Augmented reality can show local residents future building plans in real time — and Tampa Bay wants in

Business Insider

3 days ago

The climate crisis has intensified the frequency and severity of flooding for many communities, prompting cities to turn to climate-resilient infrastructure. At the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, a growing challenge is communicating these solutions to residents and officials.
Sarah Vitale, the director of civic technology at the TBRPC, which provides local governments with technology to aid in climate resilience planning, including flooding and hurricane preparedness, often uses 2D images and renders to showcase new infrastructure, such as stormwater drainage systems. However, these tools failed to show the scale of the projects.
Last year, Vitale partnered with InCitu, a New York-based augmented reality startup, to give communities a clearer picture of future infrastructure developments. "What better way to do that than to really let them experience it in real time in the physical space?" Vitale said.
InCitu's AR platform is designed to help government agencies, real estate developers, urban planners, and architects show colleagues or community members what proposed buildings and infrastructure projects will look like once completed.
"I wanted to communicate this type of information so that a non-professional can experience it as they walk down the street," Dana Chermesh-Reshef, the CEO of InCitu, told Business Insider. InCitu's technology has also launched in seven other US cities, including Washington, DC, and New York.
A new view on infrastructure projects
Chermesh-Reshef founded InCitu in 2020 after realizing the usual software tools used to present infrastructure projects, such as PowerPoint presentations and 2D renders, struggled to show a project's full scale and scope from various angles.
It can also be difficult to imagine a project in an environment like a conference room, entirely removed from where it will exist.
InCitu's smartphone-based platform tackles this by turning 3D models into AR visuals, helping people see a project as it would appear in real life. Instead of using an AR headset, users can scan a QR code with a smartphone camera at a construction site — often a building, bridge, roadway, or sidewalk — to view the life-sized AR visualization.
"You don't have to download any app. You walk down the street, there's a QR code on the ground or on the construction site," Chermesh-Reshef said.
Users can use their smartphones to walk around a project and view it from any angle they can access. InCitu also supports off-site viewing, so users can view a 3D model of the project without visiting its geographical location.
InCitu uses geospatial data, which draws on satellite and street view imagery, to decide where an imported 3D model should appear for on-site viewing. Geospatial data is also used to keep the 3D model in the right location as a user moves around it in the real world.
Using AR to visualize a climate-resilient future
Vitale encountered InCitu on LinkedIn in January 2024 while preparing for TBRPC's annual regional resiliency summit. This two-day event brings together roughly 300 elected officials, subject experts, and residents to find solutions for the region's climate risks. Vitale wanted a way to give attendees a scaled, realistic visualization of building changes and infrastructure that can manage flood risks.
Vitale used InCitu to show three AR models of new projects during on-site visits near the event: a house elevated on stilts to demonstrate flood-resistant construction, a bioswale showing natural stormwater management, and a living shoreline that uses natural materials to combat eroding beaches.
Vitale said that her organization's use of InCitu is still in the "marketing phase" and that its role at the resiliency summit was in part to let attendees and prospective clients know her team can provide AR technology for infrastructure planning. She said the reception so far has been positive.
"It's not a big, dense document. It's something interesting that people can engage with and start experiencing a planning process in a new way," Vitale said. She added that AR displays can reduce the "engagement fatigue" that can accompany lengthy meetings and complex 2D visualizations.
The technology's effectiveness convinced TBRPC to use InCitu for AR demonstrations at its 2025 summit in May. The organization also plans to use InCitu to educate students at local high schools about bioswales and other infrastructure solutions to flooding.
"We can take them to a site that's full of concrete and show them other ways to naturalize the surface, to handle some of the water, when it's pouring rain," Vitale said. She hopes the technology will help students understand alternatives to less permeable "gray" infrastructure, like concrete.
Vital said she expects the use of AR tools like InCitu to become standard practice in urban planning as newer, younger graduates with better knowledge of 3D modeling, AR, and other new technologies enter the field. So far, InCitu has made over 5,000 future developments available in AR, and over 250,000 residents have viewed future projects near their communities using the company's AR platform.