BIMx
Integrated, context-sensitive 2D & 3D building project navigation, which helps even non-professionals find their way in a full BIM project. It was nominated as the best app for architects, released on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows. It was first released with the first iPad in 2010, then later on iPhone as well. In 2014 it was installed on all iPads in the biggest AppStore in Boston.
The first release was 3D only, then the next big version had 2D documentation in it as well. It was a breakthrough in many ways - showing 40-story building documentation with all the details at that time small storage without a crash was already a huge step, but the best part is that it is fast as hell.
It is available on Android and desktop as well.
WHAT
iOS and Android app
WHERE
Graphisoft
WHEN
2010 - 2015
First release on the first iPad, consequent releases regularly
My Contribution
I lead the design at every level: it was an end-to-end design exercise from concept to detail. I was working together with the developers from the concept phase until the release. We have chased algorithms for speed tile visualization and spent countless hours prioritizing the finest details to give the best experience to the users. I introduced the second big version BIMx Docs in Las Vegas in front of a 300+ crowd.
For the second version, I coordinated 2 really talented designers who worked for me and they designed the browser details, the open dialogs, and the download, and upload flows, which integrate the overall smooth experience with perfection. 2 other graphic designers made the help-drawings - which are also a piece of art. I think the best way to explore it is to simply download it to your phone - there is a free version of it.
Challenges
On the road, we had lots of challenges. Why, how, to whom, to the deepest details of the icon represent it, for what price - the list is huge. We were one of the first iPad apps - no standards to follow in Navigation at that time or anywhere. My favorite challenge was the essence of the app: how to understand the concept by exploring the 2d in the context of 3d? It is already a challenge to have a whole model in the memory if it is not a single-family house but a more robust hotel. Our promise is that we help the user to understand the 2d documentation, by making it contextual. First, in the really limited screen, the user should be able to bring up the list of available layouts (which we determined by the 3d position of the tapped surface), list those in the right order (if the user looks more at the facade, they probably interested in the elevation and not a floor plan, but being in a room and looking ahead should bring up the floor plan) and then nicely and smoothly run an automatic cutting plane to show the required cut, than move back just hardly noticeable, but still enough to be able to have the layout visible, than slowly show the layout in the right context of 3d. Spice it with the ArchiCAD publishing settings to generate a simplified model, which will not kill your phone... This was a great challenge.
The solution
As I have described the challenge I partially told you the solutions as well.
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For 3d my vision was based on real-world metaphors and just had to stick with those what the virtual world represents in reality. I had to keep in mind that the user should know all the time where she/he was and be in control of where to go. I had plans for a small 2d map in 3d, but there was not enough space for that. I played Grand Theft Auto to realize how bad is that navigation, plus I had to keep in mind that compared to games there is no predefined path or story or even limited world. An architect can model a shed, a house, a hotel, a skyscraper, or even a city. Those are different in many ways, but we had to plan for everything. Getting around in a family house is way easier thing than in an urban area. Having a UI visible all the time can help in learning but covers the building, which is the important thing. The UI is just noise. There was another strong metaphor I followed, which is the difference between holding a paper mockup in your hand and looking at it or walking in the building. In the first case, I dropped gravity and one can zoom through walls, but when walking all the physical limitations are working: one can walk on the ground, can go up only if there is a stair, and cannot go through walls, only on doors. The mix may sound weird, but it was a consequence of the real mental model with virtual expectations.
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For the 2d drawings, there is a strict geometrical logic on the scale and projection. The challenge was the interaction of bringing that into the 3d context. I tried multiple concepts for the floor plan and selection and made up models, which were based on the user's actual behavior: if the user looks around that is an exploration activity, so looking at a wall still should show the floor plan, but that became too complicated. Looking down to get a floor plan sounded logical, but had not had enough affordance. I wanted to give them a natural feeling, so the "head" goes automatically to a standard position: looking almost straight instead of up or too low. Everything came from the real world, but I had to tailor that to the virtual one. You may notice that the same one-finger navigation does a different thing if you are outside than if you are inside (on purpose). Inside the house, you want to look around, outside orbit around. The only problem is the in-between: if you are outside, but next to a fence, which was built of a wall (it requires categorization, which was available with trees, but there was no element like a fence, so sometimes ArchiCAD development was needed for BIMx).
As you can see the final connection between the 2d-3d world is based on 2 major components:
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smartly positioned, semi-transparent bullets, which fade away not to disturb the exploration
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a switch, which takes the user to the most logical 2d drawing or to the 3d cut by the right plane viewed from a nice perspective
The biggest achievement of those solutions is that the user hardly notices any UI, the app just simply works as they expect it to do. Many years later the biggest competitor started to copy our solutions, but as we released a free publisher to their desktop product even their users are using our app.