BTO Lens

Home Page
Maps Page to see the locations of MRT Stations, Education institutions, Hawk Centres, Preschools, Healthcares, Parks and BTOs
Sunlight Page to see how the time of the day would affect sun exposure at your BTO
Compare Page to compare 2 BTOs
Shortlist Page to save list

Inspiration

Choosing a BTO flat in Singapore is one of the biggest financial decisions a person will ever make — yet most people rely on forum threads, word-of-mouth, and gut feel. The HDB portal tells you what is available. It doesn't tell you which one fits your life.

We wanted to change that. BTO Lens was built to give every Singaporean household — whether a young couple commuting to the CBD, a multi-gen family needing healthcare access, or a single professional prioritising nightlife proximity — a personalised, data-driven lens to evaluate BTO launches.

What We Built

BTO Lens is an AI-powered BTO research platform with five core features:

Explore: Describe your household in plain English and get an AI-scored, ranked list of current BTO projects tailored to your lifestyle profile.
Map: Visualise all projects on an interactive map with toggleable amenity layers — MRT, bus stops, hawker centres, preschools, healthcare, and parks — filtered by household type.
Sunlight Simulation: A 3D building massing tool that simulates sun position and facade exposure at any time of day, helping buyers understand natural lighting before committing.
Compare: A head-to-head comparison of two projects across key metrics, with a profile-aware recommendation.
Shortlist: Save favourites instantly, no account required.

How We Built It

The frontend is built with React, using Google Maps API for the interactive map view and Three.js for the 3D building massing and sunlight simulation. Project data is structured and stored to support real-time scoring.

The AI liveability scoring engine uses an LLM (Claude) to interpret natural language household descriptions, map them to weighted criteria (transport, amenities, green space, family infrastructure), and generate both a numeric score and a human-readable insight for each project.

Sun position calculations use astronomical solar algorithms (solar altitude and azimuth based on latitude, longitude, and time of day) to accurately simulate facade exposure in real time.

Challenges

Scoring transparency: Making the AI score feel trustworthy rather than a black box. We addressed this by pairing every score with a human-readable AI insight explaining the reasoning.
3D massing without real architecture data: BTO buildings haven't been built yet, so we generated conceptual block massing estimates based on unit count and site footprint — clearly labelled as conceptual.
Balancing simplicity and depth: The tool needed to be approachable for first-time buyers while still being analytically rigorous for more research-oriented users.