soft and as tucked out you know maybe down the road it’ll be 100 150 perfect you know but unlike anything you build it you buy it and you’re like oh wow why did I get this one I should have gotten this why did I get the bench seat my truck I wanted club seats or you know so those kind of things uh you’re just gonna have to deal with but uh you know for anybody out there you know like I but before you know over the last let’s see I’m gonna say the last 10 years right when the big goggles were coming I’d be walking a trade show I would stop at those booths and put them on because I wanted to see what it was all about.

And uh but I’m like the kind of guy that will not buy it right away because it’s just like the new truck that comes out there’s always going to be something that’s gonna be a recall or whatever I like things to like hang for a year year and a half get the bugs out and then I’ll come in and get it you know but I still want to dabble and I want to understand it and uh so that’s what I’m doing now in the digital thing I’m kind of looking I’m looking like Okay, this is really cool. I could really you know add this here, do this here, this will cut that out and um, uh, so that’s why I had you on there. So if you’re a construction guy or an end user than an architect engineer and you have not looked at this as an efficiency thing, you’re gonna look like if you’re in the forefront and you’re going to talk to them to clients to land their business and you know be their their architecture of choice and so forth or whatever might be in that building process facility maintenance whatever it this is going to be a total tool in your in an asset in your tool belt, uh, no pun intended and um, so if someone wanted to get in touch with you and kind of just bounce some questions off you or say hey I’ve tried this but we ran into this how would someone reach out to you to talk to you about uh, GridRaster? No, they can absolutely go to our website like which is uh, you know www.gridraster.com and there there is a contact form they can absolutely reach and they can also even reach me directly it’s pretty straightforward my name Digim, Digim at the rate my company name gridroster.com that’s it very simple and and and a lot of one thing that I basically leave everybody like when I when I talk about uh, this medium is that go try it first because this is something no words no images no videos can really to really make the impression what it is unless you really put on those headsets go there are a lot of meetups everywhere that happens on the VR just make an attempt go there just put it on I’m telling you the circumstance because the we we are kind of coming as more like a service provider trying to solve a problem for them the real problem really they understand right once they put it on the ideas that that will kind of stir from that very basic interaction.

I think that is the game changer like that’s why the conviction begin to build and you imagine that where things are can really happen right and the other thing with as with any technology there are going to be glitches like with everybody right it’s still kind of shaping up as as a person we are all nobody is perfect right we are evolving same with technology but look at the value that you can create even with all the constraints that are there and what one we should be looking at and that’s what we try to say even with any um you know industry partner that we work with let’s not let’s not treat it as something that will solve all the problem no it is not it’s can do certain things fantastically well let’s just focus it there and slowly things will evolve and I mean I’ll leave with that thought all right Hey listen I’m right there at my you know my thought is Fear Can you got to get rid of the fear that you know you can’t be scared of new technology and doing new things you just got to go try it and and listen I always look at uh, you know the light bulb look how many times that that they failed getting the light bulb to work you know or the telephone I can look to you know the cotton gin I can look at all these different things that were developed over the years you know uh you know through the Industrial Age and and but people make mistakes you got to learn from them but here you can eliminate a lot of mistakes because it’s it’s reality you know so uh I’m right there with you you know it uh you know get rid of the fear go try it make you know and something it’s not for everybody but eventually it’s going to be because that’s the way things are going to be done right yeah yeah absolutely it’s it’s basically this right okay you want to go from a location A to B there are many options that are there for you to go.

You can really walk you can really take it you know your your you know just bike it there okay you can take a you know car there are many options which are there find what it suits you but each of the each of them has their advantages and disadvantages just choose for yourself like what works for you yeah so I’m going to land it today I’m Getting in the car because this is air conditioning. I’m not getting on the bike. I’m going to sweat my tail off, okay?

Hey, if anybody wants to get in touch with me, you can email me at David C at ccrdash-mag.com. And first of all, we want you to hit this button so we can get the algorithms out there and find and then make sure everybody knows about Grid Raster and Jamie, you know? So we really want you to hit that like button, so we appreciate that. Content, just like, you know, my guest today, his publisher sent me something about, you know, the company, and I just kind of happened to be kind of in that direction that I’m going, and I thought, “Wow, this would be great to have everybody out there,” because, listen, there are contractors out there that don’t even have smartphones these days, you know? And they’re very, you know, old equipment or whatever, but eventually, everybody’s going to have to adapt to it. I was always a PC guy. I mean, and then I got my Mac, and then my son was all Apple laptop, and then finally, I got my Apple, you know? And so now I’m proficient in both of them, you know? And I like doing certain things on one and certainly so trying different things to see what you like and what you don’t like. But if you’re in construction, commercial construction, and you’re rolling out all this stuff, and, you know, you’re tied to the budget, and you’re tied to the mistakes, and you’re tied to the wins, here is something that’s going to be in the future is going to be able to make your life so, is, you like I said, you could sit in your office. Just picture this. You’re sitting in your office, or my readers up here yet, so here just like our guest has, “Hey, you know, let me go check this project out,” you know? And then you can sit up here and you can just kind of look around in your office and go, “Oh, there it is.” Am I right? That’s the way it’s gonna work, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You cannot make it to all the sites, but you could be there and still be able to see it in such a way that as if you are there on the site.

Yeah, yeah. So, I’m listening. I love technology now, and so it’s an amazing thing, and you always want to try new stuff, you know? And I always tell people, this is, you know, I’m gonna ask you to leave a positive thought or phrase, but I always tell people, you know, the day I stopped learning is the day I should go do something else. So, you know, you gotta go with the flow because this is the direction that it’s gonna go. You’re gonna be forced into it, or you can tip your toe in the water and then, you know, maybe put your fall foot in, you know? Or you can go full blast and figure it all out. But this, you know, listen, here’s a guy on the leading front of it. If you want to learn more of it, contact him, you know? He’s easy to get to, and so if you wanted to leave one positive thought before we say goodbye, what would it be to our listeners out there, Commercial Construction Coffee Talk?

I think I’ll just say this, like, with anything, the anticipation or the anxiety of doing it is actually worse than actually doing it. So, I’ll say just do it, and you’ll see the, the belts of it, yeah. Or I’ll, I’ll bridge myself, and, you know, just like I said, if, you know, it, technology is for, you know, it’s scary, but you gotta try, so you gotta get rid of the fear, just go for it, make your mistakes, and you’re going to figure out, and there’ll be probably other competitors that try to, “Oh, mine does this,” and all the new bells and whistles, but as long as you know what the foundation is, that’s the most important thing. And, you know, and learning, you know, and having fun while you do it, you know, and even if you make mistakes, it’s okay, because that’s how we all get better, yeah, you gotta, you gotta make mistakes. I’m an athlete guy, I had to, you know, I had to learn how to throw a lacrosse ball, you know, that’s just practice, you know? Yeah, it’s one of those things, so, yeah, um, well, this has been great, you know, anybody out there, like I said, if you want to learn about this, and you’re thinking about it or have you seen it and go, “What the heck are those things?” Reach out to this gentleman, he’s here.

He’s been on the forefront of this technology, and down the road, I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, and I said, “Look, I want you to call me back in five years and talk about what restaurants look like. You’re not going to recognize them. You might, but you’re not going to recognize, and they’re going to look different, just like everything, all going to be different, you know?” And AI, hey, the genie’s out of the bottle, you can’t stick it back in the tune. Oh man, it’s here, man, it’s gonna, you know, it’s amazing stuff. So even dabble in that, you know, go get your little account for 15, 20 hours a month, you could do all sorts of stuff with that, and it learns from you. You can teach it how you want to run your business and how you want to get your answers, that’s what’s the coolest thing about AI, you know, it’s artificial intelligence, but it’s intelligence, but you’re going to give it the intelligence. So hopefully I’m saying the right things here because it’s just what I’ve learned. So, you know, anyway, absolutely. So each of them has a tool to kind of sisters it’s up to us that how do we want to use it and really like by using it the right way, I mean, we can augment our experiences or in general, the real world, like make it even much better and get some of the tedious stuff repeated start not necessarily anybody wants to do, just get it out of the way and just do focus on the things that we really want to do, right? Okay, so that’s it. All right, so before we sign off, two things, all right, you’re on that construction site, we want you to be safe, okay? And listen, we could do the VR thing and you can, you know, see how you can make yourself say or say further on it, but we want you to be safe, so you go home, see your family, eat dinner, and then get up and do it the next day, and it’s really hot out there, okay?

So if you’re in a hot state down like I am in Georgia or wherever you might be, drink lots of water, stay hydrated, because, you know, dehydration, oh man, headaches and all that stuff, it’s still worse. So we want you to be safe on the site, we want you to stay hydrated, so drink lots of liquid. So Dijon pleasure meeting you, I want you in person when I get out to the West Coast on one of my trips, and I’ll shake your hand and not do any fist pumps and all that stuff, and you give me the virtual thing and show me, you know, how I can implement with my magazine and stuff, you know? It’s, I’m just thinking about all the things that I could use that for just in general, even my wife, you know? Hey, let’s check this out, you know, you know, you see the CAD, what wouldn’t be cool just to sit in their consultation put your glasses on and have your client right there and looking at it versus just a CAD drawing and it, it’s amazing stuff that’s come down the plex, that’s why I had him, you know, the jam on here today, and we really appreciate you giving us all of your feedback, so say goodbye from the Bay Area, goodbye for everybody, and you all have a wonderful day. Ed, yeah, and I’m gonna sign off here from Sugar Hill, about 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta, just below the Beaufort Dam in Lake Lanier, and it looks like I need to get out in a boat tonight, I got to get out on the boat, I’ve been on the boat all week, and, uh, cool off in the water. So with that said, everybody, have a great rest of the Thursday, the weekend’s coming up, and listen, time’s flying, we’re in two three two four, and before you know it, it’s going to be Labor Day, and then you got Halloween, and they got Thanksgiving before you know it, we’re gonna be ringing in 2024. You know, and then VR is going to be all over the place, so, you know, get used to it because it’s coming. So, Dijon, pleasure, I look forward to meeting you in person, and everybody out there, we will see you next time on another episode of Commercial Construction Coffee Talk. Thank you so much. Shazam, that this was awesome, thank you, pleasure, pleasure all mine, yeah, love to host you here sometime when you come and show you some of our work, like, you know you’re going to love it. Oh no, listen, I take everybody out on that, so you can’t take it back, you just said it, you know, so we got a date, all right, absolutely, all right, ciao, we’ll see you.