Using 'Doom' To Design A Room The two words are  "change order"  Scott Jenkins the president of DIRTT tells Popular Science. Order changes often happen when construction crews run into unexpected problems or when contractors underestimate the labor and resources they'll need to get a job done. DIRTT is hoping to forestall these problems with the help of their Doom engine-based software named ICE.  We re going to have cost certainty with ICE Jenkins says. The Doom engine is a computer program that can render 2-D blueprints into a 3-D space. Because the engine is open-source DIRTT was able to adapt it for their own needs--for example ICE  melts with other design softwares including AutoCAD. An engineer or an architect can use ICE to mock up a room and create a live data set for every aspect of a space including the electrical engineering millwork and piping. When those blueprints are taken into the shop everything is constructed at the same time and put together so that there are no inconsistencies. Instead of working on each component at different times by different people they're all done at once by the same machine.DIRTT says that this process greatly reduces inefficiencies and waste and decreases the time it takes to construct an interior.  Because of ICE we don't have separate teams of manufacturers trying to coordinate with ordered engineering says Jenkins.  You'd have to build the materials separately and then put them together later. That's all electronic for us. Once assembled in the shop the walls are shipped flat by truck to the construction site. When the panels arrive at their destination they're popped into pre-cut aluminum frames which will hold the wall panels upright in the finished building. But it s not only the speed at which the walls are built that's helpful. Jenkins explains that some buildings such as hospitals may need to reconfigure their interior panels quickly to make way for another patient with different needs. Not only that but they need to be sensitive to rapid technology changes as well.  Hospitals are making decisions for what goes into an intensive care unit 10 years in advance says Jenkins. Which is why DIRTT also offers modular walls that are flexible and can be interchanged like toy blocks.  Our clients should be able to repurpose our walls to reflect those changes. Despite the company's advancements in construction technology however it hasn t been able to design for the residential market just yet. But DIRTT's videogame background is coming into play once again they are now exploring how the Oculus Rift and other virtual reality viewing systems may integrate with the ICE software -- to further simplify the design process and add more flexibility for homes in the future. Says Jenkins: "Imagine if you slapped on those Oculus glasses you could view what changes to make as if you were in the room".