March 2014 - 3D & Construction

Cover Story

Building a New World | P.24 Y o u r

city Modelling

A Tech-tonic Shift? | P.34

G e o s p a t i a l

I n d u s t r y

Construction

An Eye on Future | P.50 M a g a z i n e

GEOSPATIAL WORLD

Publication: 10th of every month I Posting: 15th / 20th of every month

R.N.I No - UPENG/2010/34153; Registration no: UP/GBD-136/2014-16

March 2014 » VOLume 04» ISSUE 08 | ISSN 2277–3134

www.geospatialworld.net

WE ARE SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE GEOSPATIAL INDUSTRY

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Surveying, infrastructure and construction HDS/3D laser scanning Geospatial solutions Machine control and mining

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March 2014 • Vol 4 • Issue 8

Inside THEME: 3D and Construction

Corner Office 20 Wade Larson

President & COO, UrtheCast

Cover Story

Case Studies

Interviews

Conference Reports

24 Building a New World

40 Digital City Model to Support Complex Planning Scenarios

31 Ranvir (Ron) Singh

70 India Geospatial Forum

34 A Tech-Tonic Shift?

42 Laying the Foundation for a Smart City

53 Bryn Fosburgh

73 Middle East Geospatial Forum

46 Where Work Meets Play

44 A 3D View of London

60 Richard Humphrey

50 An Eye on Future

56 On an Innovation Highway

urray Lodge 64 M

62 Crossover Revolution

68 Machine Control: Moving Earth, Tracking Progress

Geoff Zeiss

Articles Dan Campbell

Frances Mortimer

Dominic Thasarathar

Bram Mommers

Advisory Board

Disclaimer Geospatial World does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in the publication. All views expressed in this issue are those of the contributors. Geospatial World is not responsible for any loss to anyone due to the information provided.

Chief of Surveys, Oregon Department of Transportation, US

Senior Vice President, Trimble

Senior Director, Infrastructure and Collaboration Products, Autodesk

Aida Opoku Mensah

Bryn Fosburgh

Special Advisor, Post 2015 Development Agenda, UN Economic Commission for Africa

Sector Vice-President, Executive Committee Member, Trimble Navigation

Derek Clarke Chief Director-Survey and Mapping & National Geospatial Information, Rural Development & Land Reform, South Africa

Secretariat Director, Group on Earth Observations Chair-Executive Board, Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster), The Netherlands

Geospatial World Geospatial Media and Communications Pvt. Ltd. (formerly GIS Development Pvt. Ltd.) A - 145, Sector - 63, Noida, India Tel + 91-120-4612500 Fax +91-120-4612555 / 666 Price: INR 150/US$ 15

CHAIRMAN M P Narayanan Dawn J. Wright Chief Scientist, Esri

Ed Parsons Geospatial Technologist, Google

Greg Bentley CEO, Bentley Systems

Prof. Josef Strobl Prof. Ian Dowman First Vice President, ISPRS

Chair, Department of Geoinformatics, University of Salzburg, Austria

Lisa Campbell

Mark Reichardt

Chairman and CEO, Rolta Group

Vice President, Engineering & Infrastructure, Autodesk

President and CEO, Open Geospatial Consortium

Mohd Al Rajhi

Ramon Pastor

Asst Deputy Minister for Land & Surveying, Ministry of Municipal & Rural Affairs, Saudi Arabia

Vice-President and General Manager, Large Format Printing Business, Hewlett-Packard

Kamal K Singh

74 Events

Dorine Burmanje

Dr. Hiroshi Murakami Director-General of Planning Department, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan

08 News

Senior Vice President, Construction Precision Automation, Topcon Positioning Systems

Owner, Publisher & Printer Sanjay Kumar Printed at M. P. Printers B - 220, Phase-II, Noida - 201 301, Gautam Budh Nagar (UP) India Publication Address A - 92, Sector - 52, Gautam Budh Nagar, Noida, India The edition contains 76 pages including cover

Barbara Ryan

07 Editorial

Stephen Lawler Chief Technology Officer, Bing Maps, Microsoft

Juergen Dold President Hexagon Geosystems

Matthew O’Connell CEO, Adhoc Holdings

Dr Swarna Subba Rao Surveyor General of India

Publisher Sanjay Kumar

Publications Team Managing Editor Prof. Arup Dasgupta Editor — Building & Energy Geoff Zeiss Editor — Agriculture Mark Noort Editor — Geospatial World Weekly (Hon) Dr. Hrishikesh Samant Executive Editor Bhanu Rekha Deputy Executive Editor Anusuya Datta Product Manager Harsha Vardhan Madiraju Sub-Editor Ridhima Kumar Graphic Designer Debjyoti Mukherjee

Vanessa Lawrence Director General and Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey, UK

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 5

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From the Editor’s Desk

Multi-dimensional Spatial Modelling is Imperative Prof Arup Dasgupta Managing Editor arup@geospatialmedia.net

S

ome years ago my neighbours gave me a petition for signature. The petition opposed the conversion of a park created by the urban authority for the surrounding residential areas into a commercial complex, a mall. I signed it because this park was a breathing place for the area, a place for communion with nature, a place where people went for a brisk morning walk. But the petition was rejected by the same urban authority on the plea that commercialisation of the plot would yield much-needed revenue and there were many other parks which we could use. A friend in the construction industry, on the other hand, extolled the proposed commercialisation saying that it would be the pride of the city. So the park was dug up and up came a swanky mall, the biggest in the city, with premium shops and a multiplex.

It was not long before irate citizens living near the mall went to court. The quiet of the residential area was disturbed by the late night traffic of the revellers exiting the multiplex. Traffic management became a problem as the adjoining roads, built to serve the residential areas, had to carry the enhanced stream of vehicles that was the result of the mall. Traffic jams, parking woes, noise and other woes had an impact on property values.

This could be an ideal case study of how a project may choose to benefit from the integration of construction technology with geospatial technology and the involvement of citizens’ concerns through tools like the social media. Had the builders not restricted themselves to the 3D CAD drawings but also observed the 3D building in the context of the 3D cityscape, the roads, the noise requirements, the traffic flow and planned to integrate the mall into the immediate surroundings,

much of the unhappiness could have been avoided.

Construction technology has gone digital with Building Information Modelling or BIM. Level 1 BIM uses 2D and 3D CAD but this does not take into account the natural and manmade settings in which the 3D-rendered construction will be situated. This requires a convergence of CAD and geospatial technologies. Such a convergence is taking place and will only grow further because it helps the construction engineer to visualise his creation in a realistic 3D environment and thus anticipate problems and work around them on the drawing board itself, thereby saving costs of ad hoc design changes and rebuilding.

Any construction, be it a commercial property, a utility or a unit of infrastructure, will affect the surroundings. And who knows this better than the people living there! Social media provides an excellent platform to obtain the opinion of the citizens and incorporate their concerns into the design.

As we enter an age where cities are growing into mega cities and people are moving from rural areas to cities, the problem of designing and maintaining a sustainable urban environment which meets the requirements of local administration and citizens will become complex.

In such a situation, multi-dimensional spatial modelling, which includes natural, engineering, financial and social factors, is an imperative. Geospatial technology, BIM and social media need to come together to provide optimum solutions. The alternative is litigation and bad blood between citizens, local government and business.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 7

Americas News Business Telenav acquires mapping startup skobbler Telenav has acquired skobbler, a German startup that makes map applications and mobile games, for $24 million in cash and stock. skobbler’s products use data from OpenStreetMap. Telenav plans to use skobbler’s technology to improve its Scout. me GPS navigation app. Scout.me gives users directions, helps in avoiding traffic and a guide to places like gas stations or cafes nearby, as well as events in paid for their area. “The skobbler total acquisition consideration was $24 million, $19 million of that in cash and the rest in Telenav stock,” said Marcus Thielking, Skobbler’s cofounder and financial head.

$24 mn

NEXTMap World 30 sales surpass $1 mn Intermap Technologies’ NEXTMap World 30 product has surpassed sales of $1.2 million in 2013, more than 15 times 2012 sales. World 30 is the world’s first and only seamless digital map of the entire earth with a global accuracy of 7 metres. The latest version of the World 30 product is up to three times more accurate than competing global Digital Elevation Models such as NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission data, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model.

Deal signed for satellite navigation equipment MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) has signed a contract valued

8 / Geospatial World / March 2014

at $4.9 million under its Indefinite Delivery/ contract for Indefinite Quannavigation tity (IDIQ) agreeequipment ment with the US Air Force (USAF), to continue operational support and further enhance the flight path safety system that aids the design of airport approach and departure flight paths. The contract extension will provide an additional year of operational support along with enhancements that evolve system capability in the support of aircraft fitted with both ground-based and satellitebased navigation equipment.

$4.9 mn

Honda to join Google alliance for GPS solutions Honda will join an alliance of companies that will work with Google on technological innovations for onboard automotive information networks, such as GPS. The alliance plans to incorporate Google’s Android operating system into automotive communications systems. Other automakers in the Open Automotive Alliance include Germany’s Audi AG, General Motors Co. of the US and Hyundai Motor Group of South Korea. Although Honda will be the first Japanese automaker to join the Google alliance, there have been other moves across industry lines.

Northrop Grumman bags DoD contract Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $200 million contract by the Department of Defense (DoD) to carry out acquisition and sustainment for the Embedded Global Positioning System Inertial Navigation System (EGI). Northrop will be responsible for work on platform integration, mod-

ernisation, flight test support, technical support, training, engineering, and other efforts associated with EGI. The EGI system is a small, light weight unit which contains full Precise Position Service GPS on a single standard electronic module, plus a state-of-the-art Ring Laser Gyro inertial navigation system.

This system is contract for used ordinarily EGI for navigation in Navy F/A-18 fighter-bombers, EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft, and other aircrafts and helicopters.

$200 mn

Miscellaneous NASA’s upcoming missions to focus on earth This year, NASA is turning its eyes back to Earth with five planned space missions to take a look at the home planet. “With five new missions set to launch in 2014, this really is shaping up to be the year of the earth, and this focus on our home planet will make a significant difference in people’s lives around the world,” said Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator. In July, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite will begin measuring CO2 levels in a bid to better understand the greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. It is a replacement for a similar satellite that was lost during launch in 2009.

Underwater eruptions detected via satellite Oregon State University (OSU) scientists have discovered how to pinpoint the time and place of underwater volcanic eruptions using satellite images. Volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor can spew large amounts

Americas News

Tomlinson receiving National Geographic Bell Medal in 2010.

Tomlinson was named an honorary member of the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors in 2011.

R.I.P. Roger Tomlinson Dr. Roger Frank Tomlinson, the ‘father of GIS’ is no more. He passed away in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico on February 7, 2014, at the age of 80. Born in England in 1933, Dr Tomlinson was known as a visionary geographer who conceived and developed GIS for use by the Canada Land Inventory. His innovation has enabled the development of modern mapping technology and techniques, and established a multibillion-dollar industry employing thousands of people worldwide.

Besides the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour, Tomlinson was the recipient of numerous global prestigious “The early days of GIS were very lonely. No-one awards for his contributions to the GIS field. He was awarded the American Associations of Geographer’s James R. Anderson knew what it meant. My work has certainly Medal of Honor for Applied Geography in 1995 and the Robert T. been missionary work of the hardest kind.”

Aangeenbrug Distinguished Career Award in 2005. In 1997, he was awarded Esri’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Tomlinson and Jack Dangermond were the joint recipients of the National Geographic Bell Medal.

His book, Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers, provides guidance for both senior managers responsible for a broad range of activities in their organisation and the more technical managers responsible for actual implementation of GIS.

of pumice and fine particles, as well as hot water that brings nutrients to the surface, resulting in plumes of algae. The plumes are picked up as shades of green in satellite images.

The researchers developed a process for analysing low-resolution images to show evidence of eruptions, which can extend over thousands of square miles, by matching five known eruptions with data from NASA satellites.

Foundation has donated a sum of $6.8 million to the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) Data Mapping Project. The project will seek to chart and analyse the burden of violence and motor vehicle-related injuries on hospital services across the island, with emphasis on the UHWI. Additionally, the mapping will identify geographic areas which have a higher concentration of incidents to allow for prevention programmes

Jamaica

Mexico

Data project to analyse vehicle-related injuries

Protecting coral reef with satellite technology

The Jamaica National Building Society

The Mexican National Commission

for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) has given a contract to EOMAP, a value-added service provider of satellite data, to deliver high resolution environmental information for the entire Maya coast. The coastline extends 600km south from the Yucatan Peninsula to the border of Belize.

“The fine-scale spatial information, derived for the entire coastline, will serve as the first baseline dataset of the Maya coast, and will help to understand and preserve the vulnerable ecosystems,” said Dr. Thomas Heege, CEO of EOMAP GmbH & Co.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 9

Europe News Ireland

France

Imagery of farmland around Gussago, Italy

New geospatial data platform established

European Space Imaging bags $30mn EC contract European Space Imaging

European Space Imaging has won a four-year contract from the European Commission (EC) valued at €22.3 million ($30.1 million) to provide satellite data supporting the Commission’s Common Agricultural Policy, whose enforcement includes verification of land use. Munich-based European Space Imaging is a Direct Access Partner of DigitalGlobe. The company said it has supplied two-thirds of the imagery in support of the Commission’s agricultural support programme in the past 10 years.

Older SPOT images will be available for free

on the planet and to acquire data that can help inform and enforce EU policies. The first spacecraft in the series, Sentinel-1A, will go into orbit, most likely, in early April 2014. It will provide all-weather, day-or-night radar images for emergency responses, marine and land monitoring, civil security and climate studies, among other applications. Sentinel 1A will use radar to map the surface of the earth.

The French government has agreed to open its SPOT optical earth observation data archive and distribute, free of charge to non-commercial users. The French government decision follows a similar decision, made in 2013, by the European Commission to make freely available much of the data from the future Copernicus series of optical and radar earth observation satellites. The French space agency, CNES, has already begun processing, at its own expense, a first tranche of 100,000 images that will be available later this year.

Date has been set for the roll-out of the European Union’s multi-billioneuro earth observation project.

Copernicus will fly a constellation of satellites known as the Sentinels to take a continuous ‘health check’

10 / Geospatial World / March 2014

Courtesy: ESI

EU’s first Sentinel to be launched in April

Sentinel-1A

A new geospatial data platform is set to dramatically improve efficiency and sustainability throughout the public sector in Northern Ireland.

The technology is expected to save £136,000 and 7.49 tonnes of carbon over three years by using the platform for one business process alone. Land and Property Services (LPS), part of the Department of Finance and Personnel for Northern Ireland, has developed a strategic GIS platform for storing, managing and delivering location information to a broad user base. The Spatial NI system will be used across the entire public sector in Northern Ireland and is expected to drive significant cost savings and productivity gains for many years to come.

Brussels Galileo services to start by the end of 2014 Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system is set to offer its first services around year-end, with 10 spacecrafts in orbit to make a functional constellation. Following a meeting with key industrial partners and European Space Agency head Jean-Jacques Dordain, European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani expressed confidence that “strong commitment to the launch” of six additional satellites this year “could allow initial Galileo services to be available, subject to finalising all technical issues, at the end of 2014 [or] beginning of 2015”.

Europe News Norway Contract for highway improvement project The Norwegian Road Authority (NorRoad) has awarded a contract worth $10.3 million to Continental Energy Corporation’s affiliate VTT Maritime AS (VTT) for a portion of NorRoad’s highway E39 improvement project.

Under the contract, VTT will provide sea mapping, seismic surveying and measurement wire drilling at the site of a major sub-sea tunnel location.

The rugged terrain on E39 highway curContract to rently requires VTT Maritime drivers to negotiate ferry crossings at eight deep fjords resulting in a total transit time of 21 hours.

NorRoad’s planned improvement programme is intended to eliminate all eight ferry crossings by installing bridges and sub-sea tunnels reducing the transit time to 13 hours.

$10.3 mn

UK UK-France seal deal for space collaboration The UK Space Agency and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) have signed an agreement to work together on space activities. The agreement includes £15 million ($25 million) of UK investment in key instruments for the next generation of European weather satellites and will enable UK scientists to conduct the most comprehensive global survey of earth’s surface water. The agreement paves the way for joint work on earth observation, space weather

and research and technologies in the space field.

be used to identify illegal dwellings and uncover cannabis factories.

Mapping energy wastage in Britain’s cities

Belgium

Heat loss across towns and cities covering around 10% of the population of Britain will be mapped. Using specialist thermal sensors mounted on survey aircraft, Bluesky will accurately record heat loss from homes and businesses. Working with local authorities, property owners and energy companies, the colour-coded thermal maps will be matched against addresses to give accurate and upto-date information to tackle fuel poverty, carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency. The maps will also

Belgian consortium to build Vietnamese EO satellite A consortium of Belgian aerospace companies has signed a pre-contract agreement with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST). The contract comprises a total package for building and supplying a complete satellite infrastructure in Vietnam. This consists of the construction of the satellite, ground station and test facilities, the training of Vietnamese partners, and the operation of the satellite for one year.

European Research Council funds crowdsourcing project The European Research Council has awarded a highly competitive Consolidator Grant to Steffen Fritz, leader and creator of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis’ (IIASA) citizen science project, Geo-Wiki. The €1.4 million grant will build upon work conducted as part of IIASA’s Geo-Wiki project, an interactive online project which involves citizen scientists in global land cover research. The project aims to build a global network of citizen scientists to provide on-theground data such as photographs and land-cover and land-use classifications.

It is extremely difficult to distinguish between cropland and natural vegetation in some parts of the world based on coarse resolution satellite data. Therefore, understanding where cropland is located Courtesy: IIASA is important for future food production as well as for monitoring deforestation.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 11

Asia News

Fujairah develops e-map for easy access to road data The Fujairah Public Works and Agriculture Department has developed a GIS e-Map system to manage and offer reliable spatial data of roads for supporting the local government in making decisions on infrastructurebased development. Supergeo has assisted the department in developing the system. The GIS e-Map system will help in storing, editing, and sharing reliable spatial data of roads to support the Fujairah government in making informative decisions and policies.

Dubai to be available on Google Street View Dubai will be the first Arab city to be available on the Google Street View, a feature that offers 360-degree, panoramic, and street-level imagery of a selected street. It is available in the company’s Google Maps and Google Earth app. Google said it may also offer Street View inside malls in Dubai. A working version of Street View is already available for the Burj Khalifa. “We have driven 3,000 cities around the world, and driven 6 million miles. So you can see it is work-in progress, and it is great we are going to bring it to Dubai soon,” said Peter Barron, Director of Communications and Public Affairs for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Google.

India ISRO to launch three satellites this year The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch three satellites

12 / Geospatial World / March 2014

belonging to the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) constellation this year. The three IRNSS satellites in the series are IRNSS-1B, IRNSS-1C and IRNSS-1D. IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide position information in the Indian region and 1,500 km around the Indian mainland. It is a constellation of seven satellites and ISRO has already launched IRNSS-1A. The entire IRNSS constellation of seven satellites is planned to be completed by 2015-16.

Headquarters at the Veteran Street, in Central Jakarta. The MoU is related to a cooperation agreement signed by the Army’s topography directorate and the institute some time back to garner the benefits from aviation, science and technology. LAPAN will develop technologies for rockets, remote sensing satellites, atmospheric sciences and technology for unmanned aerial vehicles for spying and monitoring activities to support the state defence.

Lebanon US firm to conduct survey for oil & gas

Indo-Myanmar border survey conducted by SoI

A United States firm, NEOS GeoSolutions, will conduct an airborne survey of Lebanon to determine if the country has potential onshore oil and gas wealth. The announcement came after Energy Minister Gebran Bassil and the general manager of NEOS Geosolutions MENA, Frank Jreij, signed an agreement at the Energy Ministry. The project aims to deliver maps of basement topography and key structural and stratigraphic horizons; basement-to-surface maps

Survey of India (SoI) has conducted a survey to settle the existing border dispute in the Manipur sector of the Indo-Myanmar border. The SoI team has inspected border pillars 77 to 79 near Muslim Basti under Moreh Ward No. 5 where the fencing work was yet to be taken up by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). The team is conducting the inspection with the help of satellite imagery. “We will be conducting preliminary survey and the truth will be revealed by the satellite images only,” said K.K. Das Sarkar, Surveyor Officer.

Indonesia Indonesian army, LAPAN signs deal to develop UAVs The Indonesian Army and the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) have signed an agreement to develop missiles, rockets, and UAVs. Army Chief of Staff General Budiman and LAPAN Chief Bambang S. Tejasukma signed the MoU at the Army

Courtesy: The Daily Star

UAE

Gebran Bassil, Caretaker Energy Minister (right) with Frank Jreij, General Manager of NEOS Geo MENA

Asia News highlighting local faults (including the Dead Sea fault north extension) lineaments, and intrusives; 2D crosssections and regional 3D structural models of the sub-surface, including geologic trends etc.

Philippines Digital maps of land resources unveiled The Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) has launched an online portal called ‘BSWM Maps’ to make it easier for citizens to access the agency’s wide collection of maps — the result of 15 years of fieldwork, validation and consultations — with stakeholders and government agencies concerned with the rational use of land resources. The portal aims to provide baseline information that may be valuable for land resources planning, including potential agricultural development and strategic prioritisation of commodities consistent with the national food security programmes and climate change adaptations.

Hong Kong AAM and GeoSys form alliance in Hong Kong AAM and GeoSys have recently formed an alliance to work together in Hong Kong. GeoSys and AAM will be cooperating to provide the Hong Kong geospatial industry with a broad range of 3D GIS and Web mapping services. GeoSys’s background in geospatial web mapping services will assist AAM to better deliver services like creating and publishing their own task-specific Internet sites, for workstation or mobile deployment to their Hong Kong based clients.

Singapore Driverless, LiDAR-based car launched The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, has launched driverless car, SCOT. Singapore’s first locallydeveloped driverless car, short for

‘Shared Computer Operated Transport’, is initially retrofitted from a Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car, and will ply the roads of the NUS campus as researchers seek to improve the technology. The car features LiDAR technology which costs only a fraction of expensive 3D laser sensors currently used in robot cars. The researchers said SCOT will be able to operate at a higher speed than current autonomous versions and is able to sense obstacles, and work well in poor lighting as well as in moderate rain.

3D STEREO MAPPING SOLUTIONS

+1 907.522.3681 USA 1 800.770.3681 WWW.DATEM.COM ALASKA, USA

Courtesy: BBC

EXTRACT AND EDIT 3D VECTOR FEATURES FROM STEREO IMAGERY AND POINT CLOUDS

Africa News South Africa GPS-based postal system to streamline mail delivery A new system has been developed that accurately links GPS coordinates to physical addresses, potentially streamlining the process of mail delivery. The geospatial data layer built by mapIT, a division of TomTom Africa, is South African Post Office (SAPO)-compliant and allows the mail delivery service to help over 17,000 employees in the collection, sorting and delivery of letters and parcels for over 1.5 billion mail pieces which are processed every year. The new location functionality can provide users of addresses and postcode data with more accurate capability, bringing higher quality location intelligence.

Satellite imagery to detect underground deformation Microwave imagery captured from earth-orbiting satellites can measure deformation caused by underground mining. This was the result of a research done by Dr Jeanine Engelbrecht, PhD graduate, University of Cape Town (UCT) . According to Engelbrecht’s research, satellitebased sensors could be used for remote detection and the monitoring of surface subsidence, contrasting with traditional field-based measurements, which were point-based and did not understand the full extent of deforming areas. She used data collected from earth-orbiting satellites to monitor millimetre- to centimetrescale deformation on the earth’s surface. Through the use of differential radar-interferometric techniques,

14 / Geospatial World / March 2014

Engelbrecht successfully measured and monitored surface subsidence that resulted from shallow underground mining activities.

World Bank map of Africa’s natural resources The World Bank plans to launch in July this year a $1 billion project to map Africa’s natural resources with the aim of delineating more clearly the continent’s uncovered mineral wealth. The project, dubbed the Billion Dollar Map, will unlock the true worth of Africa’s mineral endowment. Most of Africa’s sub-soil resources have not been surveyed.

“Doing so, in a public way, would be useful aid for to policy makmapping ers, investors

$1 bn

and the public, helping to boost development,” said Tom Butler, mining specialist at the Bank’s private finance arm.

Kenya Nairobi now collecting traffic data online Researchers from the University of Nairobi and Columbia University have developed a Digital Matatus Map that reveals a pattern in which matatus (privately owned minibuses) disperse along major roads from the city’s centre, before forming branches to serve local destinations. Nearly one-third of citizens in Nairobi use the ‘matatu’ system — and yet, until now, it has never been officially mapped. Researchers utilised GPS data collected from smartphones to produce the map. So far, 120 routes and hundreds

The Digital Matatus Map of Nairobi

of designated and undesignated stops have been mapped. Researchers hope the government will use this data to improve segments of the system and relieve traffic congestion in parts of the city.

Burkina Faso Maps developed at 1:200,000 scale Burkina Faso mapping institute (IGB) with the technical assistance of IGN France International, has developed new maps of the country at a scale of 1:200,000. Around 13 new maps of Burkina Faso were delivered to the local authorities at an official ceremony. The maps were developed within the framework of a project to update the country’s map coverage at a scale of 1:200,000 in order to complete a national database and topographic maps covering the entire country. The delivery of the new national maps marks the recognition of the Survey of Burkina as the national reference organisation in term of geographic information.

Australia/Oceania News New Zealand

view of property, electoral and local government boundaries.

3D map reveals submerged ridge in Auckland Courtesy: CSIRO

3D mapping has revealed a sprawling submerged ridge east of Auckland.

There wasn’t much information about the Colville Ridge, stretching more than 200km towards Fiji, until a recent research voyage enabled marine geologists to map it in detail for the first time. The insights, part of a project to create state-of-the-art maps of New Zealand’s entire exclusive economic zone, could prompt a rethink about the origin of the vast ridge. 3D images show a mountainous ridge covered with jagged cones and with valleys that lie about 2km below the top of its peaks. The new data revealed that the ridge was not entirely volcanic in origin, which surprised some scientists.

Online map opens up community information

CSIRO’s Zebedee

benefits of this new technology will reduce interference at a scene, save time and allow access to previously hard to reach areas such as step-declines and bushland,” said Ian Stewart, Police Commissioner.

Queensland police are the first law enforcement agency in the world to use the technology. The scanner has previously been used in industries such as mining as well as in efforts to digitally preserve sites of cultural significance.

Australia Courtesy: NZ Herald

Queensland to map crime scenes with 3D scanner Queensland police will employ a CSIRO-developed 3D scanner to map crime scenes. Police will use the handheld Zebedee laser scanner, which can be used to quickly generate 3D imagery of areas. It can be used to map indoor locations since it does not rely on GPS. “The

Geospatial data mapping initiative launched The New South Wales government has launched a new geospatial data mapping initiative, aiming to make information stored in its databases easier to access and visualise. Named the NSW Globe, the service overlays spatial data derived from government databases on the Google Earth mapping application.

It comes in a free, feature limited version, as well as a full commercial variant. It can be used on desktop computers, smartphones and tablets.

GPS and GIS data can be visualised through NSW Globe, providing a

The Department for Communities and Social Inclusion has launched an online mapping tool called MapIQ, to provide South Australians information on more than 7,000 community services in their neighbourhood.

Users can search for services that may be relevant to them via either address or suburb, with most locations featuring embedded hyperlinks to further information. By acting as a single-point-of-access for information from all these community service providers, MapIQ empowers residents to obtain a wealth of information from the online map using their computer, tablet or smartphone.

High-tech mapping system to help managing floods Gosford State Emergency Service (SES) unit, New South Wales, is gearing up to use a new mapping system by the end of the year which will give vital help in managing floodwater.

The system would allow volunteers on the ground to instantly share critical information and would also allow residents to input vital information.

“This mapping system will allow us to update information on site as the flooding is occurring which will be invaluable in planning mitigation strategies,” said Werner Klumpp, Deputy Controller. Backed with GIS technology, the system will allow volunteers to log in ­remotely from regional command centres or the field with mobile devices.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 15

Revolutionising 3D Modelling for construction

W

World construction markets are at a tipping point. Global Construction 2025, a report by Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics published in July 2013, predicted that the volume of construction output was set to grow by more than 70% to $15 trillion worldwide by 2025.

While global population growth and increasing urbanisation are among the foremost reasons, massive development projects in the emerging nations are significant nonetheless. No surprises then that the report pegs that the construction activity in emerging markets is 52% of the total global output, which is expected to increase to 63% by 2025.

Significantly, the construction industry’s meteoric growth, which is outpacing that of the global GDP, is expected to be concentrated in three countries: China, India and the US. But what is more interesting is the fact that a new-generation of ‘Asian Tigers’ — Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines — together represent a $350-billion construction market growing at over 6% annually.

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3D: Changing the workflows

Even as Building Information Modelling (BIM) is starting to turn the AEC industry over on its head, construction documents may soon be replaced by 3D models as the new standard.

While 3D documentation forms the basis for planning and execution of building projects as well as their management, the technology also has the ability to drastically bring down costs, ensure greater certainty and simplify the everyday work of construction and real estate professionals.

Now, with the AEC industry gradually moving towards 4D (3D+cost) and 5D (3D+cost+time), laser-scanning and 3D visualisation are becoming standard norms right from project initiation to construction monitoring (to compare what was built to what was designed) and for providing ‘as-builts’ at various milestones throughout the construction process. Laser-scanning to create final as-builts, managing inventory, and clash detection is thus expected to revolutionise the entire construction process.

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FARO: Adding another dimension to 3D

Armed with a complete range of workflow solutions in this field, FARO is the leading manufacturer of mobile systems of measurements, documentation and imaging. While FARO Laser Scanner Focus3D X Series comprises a range of cost-effective, compact and powerful mobile laser scanners for making rapid and precise 3D documentation of the current status of buildings and building sites, its combination with the FARO SCENE software is the perfect solution for point cloud creation and easy scan data processing. The FARO 3D App Center gives the user the flexibility to choose specific applications for addressing current needs.

FARO Laser Scanner Focus3D: A breakthrough in laser scanning

accuracy of ± 2mm, scan speed of up to 976,000 points per second and touchscreen. With these, it can considerdably reduce the efforts involved It’s compact, it’s handy and it’s surprisingly cost in measuring and post-processing during the coneffective. FARO’s Focus3D comprises the smallest struction stages. These advances in performance and lightest scanners in the world — measuring just does not come at the expense of safety as the 24x20x10 cm and weighing only 5.2 kg — and it is ide- model is using a Class 1 ‘eye safe’ laser. It has a al for use on construction sites. Its compact design high measurement speed and delivers extraordiand touchscreen display makes it as easy to operate nary scan data quality at extended range with as a digital camera, while offering extra long-range very low noise.

The product line’s high-level precision assists (up to 330 m) integrated GPS and the capability site managers, construction companies and to perform scanning even in bright sunlight. contractors with quality assurance.

Focus3D records foundation For instance, checking the elevations, building shells and precise fit of facade elements and complete buildings in three Key benefits complex free-form components dimensions and is especially  Precise construction in case of shuttering elements suitable for architects, planning and in concrete constructions or for construction engineers, facility execution on the basis positioning structurally sensitive managers, construction experts of actual data. supports, regular quality control and surveyors. Its state-of-the-art  Rapid, precise variance with the Focus3D ensures that the features, multiple sensors, and comparison in final revolutionary price make it the building inspections. construction and interior work preferred option of many small,  Seamless monitoring of processes remain smooth, as medium and large companies construction progress countermeasures can be taken as in the construction industries. for legal and technical soon as faults are detected. This FARO Laser Scanner Focus3D documentation. leads to cost savings and creates  Greater certainty for greater certainty, for examples, X 330, the most advanced proddevelopers, planners with regard to delays or reworks uct in the Focus3D , is equipped and contractors. in projects. with increased range of 330m,

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FARO SCENE: Simplify and speed up your workflow Great things do not come alone. The usefulness of Focus3D X Series is magnified with the speed and simplicity of FARO’s scan processing software SCENE. The new SCENE version makes complex surveying tasks easier and allows for the reproduction of the scanning results in greater detail.

This is made possible by new functions and performance improvements, which are naturally also customised for the new Focus3D X 330 scanner with its tremendous range of up to 330 metres.

FARO SCENE presents fresh features and functions that simplify daily activities, improving and accelerating the complete workflow — from project set-up to post processing, registration to using data in SCENE or third-party applications.

In order to make the reproduction of 3D visualisations even more detailed, SCENE provides the option of rendering the display data in the background with two to four times greater resolution than a common monitor. Before being displayed, the data is filtered and the right screen resolution is set. Super sampling thus provides better sharpness and a 3D view rendered in even greater detail.

While SCENE generates project point clouds, the new homogenisation tool eliminates coordinate points with a distance of less than 1.5 mm from each other. This doesn’t result in a visible difference to non-homogenised point clouds, but the volume of data is nevertheless reduced by an average of 20%. The scan data can be transferred to all commonly available CAD systems such as Autodesk Revit, AutoCAD Architecture or

Bentley MicroStation. The data is thus available for 2D applications and 3D visualisations, and can be immediately used to produce plans of existing buildings or for the planning of conversions and extensions.

SCENE has unique Colour Balancing function that improves the visualisation of scanning projects. The tool can smoothen

different colour shades that may arise through inhomogeneous light conditions at different scanning positions. For scans that SCENE cannot reference automatically, FARO now offers assistance with the Auto Clustering tool. Even if individual scans of a project cannot be automatically assigned, most of the time there are groups of scans that go together. Auto Clustering enables SCENE to recognise such groups and arrange them in separate clustres.

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FARO 3D App Center: The right software App for your particular tasks

Often users do not really need complex software solutions that can handle multiple and complex tasks. All they need for specific jobs — like surface or volume calculations — are specialised applications.

The new FARO 3D App Center is the ideal platform for users looking for specific applications to solve current business needs.

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What the users say

Share without Limits: Do it with SCENE WebShare Cloud The SCENE WebShare Cloud solution is a service directly hosted by FARO that allows users to store 3D documentation data on the “cloud”. Scanned projects can be viewed more quickly and shared with different project partners. It is no longer necessary to install software on your own computer.

SCENE WebShare Cloud guarantees the utmost quality and security and the system supports mobile devices with an optimally adapted user interface.

“With SCENE WebShare Cloud, FARO offers a comprehensive service package to provide users with simple access to 3D documentation,” states Oliver Bürkler, Senior Technical Product Manager Laser Scanning Software. “Neither technical training nor specialised skills in 3D laser scanning are necessary to work with the intuitive user interface. The tool enables our customers to exchange data with project and business partners without any difficulty,” The WebShare Cloud solution eliminates the cost of having your own server. Furthermore, the data and measurements remain available long-term and independently of the computer. When using SCENE WebShare Cloud, the correct server capacity is always available no matter the amount of accessed users or data stored. It adapts perfectly to respective requirements in terms of both processing power and storage. All other services offered by the previous software solution are maintained. Distances and areas can be analysed precisely, directly on-screen, using the well-known measurement tools.

We often carry out 3D documentation right from the construction phase. Our clients want to be able to access precise, three-dimensional actual data at a later date, such as volumes or dimensions, by means of laser scanning, for example to demonstrate any deviations from the original order in the work carried out. The data material also forms a valid basis for the preparation of invoices.

Dipl.-Ing. FH Andreas Landau, Office Manager NL Wertingen, Steinbacher-Consult Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH & Co KG

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SCENE presents an improved App management dialogue to install/ deinstall apps. The new Application Programming Interface (API) offers software developers the possibility to develop apps for further specific applications which can then be made available on the new FARO 3D App Center.

Significantly, third party software providers developing apps for laser scan management and processing can use the FARO 3D App Center as an additional channel to market their apps and reach a larger base of potential customers. All apps are tested and approved by the FARO team before being made available in the 3D App Center.

3D documentation enables our architects’ office to carry out rapid, precise and comprehensive inventory of a complex structure and of its entire surroundings. No other process is capable of providing such a wealth of visual and geometrical data. 3D documentation has become indispensible for us.

Johannes Rachenbach, Dipl.-Ing Architect, Laser Scanning Architecture, Hannover

Corner Office/UrtheCast

‘We will

address the

supply-demand gap for

hi-res imagery’ The uniqueness of the UrtheCast mission is the two cameras (video and optical sensor) on board the International Space Station.

Wade Larson, President and COO of the latest player to join the earth observation club, thinks the business model of UrtheCast could change the entire EO industry.

U

rtheCast is the latest entrant into commercial earth observation business. Tell us more about the venture.

UrtheCast is a Canadian company, based in Vancouver, BC, that has successfully installed two earth observation sensors on board the International Space Station (ISS). One of the two cameras is capable of streaming ultra high-definition (HD) video in colour (the High Resolution Camera or HRC) of the earth while the other is a push-broom medium-resolution four band multispectral camera (the Medium Resolution Camera or MRC).

UrtheCast is working in exclusive partnership with the Russian Federal Space Agency and RSC Energia, the Russian space company that was instrumental in sending Yuri Gagarin into space. As part of the agreement with RSC Energia, UrtheCast has provided the cameras, the data handling software, and the ground station network, while Energia has provided the hardware certification, the bi-axial pointing platform, the camera launch and installations, and the data downlink.

As of February 18, the cameras have successfully passed initial functional testing.

Once test and calibration is completed, the two UrtheCast cameras will begin streaming footage of the earth from the ISS and will distribute it directly to customers or stream it to our interactive Web platform. This is the first time a commercial EO satellite will be producing ultra HD, multispectral colour video — accessible to the public.

What is unique about UrtheCast’s earth observation sensors?

UrtheCast imagery and video data will be collected from our cameras, which are installed on the Zvezda service module of the ISS. The high-resolution video camera is mounted onto a bi-axial pointing platform, and will provide imagery at spatial resolution of 1.1 m and 30 frames/second video with a footprint of 5 km x 3.4 km. Still shots are also possible with this. The medium-resolution camera is a pushbroom imager with fixed-nadir viewing and provides four band multispectral imagery at a spatial resolution of 5m, with a swath of 47 km.

Once collected, the data will be sent to our cloud-based ground segment infrastructure where it will be processed to generate the image and video files. Those will be either

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distributed directly to customers or put on UrtheCast’s Web platform for Web and mobile users around the world in an interactive, near-real time, ultra HD experience.

Why did UrtheCast choose the ISS as its platform?

The main reason for putting the cameras on the ISS is economics.

We are able to put the senors in space for much less investment than would be required if we were to launch the satellites. In addition, there are some advantages to the ISS orbit, which is very different from traditional earth observation satellites.

For one thing, the ISS has a lower altitude than EO satellites, which means we can achieve higher resolutions with smaller apertures (another cost saving). Furthermore, with an inclined orbit between 51.6 degrees north to 51.6 degrees south, lasting approximately 90 minutes per orbit, the cameras are able to cover 90% of the world’s population. This unusual orbit puts us at an advantage with high revisit rates and acquisition at higher latitudes. For example, at about 50 degrees latitude (north and south), the revisit passes per year is much higher than that of a traditional EO satellites operating in sun synchronous, near polar orbit.

Another advantage is the ability to pass through a particular location at various times of day and night, something traditional EO satellites are unable to do as they cover any particular area at the fixed time each day. The disadvantage of the orbit, however, is that we will not have coverage of geographic zones above 51.6 degrees for the MRC or 55 degrees for the HRC. How is the ground segment being planned?

UrtheCast is adopting a new ground segment business model. We are building state-of-the-art ground stations using open source and COTS products, leveraging on cloud and entreprise solutions. We are planning to have ground stations in Moscow and Oxfordshire as well as stations leased in Dubai, South Africa, Mauritius, and Singapore. We are also in discussion with a number of customers looking to purchase an UrtheCast ground station. Once in operation, we will buy services back from those ground stations according to its business needs.

What are the products and what application areas is UrtheCast envisaging with its imagery capabilities?

UrtheCast’s initial product offerings include ultra high-resolution video (Ultra HD video), subset of full frame, georefer-

The UrtheCast cameras on board ISS

enced high-resolution image stacking and imagery mosaics. The video and image stack would be radiometrically corrected and geometrically consistent. It is also possible to collect a path video or create a corridor product. Disasters, borders, coastlines, etc. can be efficiently imaged and monitored using our cameras. Our value-added products include super-resolution still images at sub-meter GSD, DSM, 3D models and enable fly-throughs.

UrtheCast sensors can serve a variety of applications. Apart from conventional applications, very high-resolution vertical detail

UrtheCast cameras will constantly roll as the ISS circles the Earth, 16 times a day. They will capture video and imagery below the ISS orbit, where approximately 90% of the world’s population lives Geospatial World / March 2014 / 21

Corner Office/UrtheCast

From left: The UrtheCast team prior to the launch of the cameras to the International Space Station; the cameras being ready to be installed on ISS

of a building/structure/target are of high interest, while the high-level DEM created with several number of frames. Those would be useful for disaster management and environmental applications like monitoring hotspots. Video of such hotspots would enable the authorities to gain a better understanding of the actual situation on the ground. Defence and surveillance is another major application. Applications like traffic movement in an urban setting are of interest to some customers.

What UrtheCast’s revenue model?

UrtheCast is developing four distinct revenue streams. In addition to conventional EO data sales, we are including media outlets as a major customer group. To date, media outlets have been harnesssing EO imagey when it is offered as a free source.

For instance, consider a major environmental disaster: for a media company to send a team to cover an event or a series of events over an extended period of time is cost-prohibitive and time consuming. UrtheCast’s video is a quick and affordable alternative, at times providing video in less than an hour.

Web advertising is another stream of revenue for UrtheCast. As the company expects tremendous Web traffic, giant consumer companies will be targeted to have, for instance, their logos on their locations in the video stream. Live EO video and data sales to social gaming, commercial apps and app platforms like Android, Blackberry, and Apple will be an additional stream of revenue.

Developers can build applications using our data and host them on the UrtheCast platform website. We will then sell these

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apps to customers and share the revenue with the developers.

This capability will be game-changing in the EO market.

We are also coming up with channel sales and resellers worldwide to target conventional application sectors such as defence and surveillance, urban development, mining, environment, and disaster management. With all of UrtheCast’s capacities, we are postitioned to provide a new set of data and help address the supply-demand gap for high resolution satellite imagery worldwide.

What other initiatives are being planned with UrtheCast’s imagery?

In addition to UrtheCast’s commercial efforts, we have signed partnerships with organisations like the United Nations and Discovery’s Science Channel. We will provide data for humanitarian relief efforts, disaster management, and for media distribution purposes. A large portion of UrtheCast’s data will be available for public viewing on our interactive Web platform — the first of its kind. We think that this has the potential to change the earth observation business.

UrtheCast will be updating its platform with footage of the earth in a matter of hours, versus years for some other websites. Individuals will be able to view video and still images of major events across the world — be they social events, natural disasters, or weather phenomena. A realtime social layer will also be included in this interactive platform.

Geo-coded video, imagery, and information available on the Web about that particular location will be included.

3D in Construction/Cover Story

Increasing urbanisation, pressure on existing infrastructure, push for productivity in construction sector and environmental concerns are driving the convergence of geospatial and 3D technologies across businesses. By Geoff Zeiss

O

ver half of the world’s 7 billion population lives in cities. And this proportion is expected to go up as we move toward 9 billion by 2050, a trend that is driving investments in new and refurbished buildings and infrastructure. The world’s construction industry, including buildings, electric power, water and wastewater, roads, rail, and sea ports and airports, contributes about $7 trillion annually, or 10%, to the world GDP. According to McKinsey, about $3.6 trillion of this is for narrow infrastructure — transportation, utilities, and

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public and social infrastructure. The remaining $3.4 trillion is real estate, residential, commercial, and industrial. It is estimated that an investment of $57 trillion in infrastructure (roads and highways, rail, ports and seaports, electric power, water and wastewater and communications) will be required between now and 2030 (or $3.2 trillion per year) just to support the projected growth in the world economy.

Environmental concerns are also impacting the construction industry. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that we will spend $45 trillion adapting to and mit-

igating the effects of climate change over the next 40 years.

That is about $1 trillion a year. According to Global Insight, about 6% of current construction qualifies as ‘green’. But by 2020 because of the regulations, owner and investor demands, resource cost, security concerns, and third party standards, 75% of construction could be ‘green’. This is a dramatic change that has serious repercussions on not only how buildings and infrastructure are designed and built, but also about how they are operated and maintained.

“When one designs a building, typically one never designs specific to the actual location where it would be built.

There’s a virtual reference point and everything in the design is relative to that reference point,” points out Bhupinder Singh, Senior Vice President, Bentley Systems. It is only now there has been the need to fix this piece of infrastructure to a ‘location’ on the planet as people want to perform drainage analysis, seismic analysis, solar analysis etc.

Structures can no longer be designed in isolation; sustainability requires that buildings and other structures be designed in the context of their geolocation, which includes prevailing weather patterns, nearby structures and vegetation, zoning regulations and environmental regulations. This is driving the convergence of geospatial and 3D technologies.

3D in design & construction

» Improving design efficiency: The UK government has set itself the goal of reducing the cost of government construction projects by 20%. To achieve this goal, UK has undertaken several initiatives, one of which is a commitment to mandate Level 2 3D BIM for government projects beginning in 2016. 3D BIM is seen as a value creating collaboration through the entire life-cycle of an asset, supported by the

3D BIM is used for 3.9% of all construction projects in UK, representing $6.34 bn, but its penetration is expected to increase to 50.8% of projects worth $91.72 bn by 2016 creation and exchange of shared 3D models and the intelligent, structured data attached to them.

According to Paul Morrell, Former Chief Construction Adviser, UK, an encouraging sign in the UK is many private sector clients are also engaging with the BIM agenda, and are seeking to do so in a way that is aligned with the principles established by the government.

At present, 3D BIM is used for 3.9% of all construction projects in the UK, representing £3.8 billion ($6.34 billion), but its penetration is expected to increase to 50.8% of projects worth £55.1 billion ($91.72 billion) by 2016 and the total BIM-influenced construction market is estimated to be £27 billion ($44.94 billion).

At SPAR International Conference 2013, Kevin Gilson, Director of Visualisation, Parsons Brinckerhoff (part of Balfour Beatty), explained how the global engineering and design major manages large 3D+ datasets in support of design and construction for large infrastructure projects such as

3D model of one of the campuses of the Los Angeles Community College District

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3D in Construction/Cover Story

Geolocating Underground Infrastructure in Las Vegas One of the problems that is identified repeatedly by municipal governments and utilities is hitting underground infrastructure during excavations. To address this issue, the Las Vegas city government initiated a 3D project two years ago to model one-and-half miles of Main Street in the older part of Las Vegas. The project was intended to model below and above ground facilities, including roadways, utilities and telecommunications, as well as buildings. The deliverables were a set of georeferenced 3D models of all the underground and above ground infrastructure and buildings. Engineering design and other data was combined with the city’s geoimagery, digital terrain models and other GIS data. In addition, a mobile augmented reality application was developed for the iPad that allowed the staff in the field to view underground facilities virtually under the actual roadway. Las Vegas experienced increased safety due to reduced risk of unexpectedly hitting underground utilities, especially hazardous facilities like gas mains. Other benefits include; automated clash detection to identify potential problems when planning, designing and constructing new underground infrastructure. Operating costs came down because of reduced truck rolls for cable/pipe locate operations. The city is expanding the 3D modelling project to an area six times larger than the original project. the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the I-95 New Haven Harbour Crossing/Q-Bridge reconstruction, and the Alaskan Way viaduct project. By integrating different datasets such as geospatial, LiDAR, design and construction planning data together in large integrated 3D datasets, the project team is able to concurrently support visualisation, stakeholder communication, design, construction planning and site logistics.

For example, on highway projects, PB’s visualisation makes it possible to drive the highway and even the detours required during construction in a virtual environment so that the public can experience the changes and be prepared for them before they actually happen, points out Gilson.

When it came to actual construction, the industry has historically lagged from a technology implementation standpoint.

But today, the availability of cheap mobile devices like the smartphones and tablets, Internet connectivity on the construction site and the automated construction machineries have all combined to serve as an inflection point, says Singh. So, companies are willingly building 3D models and putting together other information, and then utilising the technology to accelerate construction processes. An accurate 3D model is also imperative for achieving complete automation in construction of large infrastructure projects or industrial plants.

Translating the digital world and putting it into the physical world at the actual construction site is a challenge. For example, a drawing may show a plate to be laid 5-feet from the centre of a column. But the column is yet to be built. People on the construction site spend a lot of time trying to get such positions on the site. Such problems can be overcome with well-equipped and informative digital models that helps unlock all available

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data to design and make better decision in the context of reality. One can extract various bits of information from GIS data, CAD or satellite imagery and integrate all that into a 3D model.

The recent technology developments should help the AEC industry cross the chasm towards greater productivity gains. The next five years will see a huge change in the way the construction industry works. » Enhancing energy performance of buildings: Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings is a prime target of government initiatives around the world. According to International Energy Agency (IEA), one third of the world’s energy is consumed by buildings. In the United States, about 40% of primary energy production, 72% of electric power production, and 39% of CO2 emissions are related to buildings. In 2010, the National Academy of Sciences found that the United States could cost-effectively reduce its 2020 energy consumption by 17-20% through expanded use of energy efficiency technologies. The convergence of 3D BIM modelling, geospatial data and technology including LiDAR, and energy performance modelling is providing designers with new tools that enable them to reduce the energy footprint of existing structures as well as design new, highly energy efficient buildings. » Modelling urban environments: Cities around the world are beginning to realise the power that comes from the convergence of modern information technology, including 3D models, geospatial/GIS, intelligent (connected) network models for electric power, telecommunications, water and wastewater, transportation, and other infrastructure. The Las Vegas infra-

structure model represents a classic example of the benefits of convergence, the integration of 3D engineering design data including BIM, geospatial data including digital terrain models, high resolution photogrammetry and point clouds derived from laser scanning, together with 3D visualisation technology.

Many new smart cities are being planned and developed across the Songdo IDB in Korea and Fujisawa in Japan.

China has 36 smart cities in development and a low carbon model city in Tianjin. While Singapore plans to become a smart nation by 2015, Iskandar is Malaysia’s first smart city.

King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) is a mega project announced in 2005 by the king of Saudi Arabia. Masdar City will be the latest of a small number of highly planned, specialised, research and technology-intensive municipalities that incorporate a living environment, similar to KAEC or Tsukuba Science City in Japan. Most of these projects involve developing a 3D representation of the planned city.

3D laser scanning and other reality capturing technologies are being used to create a 3D-digital library of the world’s most important heritage sites. Sites that have already been captured include Ancient Thebes, Angkor, Qal’at al-Bahrain, the cathedral of Beauvais, Chichen Itza, Mount Rushmore, Pompeii, Teotihuacan, and the Parthenon. » Enabling holistic participatory design: The convergence of and breaking down of barriers between geospatial and engineering design relies on big data, 3D visualisation and Web technologies. Fundamentally, it means using 3D BIM or 3D BIM for infrastructure to design new structure in situ, using a 3D city model to represent the rest of the city. The data generated in large infrastructure projects together with the city model can become huge that this requires big data technology. The concept also makes possible analytics (for example, energy and water performance analysis, line of sight analysis for traffic signs) that require information about prevailing weather patterns and neighbouring structures (for example, right to light in the UK). A project in Chandigarh, India piloted by The Energy Research Institute has developed a Web-based tool using widely available imagery and incorporating 3D analysis to calculate the solar power potential of entire urban environments.

Convergence of 3D and geospatial also enables automating design optimisation based on defined design goals in Web-based IT environment that makes it possible to provide access for large extended virtual teams. 3D visualisation technology and simplified ways of interacting with the design enable all the stakeholders, including non-technical folks, to actively participate in the design process.

The goals are improved productivity, optimised designs, and greater predictability for large infrastructure projects, all

Glasgow Urban Model The Glasgow Urban Model is a 3D digital representation of the City Centre and River Clyde corridor. The model was developed in response to the Scottish Executive vision for delivering city services that are fit for the 21st century. The main objectives of the project are to enhance the understanding of the built environment through the use of a 3D photorealistic representation of the city, improve the communication process, provide a highly accurate visual tool in 3D to assist in the assessment of new development proposals to the public, elected members and planning officers, showcase the regeneration of Glasgow, and to improve the quality of all new developments on the ground. Glasgow had to compete with 29 other cities to win the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board’s ‘Future Cities Demonstrator’ that is intended to demonstrate on how new integrated services across health, transport, energy and public safety can improve the local economy and increase the quality of life of Glasgow’s citizens. For example, on the energy theme, there is an initiative focused on intelligent buildings, smart buildings that can adjust its own lighting and heating based on analytics using a variety of sensor data.

One of the “motherhoods” of the initiative is that data collected by the city will be open and available through a public portal.

Oxford Street/Nicholson Street from the Glasgow Urban Model

of which are required if we are going to attract the tens of trillions of private investment dollars that it is estimated we need to invest in our infrastructure.

3D in as-built

» Modelling underground utilities in 3D: Almost all construction projects for buildings or infrastructure contain a design constraint: existing utilities which may be strung overhead on visible structures or hidden underground. For example, in the transportation sector, the most convenient strategy for the highway designer was to ignore utilities dur-

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3D in Construction/Cover Story ing design and then relocate them if they conflict with the highway design. The other extreme is to design the highway to avoid utilities, but that requires reliable information about where the utilities are located, something that is rarely available. Between the two alternatives of relocating utilities and designing the highway to avoid utilities, designers try to find a workable compromise that meets the highway construction scope and mission while minimising impacts to utility facilities. If successful, this can result in substantial savings in utility relocation costs and impacts, as well as overall savings to the project budget and timeline.

A recent survey in the US found that Departments of Transportation (DoTs) would like to get utilities involved in projects as early as possible primarily to determine their location. The study found that there is a general consensus that comprehensive and accurate location data about underground utilities leads to better decisions and reduces the risk of unforeseen problems with utilities during construction.

It has been difficult to quantify the cost and benefit of improving the location and other information about underground utilities, but in the last few years research has begun to put a dollar figure on the benefits of accurate location data for underground utilities. In the Lombardy region of Northern Italy, which includes Milan, a pilot project to map all underground infrastructure, including electric power, water, sewers, gas, district heating, street lighting, and telecommunication, used ground penetrating radar (GPR) for detecting the location of underground infrastructure and discovered that the existing records of underground infrastructure was highly unreliable. An economic analysis of the pilot project in Milan estimated an RoI on investment of about €16 ($22) for every 1€ ($1.38) invested in improving geolocation information for underground infrastructure. Other important benefits that could not be quantified included improved safety for workers and the public and fewer traffic disruptions.

A US DoT-sponsored survey conducted by the Purdue University in 1999 found a total of $4.62 in avoided costs accrued for every $1.00 spent. In addition, the researchers made the case that the qualitative savings (for example, avoided impacts on nearby homes and businesses) which were not directly measurable were significant and arguably many times more valuable than the quantifiable savings. In 2010, a study by the University of Toronto took an in-depth look at nine large municipal and highway reconstruction projects that developed an enhanced depiction of buried utilities. Based on this analysis, a cost model was proposed that takes into account both tangible and intangible benefits. All projects showed a positive RoI ranging from $2.05 to $6.59 for every dollar spent on improving underground utility location data.

Motivated by these studies, municipalities and DoTs are

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now beginning to look at ways of addressing the problem.

Federal Highway Authority (FHWA) initiatives such as Map21 and Every Day Counts are also motivating organisations to adopt new technologies such as 3D model-based design that will provide a foundation for realising these benefits.

Improving substation design efficiency: A large US utility is developing 3D models for all of its 3,000 substations as part of a programme. One of the objectives is to increase the productivity of its substation designers. It is projected that 3D model-based design increases the productivity of designers by 50% and also facilitates knowledge transfer between experienced designers and recently hired young designers.

In addition, 3D photorealistic renderings allow substation designs to be shared with all stakeholders. In particular it enables designers to communicate more effectively with non-technical stakeholders, including nearby home owners in the neighbourhood where the substation is to be sited.

3D in operations and maintenance

The adoption of 3D models provided quantifiable business benefits by helping improve collaboration, reduce costs, and reduce the risk of budget and schedule overruns during the design and construction phase of building projects. But many see the potential for even greater benefits of BIM to owners during the operations and maintenance phase of a building.

As Menno de Jonge, Director of Innovation, Ballast Nedam, a Netherlands-headquartered construction and real estate company, points out, “Because the construction industry is traditionally organised in a segregated way, information is lost at the handover from one phase to the next. This results in a saw-tooth like graph, which we would like to replace by a fluent flow of information throughout our processes.”

Companies are building 3D models and utilising other technologies to accelerate construction process. An accurate 3D model is also imperative for achieving complete automation in construction of large infrastructure projects

LiDAR set to Become Disruptive LiDAR is the most rapidly growing 3D technology and has traditionally been applied to produce 3D digital elevation and terrain models, typically for forestry and civil engineering applications. It is increasingly being used during construction for monitoring design compliance and owners are demanding LiDAR scans with as-builts at the end of a project. Recent research forecasts that low-cost LiDAR systems could revolutionise the surveying industry in the next five years. Already a lightweight UAV-mounted LiDAR platform weighing less than 10kg which combines UAV, LiDAR and GNSS technology has been announced.

It is estimated that the global LiDAR market was worth $218.9 million in 2012 and civil engineering was the most important application. But this trend is changing. A recent report by market research firm Markets and Markets forecasts that the global LiDAR market will grow by more than 15% annually over the next five years, reaching $551.3 million in 2018. Corridor mapping (for example, for transmission lines), which uses mobile LiDAR systems as well as airborne LiDAR, is projected to become the application with the highest annual growth rate from 2013 to 2018. Airborne LiDAR systems are projected to have the lowest compound annual growth rate among the four types of LiDAR systems. Markets and Markets projects that the revenue associated with terrestrial and mobile LiDAR systems will surpass that of airborne LiDAR systems by 2018.

Owners and operators can reduce the costs associated with operation and maintenance by using the high-quality building information from the 3D model design and build process together with geospatial data during the longer, more expensive maintenance and operation phase of the building’s lifecycle (typically over 70% of the cost of a structure over its entire life-cycle is incurred during the operation and maintenance phase.) Modelling of these complex systems is no longer seen as just a geometrical problem but now it involves environmental simulation and impact analysis in the context of the owner’s ongoing financial objectives. This makes a strong case for a tighter integration of GIS and BIM in a full three-dimensional environment.

The initial focus of 3D BIM in the UK is on the design/ build part of the lifecycle, but the government has said “20% saving refers to CapEx cost savings however we know that the largest prize for BIM lies in the operational stages of the project life-cycle”. The UK government is moving aggressively to encourage workflows that leverage 3D BIM in the operation and maintenance phase of a building. The cost of maintaining and operating a building over 20 years can be up to 30 times the original construction cost. No surprises why UK sees potentially very large long term benefits from such a programme!

A 3D building model is expected to facilitate the collaborative working of the design and construction and facilities management teams throughout the building lifecycle.

It enables the facilities management team to experience the

buildings from the ‘operate and maintain’ perspective before it is constructed to ensure that the projected operational costs are maintained and the impact of changes on operations are assessed. The 3D model is also expected to provide a fully populated asset dataset for the computer aided facilities management (CAFM) systems and to reduce time wasted in obtaining information about assets including the cost of maintaining or replacing equipment.

Benefits galore

The UK firm Great Portland Estates (GPE) has completed a number of private (non-government) construction projects, the most recent of which is 240 Blackfriars Road in London, that utilise BIM models. When GPE started using 3D BIM, the major operational benefit that was expected was clash detection, reducing risk by automatically detecting clashes during the design phase rather than during construction.

But after using 3D BIM on a number of projects GPE found many more areas where BIM was able to improve the design and construction process. These include visualisation of the project for the client during the design phase, construction simulation and construction scheduling (4D). GPE also found that creating and maintaining a 3D BIM model adds about 0.5 % to project costs, but provides 1% reduction in risk. In other words, for every pound that 3D BIM adds to cost, two pounds of savings are realised.

Some broader studies also indicate clear financial bene-

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 29

3D in Construction/Cover Story

3D as Basis for Indoor Navigation Indoor location is getting a lot of attention primarily because of the commercial opportunities it enables.

Indoor navigation must necessarily be 3D. Beyond locating a mobile device in an indoor environment, the indoor environment presents a number of standardisation challenges, such as how navigation directions are supplied (take the elevator to the 3rd floor and turn right); semantics (my first floor is not your first floor); special zones (heating, security, WiFi, etc.); and standards for modeling and encoding floor plans. The Open Geospatial Consortium has released a draft standard IndoorGML for indoor geolocation and navigation.

fits. The McGraw-Hill SmartMarket Reports, for instance, indicate good RoI and significant benefits from BIM. There are other studies and reports too which — though difficult to say how scientific or reliable they are — indicate the trend that the main financial benefits are coming from decreasing mistakes and coordination errors which means less change orders and clear savings to the client.

A BIM model-based process can achieve 30% more efficiency either through more productive or efficient design or through better coordination and collaboration, claims Richard Humphrey, Senior Director, Infrastructure and Collaboration Products, Autodesk. One can easily detect fine errors and clash detection in the digital/virtual world. Also, one can perform simulation and analysis to predict and simulate how their project will perform. This is accomplished because errors can be addressed virtually before construction and the ability to simulate project performance and maintenance costs ensures that the optimal design is chosen early in the project life when changes are easier to make and have a greater impact.

For instance, Dr Jyrki Keinänen, CEO, A-Insinöörit, a Finland-based construction management and design firm, claims that with full use of 3D BIM technology, over 10% of overall project costs could be saved. “In the beginning, it was difficult

30 / Geospatial World / March 2014

to convince the clients. It was only after we started offering 5% concession in total project costs, we got tremendous success,” adds Keinänen, who believes integration of geospatial+3D BIM has a bright future in construction industry.

The future

Over the next two decades, construction of buildings and infrastructure (electric power, water/wastewater, roads and highways, and ports and airports) will see a massive infusion of investment, motivated by environmental concerns and the need to accelerate economic development.

“The AEC industry is fast changing from traditional construction methods as modern ICT/BIM/GIS/3D is fast ushering in shorter production cycles, safer and healthier working environment, higher and constant product quality, focus on customer experience and flexibility, and sustainable products and processes,” adds de Jonge.

As governments are discovering that they have less and less money for capital infrastructure projects, a greater proportion of the investment in infrastructure will come from the private sector, which will drive increasing productivity to improve returns on investment. As with other industries facing a productivity challenge, this translates into an investment in technology. The accelerating adoption of 3D technologies includes 3D visualisation, 3D building information modelling (BIM), 3D GIS, 3D CAD, 3D reality capture such as laser scanning (LiDAR) and ground penetrating radar (GPR), 3D photogrammetry from satellites, aircraft and UAVs, and technologies that enable 3D measurement such as oblique imagery is transforming the construction industry in important areas.

But as Morrel says, “real industry reform depends upon a more integrated offer to users — with those responsible for concept and design connecting to those who manage construction, who in turn connect to those who make the products and actually execute the work, with all of the above then connecting to the ultimate user. And it is in the operation and use of the asset that real value lies.”

3D data and technologies integrated with geospatial and other technologies are being applied to model buildings, infrastructure, and entire urban environments ranging from individual buildings to neighbourhoods to cities. This is feasible using today’s technology and that it is already transforming the construction industry. It is not hard to imagine many other areas where 3D digital models will play a transformative role in the future.

Geoff Zeiss, Editor — Building and Energy geoff@geospatialmedia.net (With inputs from Anand Kashyap, Research Fellow, Geospatial Media and Communications)

3D in Construction/Interview

‘It would take generations to develop a digital model for the entire highway system’ By making the post-construction survey the critical source of reliable asset information in the form of a 3D intelligent model, Ranvir (Ron) Singh, Chief of Surveys/Geometronics Manager, Oregon Department of Transportation, US, proposes to turn the road construction process on its head.

I

n a recent presentation you talked about “turning the construction process on its head.”

Could you describe what you mean by that and what you think is the primary reason that your and other DoTs are interested in this?

The Oregon Department of Transportation (and I suspect we are similar to many DoTs) got into automating its engineering back in the 1980s. We began using CAD, road design systems, and digital surveying instruments. The end goal continued to be to produce hardcopy construction documents, but we wanted to speed up the whole process.

A few years ago, I wrote a paper saying that we have been working to achieve this goal for the last 25 years. It is time to call that initiative a success and move forward with a new goal. I proposed a new goal which would be all about data. We would create data not just to produce construction

We should do the biggest survey for a particular section of highway during construction and post-construction rather than before design. We can capture all that information in 3D as the underground foundation is going in

plans or for designing and showing the public what things look like, but create it throughout the entire lifecycle of a highway including construction, operation and maintenance.

The concept of looking at the full lifecycle of a structure is not new. I think the concept is more prevalent in the vertical building industry than it is in highways.

The way we have been designing and building highways for a long time has been quite simple — we design a road, flatten it out on a piece of paper, produce a plan, stamp it by putting an engineer’s seal, and then build it. During construction, the surveyors read the plan and drive stakes into the ground to guide the equipment. The equipment operators have people on the ground who read the stakes and use rudimentary tools like pocket tapes and hand levels to guide bulldozers and other equipment to build the road. That is how we have been doing it. But all this has to change. At present, the contractor has to read the 2D plans and try to interpret our intent in order to build a given structure.

But a 3D

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 31

3D in Construction/Interview

Paper plains

Design Basemap

Construction staking

Project development surveys 100%

3D design Virtual site

Machine control

Digital signature

Construction staking

Project development surveys 20% 80%

As built plans

As built plans Current construction process

model shows the contractor in photorealistic 3D what currently exists and that we want to build. More importantly, the 3D data can be used directly for automatic machine guidance. Today, we have machines that can automate almost all aspects of highway construction. For example, with a 3D design, we do not have to drive stakes into the ground showing where a culvert goes. We load the 3D data into the excavating machine.

Either the operator will use the display he sees on a monitor in the cab and uses it to guide the machine or with certain devices like an automated curb machine, the system will position it to the correct line and grade and build the curb automatically.

What do you do about underground utilities in the current highway construction process?

Utilities are a huge problem. Depending on what we are doing, we need to know where those underground utilities are.

Today, the utility companies help identify the utility infrastructure for us. They come and put paint marks on the road surface to show the location of the pipes and lines. Most of the time there is no depth information and the accuracy is typically plus or minus two feet [which is the level of accuracy that utilities are expected to deliver in Oregon]. The sur-

My goal is to cover our entire highway system with point clouds and oblique imagery, which can be overlaid with all the asset information that comes from a GIS system 32 / Geospatial World / March 2014

Digitally signed data

Digital signature

Engineering data archive

New construction process

vey crews map those coloured paint lines in 2D and put them on their design to show where the utilities are. If the highway designer needs to know the location of underground utilities more accurately, we go out there with a backhoe, dig a hole and find the lines. The surveyor records the precise three dimensional position for that utility at that location. There are now technologies like ground penetrating radar (GPR) that allow you to locate underground utilities without digging, but from my vantage point it is still difficult to interpret and is very time-consuming.

Does the uncertainty about location of underground utilities introduce significant risk when designing a highway?

Absolutely it does. Today, if we have to build a new interchange on the Interstate Highway System, the typical process is to go and do a complete survey of the area. This provides fairly reliable information about what is on the surface because it records what is out there right now. But it does not provide information about what is underground. The question we have to ask is why didn’t we capture the actual conditions both on the surface and underground when the highway was first built. When we use remote sensing technologies like GPR, the wise thing to do is to show that utility centreline with a 3D buffer around it representing a cylinder or ellipse of uncertainty for that cable or pipe.

This sounds like creating a digital model of the highway during and after construction?

One thing I have been pushing for in my department is that we should do the biggest survey for a particular section of highway. I would like to see this happen during construction and post-construction rather than upfront before design. In this scenario, when we are building utilities or other structures underground, there are a number of tools that can be

But what if something changes in the intervening years, for example, the road is widened?

our entire highway system with point clouds and oblique imagery, which can be overlaid with all the asset information that comes from a GIS system. You will be able to see all of our surface asset information very accurately. As we build new projects, post-construction surveys will help us generate more and more of these little pockets of reliable engineered information appearing within this big database. These could be queried, and since we would know that this came from a survey, we can rely on it for future engineering.

We are organising a two-day demonstration of some of these technologies on July 9-10 in Oregon on behalf of the Federal Highway Administration. We are inviting 18 western state DoTs to attend and we will show them 3D design and machine-control, including automated bulldozers, graders, excavators, paving machines, and curb machines.

Another long-term benefit of maintaining up-to-date 3D datasets would be the autonomous vehicles. Autonomous ve-

As an agency, we would have to have the discipline that when we change something through our maintenance activities, we either note in the database that something has changed and it needs to be surveyed or we get the surveyors to survey the change immediately after construction and update the database. We have to ensure business processes are in place to maintain the reliability of the digital database.

I recognise that it would take generations before we could develop a digital highway model for the whole system.

As a first step, we are scanning out entire highway system with mobile LiDAR scanners and capturing the highway as it exists today. In addition to point clouds, we are also capturing imagery using a variety of reality capture technologies. Now somebody can look at a piece of highway on a computer system and measure in 3D. My goal is to cover

hicles will be data hungry. Already cars are using real-time sensing of their location and what is around them. But I cannot imagine that they would not benefit from knowing about the highway infrastructure. For example, if an autonomous vehicle is driving down the road, it needs to know the roadway alignment and where certain things are — in case of an emergency can I cross this line and go in that direction or is there a cliff?

I believe that those vehicles cannot just sense that information and need to have information accessible to them in real-time. They also have to sense what is changing, where other things are on the road, cooperative objects like other smart cars and uncooperative objects like a cow that has wandered onto the road. We are talking about data that is not just used during construction, it is also used to operate and maintain our highway systems.

used to record a three-dimensional position for the pipes, cables or culverts. Then, as we build up the roadbed prism, we would be capturing all that information in 3D as the underground foundation is going in.

This way, when we complete the project, we would not only have a new physical road, but also a new 3D digital as built road. Over time, we would see more of these little pockets of 3D-engineered models that we could start using as the starting place for future designs. Years later, if we want to reconfigure this interchange, we do not have to do a full survey of the area again. We do not have to pull manhole lids to look inside and wonder what is in there. We will already know what is in there.

We will already know the location of the pipes and cables, their materials, and everything we need to know about them.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 33

A tech-tonic shift?

Until recently, the software available for 3D city modelling focused more on the 3D part of things over specific city modelling needs. But as city models get more complex, boundaries are blurring between what is clearly BIM, CAD, GIS and visualisation.

By Dan Campbell

O

ver the past few years there have been substantial changes in city modelling. What and how much one can model and the tools available to tackle these tasks are evolving at a rapid rate. As their scale and scope expand, so do the expectations regarding what a city model can reveal, explain and predict.

There are two fundamental decisions one faces when developing a city model; what to model, and how to model it. Traditionally, the first question of what to model has been easy to answer; by definition, a city model was a collection of buildings. This focus on urban form comes from the primary city model users who were architects and urban designers. The early digital city models replicated the simple massing of the established tools of wooden context models, and played a similar role in providing the basic visual analysis. Another part of the ‘what’ question is how much to model. That was also easy to answer. Hardware and software limits kept the scale of what could be modelled fairly modest. For the most part, ‘city model’ has been overly generous title; most models rarely tackled areas beyond the neighbourhood scale.

Until recently, the software available for 3D city modelling has focused more on the 3D part of things over specific city modelling needs. General purpose tools such 3ds Max, SketchUp or Maya are very flexible and powerful, and they can be readily applied to create visually robust city models. The common practice has been to model the buildings

34 / Geospatial World / March 2014

using general purpose 3D software. Once completed, the model could be interrogated to provide information about shadowing, views, massing and other visual aspects based on geometric properties. By applying photo textures to the buildings and terrain, engaging photo-real output could be produced, as long as one were willing to commit their PC to countless hours of rendering time.

This process, within limitations, has worked well, and has met basic urban design needs. At their most basic level, city models created for game environments, movie CGI or city government use and share basic content elements.

However, it is when there is a need for something beyond visual fidelity that these multipurpose 3D tools reveal their shortcomings.

While useful, these types of models are limited in their analysis capabilities. Essentially, they are “pretty but dumb”. In our world where data is all important, a traditional 3D model is “what you see is what you get”, without any attributes attached to the buildings to enable any analysis beyond basic visual review. Equally important is the fact that most city governments lack the resources to do this detailed modelling at the full city scale, and to ensure that the model is kept current. Let us assume that it takes a minimum of 20 minutes to construct a very simple digital representation of building using a traditional modelling application. The 20 minutes required to model a single building grows to over 11 years to complete a modest sized city.

That is not a sensible, economical or sustainable approach.

Another factor to consider is the skill set required to work efficiently with 3D modelling applications. These are demanding programmes with a steep learning curve and municipal governments may find it difficult to justify having employees with such specialised skill set. Many rely on staff with a general working knowledge of a range of applications. In addition, these types of programmes were not designed to work with city scale data. While it is possible to work efficiently at the neighbourhood level, as the scale expands there is too much geometry to move around.

The big change

The big change has been the introduction of purpose built city modelling applications like Esri’s CityEngine and Autodesk’s InfraWorks. These type of tools, unlike general purpose 3D modelling software, have been built from scratch to address the need to work efficiently at the city scale, take advantage of existing GIS and BIM data, offer analytic capabilities and provide social connections with the public and the development community. The essential skill for working with these tools shifts from a focus on geometry and its manipulation to one on data. As most city governments have staff familiar with data and GIS skills, these new generation city modelling tools enable an organisation to quickly develop a functional and intelligent model.

Support and development of the city models can be shifted

from a small group of experts to a large set of staff with general skills.

A set of building footprints with some basic building height attributes, a digital elevation model and existing GIS data are enough to get one started. Rather than someone painstakingly transferring information from plans, manipulating vertices and faces to create a building model from scratch, the software uses the data attributes to generate the geometry on the fly.

While currently a data derived model is not as visually rich as a traditional geometry derived model, the trade-off, especially when the role of model as a city management tool is considered, is well worth it. The analysis capabilities,

The real challenge will be to model regulatory zones, indistinct boundaries, changing seasons, varieties of landscape, pedestrians strolling down a street, times of the day, and the forever changing visual fabric Geospatial World / March 2014 / 35

3D / City Modelling

Combination data model with BIM content

opportunities to use existing GIS and CAD data, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to work at the full city scale more than compensate for the model being a little less pretty.

More important than pretty is open and intelligent. In the era of open data and open standards, there is an expectation that any and all data, be it CityGML, KMZ, or IFC can be easily consumed, displayed, analysed, and shared.

The most current development in city modelling is the growing support for LiDAR and point cloud data. LiDAR has been playing a secondary role as a source for the generation of geometry, building footprints, and attributes for building height. Now however, with more powerful hardware and software, the point cloud data can be viewed, analysed and themed directly in the city modelling application. As higher resolution LiDAR becomes more readily available, and computing power increases, the need to translate point cloud data to geometry might diminish. The point cloud itself could become the foundation for the model.

All three of city model components — detailed geometry, data-derived geometry, and point clouds — are complementary to each other. They can be used together in a city modelling application to create an environment that is both visually robust, and efficiently intelligent.

With all the changes to city modelling, one wonders how the discipline will continue to evolve and change. For many, 3D is becoming the new standard work environment, with 2D work relegated for specific, more abstract application.

For a generation that has grown up with Google Earth, 3D gaming and 3D movies, this only makes sense. Perhaps now is an appropriate time to drop the 3D part from the name; the

36 / Geospatial World / March 2014

The most recent development in city modeling is LiDAR and point cloud data

assumption being that all city modelling, is of course, in 3D.

The challenges

It is exciting and important that we are now modelling our infrastructure, and other hidden aspects of the city, but equally important is the modelling of the invisible and the abstract. City modelling is just now emerging from its initial, rather crude state of development. Cities are incredibly complex, organic entities. It doesn’t make much sense to suggest that one can even begin to digitally replicate a city with some simple geometry and photo-textures. The challenge will be how to model regulatory zones indistinct boundaries, the changing seasons, endless varieties of landscape, pedestrians strolling down a street in the evening, the different times of day, a rainy afternoon in February, the sounds of traffic, and the forever changing visual fabric.

The boundaries between what is clearly BIM, CAD, GIS and visualisation, are becoming less distinct, often making it difficult to choose the best tool to apply to a specific task.

Perhaps the era of specialised tools for most users is reaching its end. Consider all the individual devices we used to carry with us only a few years ago. Having an individual MP3 player, PDA, camera, phone, video player, and portable gaming device was common. Now all this is handled by a single smartphone. Is it so difficult to imagine that in the near future one may only need a single application to efficiently deal with BIM, CAD, GIS and visualisation?

Dan Campbell, Systems Analyst II, GIS & CADD Services Branch, IT Department, Financial Services Group, City of Vancouver, dan.campbell@vancouver.ca

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In Pursuit of a Smart Planet…

Come and Explore How Geospatial Technology is Changing the World

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05 5-09 9 MAY 2014 Centre Internaational de Conférencees Genèève (CIC CG), Geneeva, Switzerland

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3D / Case Study

Digital City Model to Support Complex Planning Scenarios Producing a 3D Digital City Model of a dense urban area of Hong Kong called for spatially correct and photorealistic models, deployed in a versatile and functional 3D GIS.

H

ong Kong experiences extreme pressure on its urban space, with high population density, tightly knit high-rise buildings, complex architecture and a rapidly changing cityscape. This physical environment co-exists with a growing public awareness of community consultation, public planning involvement and complex planning legislation. Hong Kong’s authorities required a 3D digital city model with spatial accuracy to support legal scrutiny, photorealism to engage public consultation and the functionality to analyse and present complex planning scenarios.

The project

With a defined 27-week schedule, AAM, which was commissioned to complete this project, utilised a number of resources to maximise the functionality of the 3D city model. A regional perspective was provided with publically available satellite imagery and SRTM terrain data. Around the project site, existing government orthophotos and terrain data increased the resolution to improve the realism of the underlying terrain and landuse.

40 / Geospatial World / March 2014

First captured oblique imagery was captured over the project area to define the built environment. This process involves capturing five simultaneous images from a fixedwing survey aircraft, from cameras pointing forward, left, behind, right and under the aircraft, thus capturing every façade of each building. Nadir imagery from this process was used to create a higher-resolution orthophoto of the project area to better reflect the land-use at the time of capture.

The oblique and nadir imageries were used to construct a spatially correct building geometry of all structures within the project area. The aerial perspective allowed definition of every building, with roof-top elements captured to further increase the realism and precision of the city model. High resolution images were then used to texture every building façade to make them look photorealistic. Aerial oblique images provide a high degree of realism as they reflect what the human eye sees of the city, including sun/shadows, window reflections, advertising hoardings and all of the other visual components which make up a complex cityscape. However, a limitation of aerial imagery is that the geometry and photorealism of the

The diagram illustrates how street-level capture can also be limited by verandas, fences, steep observation angles and vegetation.

lower portions of tall buildings are often affected by shadows, building awnings or street vegetation. This was overcome on key thoroughfares of this project by capturing and applying street-level imagery and adding photorealism to streetscapes.

Aerial versus terrestrial cityscape capture

Aerial imagery provides the most efficient means of defining the geometry and photo-realistic facades of a cityscape since it can define all sides of buildings and rooflines. This provides a distinct advantage over street-level capture as the latter approach is limited to the capture of faces accessible by vehicle or foot. The aerial perspective also supports multiple capture of buildings from many positions, maximising the opportunities for clear sight of the facades.

A cityscape is therefore almost always more realistic and complete when captured and textured with an aerial approach (in terms of both geometry and photo-realism), and supplemented with street-level imagery as required. This approach is also supported by commercial considerations of the project; it is more efficient to define the entire city in one aerial survey (which generally has greater startup but lower incremental costs), and then supplement with street-level capture where required (as this generally has low startup times and times).

3D visualisation and analysis

The layers collected for the project were combined to construct a 3D city model and deployed using AAM’s K2Vi software to provide 3D analysis, presentation and linkages to the client’s data layers.

The benefit of creating a virtual 3D city model is the flexibility it provides to present scenarios or proposals for wider consideration. Existing buildings can be removed from the scene,

and proposed developments presented to stakeholders for their input. Variations to proposed developments can be modelled as buildings are shortened, enlarged, moved, rotated or altered. A rigorous city model with such software allows proposals to be evaluated in the knowledge that the spatial rigour and photorealism will allow the development to be evaluated on its merits.

In addition to the hard infrastructure of buildings and terrain, further realism is provided as K2Vi models and visualises the natural environment of water (including wind, waves and reflections) and atmospherics (including wind, precipitation and cloud type and height).

The results

Hong Kong now has a realistic 3D city model of the project area which can be analysed to present development scenarios.

The model has the spatial rigour to support shadow analysis, viewshed and interaction with planning zones, plus the realism to stimulate community consultation. AAM conducted user sessions to provide training on the software while stakeholder workshops reviewed the various survey methods available to roll out a structured city model over HKSAR. The cityscape model and software provides quicker ways to find responses to various planning options. Hong Kong now has a tool which avoids past experiences where a plan proposal is often undermined during the consultation process by poor presentation. A video showing all the combined elements of the Hong Kong 3D citymodel is available by viewing Hong Kong 3D City Model by AAM under the Video tab at http://tinyurl.com/qhkeweh.

David Jonas, Project Manager, AAM d.jonas@aamgroup.com

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 41

3D / Case Study

Laying the Foundation for a Smart City

Khed City is set to become the first ever integrated township in India involving precision planning with the help of 3D and GIS solutions. The technology is able to integrate different and diverse systems, data, platforms, processes and services.

K

hed City is one of India’s largest integrated development projects envisaged on the outskirts of Pune in western India. The city is being developed by Khed Economic Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (KEIPL), a joint venture between the Kalyani Group, Bharat Forge and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation.

Planned as a 5,400 hectare (ha) project, it is expected to attract investments of about Rs 25,000 crore ($4.02 billion) and generate 120,000 new employment opportunities. Khed City is being developed in phases. The first phase of development underway accounts for 100 ha as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) that will cater exclusively to export-oriented industries; about 110 ha for Domestic Tariff Area; nearly 1,500 ha of Integrated Industrial Area including residential, commercial and support services areas; and more than 25 ha for rehabilitation and resettlement of the project-affected community.

3D rendering of residential areas built in contemporary format.

42 / Geospatial World / March 2014

The challenge

Located approximately 2,100 feet above the sea level, at the intersection between the Western Ghats and the Deccan Plateau, the site is predominantly on higher ground with an incredible view of the valley. The undulating and rugged topography in many areas makes it difficult and expensive to develop.

To ensure easy acquisition of such large tracts of land, non-agricultural and uninhabited stretches were chosen, while keeping the environmental aspect in check. This, however, also brought in the inevitable challenge of the terrain, which mostly comprised of rough, undulating barren grassland. Developing such a stretch of land required sophisticated technology, which would reduce the effort and time consumed in mapping. It was necessary that pieces of technology being used talked to each other and data from one product to another product flowed for various stages from planning to maintenance. This should also maintain clarity, agility and continuity in its approval flow with an intelligent city model consisting 3D geospatial data, 3D building models, model-based design of road network and provide bills of quantities at various stages with multiple design alternatives. It was also necessary to use dynamic technology which would complement the existing organisational workflow— from planning to maintenance of the city. The standard was set to use a blend of Building Information Modelling (BIM) & GIS systems to address the needs of the planning stages, final project delivery and the maintenance phase ahead.

It was decided early that the technology would be used across disciplines, which included town-planners, architects, hydraulic engineers, environmental engineers, design consultants, road engineers and structural engineers — and this made the need for interoperability and data copying without data loss a critical challenge. It was necessary to develop a repository of spatial and non-spatial data in a land database that included 3D terrains, 3D building models, 2D GIS data, satellite images and CAD data. The next stage was to go live on the Web services

May 2007

April 2013

October 2011

Change detection of main entrance and site offices conducted with the help of satellite imagery.

with spatial data, which provides flexibility in allotment, and easy ways to accurately maintain and access land data.

The biggest challenge was to visualise the city with multiple design options and data from various sources that would help stakeholders take decisions based on proposal building exercises. Another determinant factor was cost-control due to the tight budgets and stringent technical guidelines.

The solution

The team zeroed in on Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite Ultimate to tackle the challenge. From site planning to ‘as-builts’, the software allowed the team to manage and integrate separate data types. With direct data access, transformation and export capabilities provided by the software enabled ease of use and a wide range of possibilities.

The BIM for infrastructure solution also helped in controlling the cost of the project, which otherwise would have spiralled due to high level of land grading. Approach and connectivity to the elevated land that rises above the surrounding agricultural region was an additional issue since road and water cannot be moved up-hill without proper planning and support infrastructure. Starting with a zero-budget mandate for water and energy (which meant that all resources brought in has to be appropriately treated and released with near-zero loss of potential) made it a stiffer challenge.

“With the use of Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite, our team could integrate and manage various design stages including site planning, project monitoring and maintenance,” says Dr Vivek Kale, Head (Geospatial), Kalyani Global). In the planning stage, this helped access various data sources and take it to the land database without any additional middleware or customisation. “The dynamic behaviour of the suite and in-built country kits for civil infrastructure design are remarkable, they helped solve most of the basic issues of recreating design templates and setting design standards,” he adds.

Complex jobs like grading, road design, utility design, clash

detection and early visualisations were done using AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Autodesk InfraWorks, Autodesk Navisworks and Autodesk 3ds Max Design, which are all a part of the design suite. Satellite imagery was also used to carry out ‘change-detection’ as recent as in 2013.

Web GIS

The primary roadblock and concern faced by the team were interfacing with the external agencies and government organisations. Publishing the data on the Web and sharing with the key set of people was resolved by a strong, dynamic Web GIS platform. It held large data like satellite images, DEMs, contour maps and complex land data and helped manage viewing options on the fly and file sharing with various teams. This server-based solution helped internal and external teams track the progress of project and land management across the stakeholders. GIS and mapping software helped in improving the quality, productivity, and asset management of the project.

The management as well as the stakeholders have near-real-time access to the progress of the particular site through the Web GIS application. They are able to view the layout maps with the updated status through satellite images, actual site photographs and attribute information.

“One interesting aspect of this technology deployment is the ability and capacity of different and diverse systems, data, platforms, processes and services to efficiently and effectively work together. Khed City is a landmark project, and with this, it [the technology] is set to become an exemplar for enhanced infrastructure development, optimising on resources, energy, and thus enabling the investor to make most out of it,” says Dr Kale.

Khed City will become the first ever integrated township with precision planning with the help of 3D and GIS solutions. The technology is able to integrate different and diverse systems, data, platforms, processes and services.

Courtesy: Kalyani Group, Pune

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 43

3D/Case Study

A 3D View of London London’s popularity and prominence as a global hub make it a perfect metropolis for creation of a 3D model. Even as the project, which kicked off last year, is still in progress, there has been an increasing demand for 3D content across a range of industries

L

ondon is a prominent global metropolis steeped in history, commerce, and finance. With its high-profile and undeniable attractions, it is no surprise the city authorities required a smart 3D city model.

CyberCity 3D, a geospatial modelling company based in California and specialising in 3D buildings was given the contract. Its first challenge was securing the aerial imagery necessary to build a precise city model.

London-headquartered Vertex Modelling, which specialises in high-precision 3D models, provided the aerial images and camera files needed for the original London 3D launch.

The project got into the production mode in May 2013, starting with a 4 sq km ‘beta test’ in the area south of Buckingham Palace. The workflow began with two overlapping aerial images (stereo pairs). The modellers then extracted information such as building features and created point clouds to provide the source data, following which a

44 / Geospatial World / March 2014

Visualising terrain and the 3D London model together

3D model was generated. The buildings were aligned using the British National Grid projection.

The 3D model of London was optimised for integration into Esri’s CityEngine, a software that transforms 2D GIS data into smart 3D city models. Once integrated, it can then be modified as needed and exported as Web Scenes for viewing on a modern Web browser without requiring an additional plug-in.

“When we started creating London 3D, we specifically looked at CityEngine and its numerous 3D visualisation and planning applications. The software gives clients creative options and opportunities to customise the model to specific client needs,” says Kevin DeVito, CEO, CyberCity 3D. However, the project faced a major challenge. The integration of the highly detailed model of the London City Centre into one CityEngine visualisation scene was serving as a hindrance. Fortunately, the company’s model precision — with

Left: Using 3D London data to position security cameras and then visualising their locations; Right: Flood Mapping analysis and visualisation.

up to 6 inches accuracy for its buildings — came in handy.

Once the London model was successfully incorporated into CityEngine, Esri UK immediately showed interest in the project, leading to a strategic partnership. This was followed by sales in the insurance and facilities management areas.

“We are seeing increased demand for 3D content across a range of industries. With the CityEngine technology and the use of the content across different areas we now have a great way to utilise, analyse and share the 3D content,” says Ivor Wheeldon, Content Services Programme Manager, Esri UK. “Therefore, accurate and detailed 3D content optimised for our software is important. The models generated fits all these areas, which means our customers can start working with the data as soon as they receive it.”

Garsdale Design — a UK-headquartered architectural, planning, and urban design service — also teamed up with CyberCity 3D to offer a turnkey solution for clients ‘across the Pond’. Geodesign guru Elliot Hartley, a Director with

The London 3D city model lends itself to a variety of applications such as urban planning, visualisation, solar evaluations, urban analysis, floor modelling, real estate

Garsdale Deign who specialises in the use of 3D urban modelling technologies, pitched in the planning process.

“CityEngine allows you to create and combine 2D and 3D data from a variety of sources. Its real power, of course, is allowing you to communicate stories and information in the form of 3D Web Scenes with ease,” says Hartley. These can be hosted on ArcGIS Online or on your own private server, he adds.

The London 3D city model lends itself to a variety of applications, especially in the area of Geodesign. The data and the model enhance projects in a wide variety of areas such as urban planning, visualisation, solar evaluations, urban analysis, line-of-sight, shadow analysis/right-to-light, floor modelling, and real estate analytics. The availability of extensive GIS information leads to streamlined workflows, better communication of complex proposals, and ease of data distribution via Web services.

“London’s City Centre and the city in general are undoubtedly one of the most popular areas in the world, making it a perfect place to create a 3D model. The visualisation, analytical, and planning information gleaned from this expanding model will undoubtedly influence projects defining the future of this legendary city,” underlines DeVito.

Meanwhile, the 3D city model is still in progress. Till date, the model encompasses more than 13.7 sq km and 5,700 structures. As the model grows, so does the interest around it.

Rae DeVito, Director of Communications, CyberCity 3D, rdevito@cybercity3d.com

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 45

3D/Consumer Segment

Innovations in 3D modelling software and 3D printing have created a new community of makers — a growing group recognised as a powerful movement of connected, creative individuals who are creating what they want, how they want. By Frances Mortimer

M

akers — and the maker movement — are getting a lot of attention these days. Perhaps the renewed focus on “making things” is due to the technology — such as SketchUp 3D modeling software and 3D printing — that has made creating so easy.

Perhaps it is a reaction to modernity’s store-bought everything.

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Andrew Whitacre used Sketchup 3D modeling software to create a snow globe of his own home.

Perhaps it’s the community that has sprung up almost overnight, adding a sense of neighborhood to the online world.

Whatever it is, hobbyists globally are making, “hacking,” and collaborating on a vast array of projects. Together they comprise the maker community, a growing group recognised as a powerful movement of connected, creative individuals.

Marcus Ritland of Denali 3D Design in Minneapolis offers his own definition of the people in the maker community: “They are people who want to make something outside of their professional work, like a software engineer who wants to get his or her hands dirty at home and make a wooden bookshelf.” As such, the maker community encompasses all kinds of creative projects, including computing, electronics, woodwork and traditional arts and crafts.

“Anyone can become a maker. You may not know you’re capable of something until you see someone else do it. But then with a push in the right direction, you can make something really cool you can be proud of,” says Ritland.

The maker movement is identified as such largely due to Maker Media, which — through media, events and e-commerce — serves the growing community of makers. Maker Media helps individuals connect through its MAKE Magazine and annual Maker Faires held in San Mateo, California, Detroit and New York. Maker Faires are venues for makers to meet other makers and showcase the projects they have created on kitchen tables and in workshops throughout the year. Mini Maker Faires are also held around the world.

A door to making

Ritland’s entry into the maker’s world began while he was researching career options in college. A proficient AutoCAD user who worked in construction while at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, Ritland wanted to offer CAD services as a career, but wasn’t sure what was possible.

During his research, Ritland discovered SketchUp 3D software, which was originally designed to enable architects to design, document and communicate. SketchUp enables drawing in a way that emulates using pen and paper, uniquely rendering drawings in both 3D and 2D. “I liked that it was fun and easy to use,” says Ritland, “but it was the SketchUp community that got me hooked.” Through online videos and case studies, and from spending time on the SketchUcation forum, Ritland learned SketchUp well enough to teach it.

In 2008, Ritland started his own business offering design and SketchUp training services. Businesses and individuals aiming to create their own products — bringing them to life via 3D printing — now employ Ritland to design, or finish designing, their ideas in SketchUp. Makers are also sometimes known as hackers. While the term holds negative connotations in some contexts, in the maker community hackers are those who push the limits of what is possible, or who creatively alter existing technology paradigms for their own ends.

Mark Harrison, marketing manager for SketchUp, believes there is a strong correlation between object-making hobbyists and hackers, and design professionals. “Makers

Marcus Ritland teaches SketchUp in a local makerspace.

are trying to solve many of the same problems as professionals working on building, infrastructure or land development projects,” he says. “Their projects often have great complexity and often require handoff between more than one stakeholder or software platform. This is why we also make SketchUp available to hobbyists for their project design.”

Bridging the gap between ideas and reality

One of SketchUp’s key contributions to the maker community is that it helps to put the possibility of 3D printing into everyone’s hands. 3D printing is the process of making a three-dimensional solid object from a digital model. The object is built layer by layer — an additive process — where successive layers of material are laid down in different shapes. This manufacturing process makes any geometric shape achievable in a variety of materials, including plastics, ceramics and metals.

3D printing enables anyone with an idea, or dozens of ideas, to bring it to fruition: No expensive, inflexible mold is required.

So anyone from artists to inventors to hobbyists can enjoy seeing their ideas come to life. “The bridge from your ideas to reality lies in 3D modeling software that describes your model in a way 3D printers can understand,” says Ritland.

In order to create an object via 3D printing, users begin by drawing their idea in SketchUp. They can manipulate the drawing, modify it, and more. SketchUp’s simplicity at this stage allows professionals and hobbyists alike to focus on the problem they are trying to solve, not the tool. When the plan is complete, it is sent as an .stl file to a 3D printer for manufacturing. Ritland recently acquired his own 3D printer, a Solidoodle 2, but makers can also use a 3D printing service.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 47

3D/Consumer Segment

Model every mountain Seeing — and touching — a physical model is a powerful tool for project visualisation. When Philip Tarr makes one of his mountain models, he accesses publically available data developed using surveying and aerial sensors. And he works on an enormous area — literally an entire mountain — with elevations taken at 50 m (164 ft) intervals. However, the workflow Tarr follows can easily be applied by surveyors and GIS professionals on a smaller scale to produce physical models to help clients develop clear understanding of their sites.

The accurate topographic data gathered by instruments such as the Trimble VX™ Spatial Station or Trimble V10 Imaging Rover can be used to create a 3D virtual model in Trimble Business Center or Trimble RealWorks® software. The site images collected by the instrument can then be draped over the virtual model. If that virtual model is exported to SketchUp, the results can be used to 3D print a physical model of the job site.

From mountains to job sites

Philip Tarr, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London and enthusiast of mountains, maps, and geology, is currently bringing to life his ambition to make accurate scale models of individual mountains, each with a choice of detailed textured surfaces in full colour. With a background in algorithmic graph theory and network science, Tarr felt that his “hopeless” lack of ability in arts and crafts, particularly papier mache, made this dream impossible. However, 3D modeling software and 3D printing is helping Tarr bring his dream to reality so that he can share it with others.

Tarr had to learn from scratch how to use seven new applications — including VT Builder; QGIS; Blender; SketchUp; MeshLab; AccuTrans 3D; Paint.NET and Gimp — for GIS, 3D modeling and 2D image processing. Tarr reached out to Ritland for advanced SketchUp help when he couldn’t find the information online. This challenge is typical — it is not unusual for makers solving complex design problems to interact with multiple software applications.

Tarr uses Ordnance Survey Open Data (Terrain 50) to create the models — elevations are sampled at 50 m (164 ft) intervals on the ground (which in the scale of his models corresponds to 1 mm). He then drapes map and aerial photo images over the surface of the model. So far, Tarr has created a 3D model of Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, and Scafell Pike in the English Lake District, the highest mountain in England.

He is currently working on Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland. “I hope to sell the models on Shapeways to outdoor enthusiasts and tourists alike,” Tarr says.

Making neighbours around the world

From physical spaces known as maker- or hacker-spaces to those strictly online, makers reach out to one another, sharing resources, and collaborating in knowledge and ideas.

Professionally, Ritland has helped many people bring their

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ideas to fruition using SketchUp. His clients have included a bicycle maker who wanted a metal logo to attach to each bike, and a handbag designer who wanted her own metal clasp design. Ritland also helped a landlord who needed to recreate a discontinued window latch part. Instead of replacing multiple windows in his rental properties, the landlord can now for just a few dollars simply install the part he has made — complete with modifications — thereby saving himself time and costs. The landlord is no longer at the mercy of the window manufacturer’s business decisions, but is now able to provide himself with the things he needs. Through SketchUp and 3D printing, all these users have been empowered by the ability to make exactly what they need, at a very reasonable price.

Andrew Whitacre, a Communications Director for MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), is an accurate example of Ritland’s definition of a maker; and his first project illustrates the power of the SketchUp community. Whitacre wanted to create a snow globe for his wife, customised with an accurate model of their home inside. He was planning his project in SketchUp, which he had downloaded and taught himself, when the ambitious project temporarily defeated him. In a bind, he reached out to the Shapeways 3D Printing Forum online. In the process of helping Whitacre, Ritland exchanged upwards of 30 e-mails with him — he even created a 14-minute individualised video tutorial. “For me, the process of learning SketchUp and 3D printing was like the idealised picture we have of neighbours in each others’ basement workshops,” says Whitland.

Of course, the difference with the online SketchUp community is that the neighbour might be thousands of miles away, on another continent even, and the workshop entirely virtual.

Frances Mortimer, a freelance writer specialising in high-tech positioning solutions, including conventional, GNSS and spatial imaging survey systems.

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Construction/Trends

An Eye on Future The combination of reality capture and digital realisation, the Cloud’s infinite computing capacity, and crowdsourcing technology are all set to shape the construction industry in 2014 and beyond

By Dominic Thasarathar

O

ver the next decade, growth in the global market for construction services across the built, civil and industrial environments is predicted to outpace the rate of world GDP expansion. The findings of a recent study conducted by Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics forecast that by 2025 worldwide construction output will reach $15 trillion, around 70% greater than the current levels. So what impact might digital technology have on the industry by the time 2025 rolls around?

Predicting the future of the construction industry can be a tricky business — think of all those red-faced pundits who called time on its “wasteful practices, inefficient business models and lack of productivity”, only to see the industry thunder on and leave them kicked to the curb. The construction industry’s relationship with technology has been no exception. But that notwithstanding, here are the three trends which are likely to have an influence in shaping construction industry over the next decade.

Courtesy: William Lineberry, Design Technology Manager, HNTB

This model shows the detail of the temporary grounding tower, and a window into the final support structure at the entry point to the main Denver International Airport terminal.

50 / Geospatial World / March 2014

Blurring of the digital and real worlds

From advances in reality capture to those in digital realisation, the gap between the digital and real world is shrinking. As this trend accelerates, today’s rather abstract practice of creating 3D models of projects from scratch on a computer, in isolation of the context in which they sit, will start to lose its currency.

In the realm of reality capture, laser scanning and photogrammetry have been around for many years. But it is the advances in interpretation of simple digital photographs, of the type you can take with any smartphone, and the ability to integrate multiple types of scanned data (whether from LiDAR, environmental sensors etc.) that are really poised to change the game. These advances hold the promise of designing projects ‘in context’ and modelling ‘in reality’.

A remarkable example of a major project involving reality capture and designing in context and modelling in reality can be seen in the Denver International Hotel and Transit Center project in the US. The project, which is managed by HNTB in collaboration with Parsons and AECOM, designed

by Gensler and under construction by MHS (Mortenson, Hunt, Saunders — a tri-venture with enabling work provided by Kiewit), involves a large-scale hotel and public transit centre in addition to the existing airport. In an extensive review of the project, Informed Infrastructure noted: “Part of the early effort involved capturing the existing conditions, above and below ground for the interface of this new construction project with the existing building. The integration of the point cloud into the model, along with survey data, assured an accurate building location.”

The data capture of the terminal building included LiDAR scanning of the first three bays from the roof down to the ground. The scan assisted modelling the building to a high level of detail with everything modelled down to 6 inches in size. Using LiDAR to model the interior took place over three evenings (1 a.m. to 4 a.m.) with 60-80-foot scans.

The scan data was compiled into a digital image, and from there it took four to six weeks to create the full model of the existing building.

Similarly, at the other end of the project process, trends in

digital realisation, like 3D printing and digital fabrication are shrinking the number of steps it takes to go from a digital model to a finished real-world asset. Direct machine control from 3D models is disrupting the manufacturing maxim that complexity and uniqueness are expensive. Contractors will likely benefit from drastically reduced in-situ construction costs and the freedom to accommodate the most complex designs that architects can throw at them, without breaking a sweat.

Today, sharing your point-of-view on everything from the fortunes of your favourite football team, to the best tropical beach, to spend your hard-earned vacations days lazing on, is simply a matter of opening a Web browser, tweeting or posting to Facebook. This easy access to large crowds offers the industry a couple of interesting possibilities. Firstly, the prospect of accelerating the consultation and permitting processes for construction. Consider the increasingly complex urban environments in which we live and the growing number of stakeholders who need to be consulted and you can begin to see the attraction of sharing your project details via crowdsourcing.

Now consider the skill crisis we hear about in construction — an aging workforce, a lack of apprenticeships during the Great Recession, a perception of this being a sunset industry as a career option. In fact, according to a study released earlier this year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), 69% of architects, engineers and contractors expect a shortage of skilled workers over the next three years, with 32% anticipating a shortage of specialty trade contractors by 2014.

And for the impact specifically to the construction industry, consider this: according to the Talent Pressures and Aging Workforce Industry Report Series conducted by the Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College, of the 58 construction firms surveyed, 50% indicated the aging workforce would “negatively” or “very negatively” affect their businesses — a figure significantly higher than other business sectors studied. With baby boomers in the West rapidly approaching retirement age, the industry faces a significant skills gap as fewer skilled workers are available to take their place.

Now add in the transactional nature of the industry, one which is driven by projects, where the workload of a company, and therefore workforce requirements are often in flux.

Digital connectivity supporting the notion of e-working, via work exchange hubs is already taking off in other sectors of the economy. So why not construction?

Finally, shift the emphasis from opinion and expertise to

Courtesy: Municipality of Milan

Tuning into the sound of the crowd

To support the renovation of the Teatro Lirico, the City of Milan has incorporated laser scans, photographs and reality capture data to create 3D models, so that design projects can start with accurate dimensions and photo-quality context rather than a blank screen

money and you open the door for crowdfunding and peer-topeer financing of projects. Technology entrepreneurs have been tapping this route to equity for some time, but now real estate developers are venturing there too. Local funding for local projects by the local community could open the door for ‘socialpreneurs’, localising health care, education and social housing into the hands of the local population, creating a demand for localism from the contracting community in a modern day artisan manner.

For a fascinating look at projects fuelled by crowdsourcing, one can take a look at a report released in January this year, Crowdfunding Architecture, created by massolution for The American Institute of Architects, gives an examination of Colombia’s 66-story BD Bacatá skyscraper for downtown Bogota, and the ‘I Make Rotterdam’ project in the Netherlands for a bridge to alleviate pedestrian traffic.

Examples of crowdsourcing efforts for the construction industry are gaining traction. For example, in a recent article titled New Crowd-Sourcing Platforms Offer Cash for Solutions to Construction Problems, author Luke Abaffy reported that a group of PhD students in Great Britain and a Canadian construction company both launched separate global crowdsourcing tools late last year. Adopting social media and Webbased methods will lead to ever more creative approaches

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 51

Courtesy: City of Bamberg and Autodesk

Construction/Trends

3D model of a portion of the City of Bamberg, Germany displayed on an iPad

for construction funding and stimulus. Abaffy’s article also cites iamuprising.com, which is dedicated to solving the world’s engineering, architecture and construction industry challenges by offering cash awarded for solutions deemed most viable, feasible and desirable.

The Cloud, Big Data and the death of rework

It’s hard to escape talk of The Cloud these days — the notion of hosting computer programmes and data on giant server farms accessed via the Internet from a Web browser — on your desktop PC, laptop, phone or tablet, in the office, in transit or at the jobsite.

Historically the ability to use a computer to solve a complex design or construction challenge has been limited by the amount of processing power and memory one could cram into a desktop machine. But the Cloud neatly side-steps this restriction as it allows to tap into a theoretically unlimited amount of processing power.

The future of construction is going to be one where multi-dimensional, highly complex challenges are chewed up in near real-time. Getting the right design, with the right schedule, with the right risk management, for the right outcome, perfect project delivery, should become achievable, and should sweep-away today’s issues of rework, inefficiency and waste.

Now consider The Cloud as your shop-front to the world. The Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics study cited that by 2025, 63% of construction output will be in today’s emerging economies, how will you capitalise on this? The Cloud has no boundaries; might you provide services remotely without the overheads of setting up local offices? Consider remote estimating, risk assessment, design optioneering, and more.

The other side to the Cloud is, of course, Big Data. The amount of data being created in the world is increasing at

52 / Geospatial World / March 2014

a breath-taking rate. According to a 2012 Digital Universe study, come 2020, there will be 5,200GB of data for every person on earth. Reflecting on the results of a 2012 survey AEC professionals conducted by Aconex, Katie Hall with Aconex noted recently that “Big Data is a big topic these days, and advances in BIM (building information modelling) technology have made it a critical issue in construction technology. The volume of information to be managed throughout the course of projects has cascaded into the terabytes (1 terabyte = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes).”

Searching for patterns in large amounts of data to predict future outcomes, or Predictive Analytics, is an established practice in many businesses, most notably finance for credit risk and retail for consumer behaviour. For the first time in history construction is curating large amounts of high integrity, highly structured data via BIM/3D models. Step back from an individual project and think how that data might be put to work outside the originating project — multi-project buying opportunities, advanced material hedging, smart scheduling, improved cash-flow and more, are all examples where analysing historic data might improve future construction outcomes.

Passing the baton

No conversation about the future of the industry can take place without reference to the millennial generation — today’s children and young adults who have grown up immersed in digital technology and digital culture. Today a teenager in Boston has more in common with a teenager in Mumbai than ever before. These dynamics present the industry with a homogeneous, globally aware talent pool, but one whose expectations may vary considerably from previous generations.

A proclivity to cooperation and collaboration when solving problems, to a belief that skills in digital technology are inseparable from career success, and one where the boundaries of work and social are significantly blurred are all expectations that the industry will need to accommodate if it’s to attract the next generation of workers and leaders.

As admitted at the outset, predicting the future of the construction industry is a tricky business, but it seems clear that the potential of crowdsourcing online and via social media, the potent combination of reality capture and digital realisation, and the impact of the Cloud’s infinite computing capacity are the three big, undeniable trends that are reshaping the construction industry.

Dominic Thasarathar, Thought-leader & Evangelist, Global Construction & Natural Resource Industries, Autodesk dominic.thasarathar@autodesk.com

Construction/Interview

‘Field-office connectivity is gaining traction’ Improving workflow connectivity, from feasibility study through operation, is the key R&D area for Trimble’s construction portfolio, says Senior Vice President Bryn Fosburgh

T

he annual global construction spend is about $7 trillion, which is around 10% of the global GDP. What according to you is driving this construction boom across the world?

Emerging economies have seen significant growth in the recent times. India, China, and parts of Africa are all seeing huge building construction projects as well as linear construction ones like roads, airports or railways. These emerging economies are thus driving the new infrastructure build. On the other hand, in the more traditional economies like Europe, we are seeing a renovation boom — renovation of existing buildings to improve either energy efficiency or safety.

In the construction world, we are increasingly seeing integration of BIM with geospatial technology. How does this integration help?

No one lives in just a geometric world. You can define any building geometrically with a set of lines and objects. But there is also a set of attributes in that building — the colour of the tile, furniture, the actual floor, doors etc. These attributes define the building’s model. And over that you need the geospatial attributes. One of the key ideas behind the

Trimble’s SketchUp acquisition was to enable this merger of geometric model with GIS. It gives the customer a more real-time view of what their assets look like.

Today, BIM is model-centric and not GIS-centric. There are many factors from the GIS perspective. If you look at Esri, it is very GIS-specific, while Autodesk is model-specific but weak on the GIS. Trimble is looking at how to merge the model with GIS. Herein, we think we offer something very unique — our products have rich GIS attributes while we have some very strong design packages. We are looking to merge the two, both in the back offices as well as on the field.

How can greater collaboration between stakeholders be achieved in workflow solutions, especially DBO projects which need information mobility between various aspects?

The main reason for rework or decrease in quality is due to data loss during the handover from one phase to another.

Trimble’s ‘Design Build Operate’, or DBO, portfolio allows seamless data transfer through the entire workflow.

Further, most customers have a multitude of products,

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 53

Construction/Interview and the key for us is to integrate that entire process, which is done using Trimble and non-Trimble products. For instance, we have an agreement with Bentley, so we do not allow data to become a competitive advantage for either. We have both agreed to share the data and its transfer, so as not to impact the customer. Trimble is also looking at working with other manufacturers within this industry.

Just like with OGC, there is an IFC or open standard BIM transfer in construction world. And like with all open standards, there is a weakness there: they can never be as rich as true integration. That integration has to come up at the API level, more than just an open standard data transfer.

Countries like the UK and Singapore are on way to making BIM mandatory for energy-efficient buildings.

Where do you think other countries stand for this to become a mandate across the world?

I would say it is more than just energy efficiency. If you just look at some of the building collapse issues, having a very well-defined model or knowing how a particular building was built helps in the safety aspect too.

Also, when it comes to buildings owned by the government, there is a huge cost savings in the actual building of the structures. So I think more and more governments would approve of such legislations in the future as the benefits become increasingly apparent.

Do you think the emerging markets are mature enough to understand the advantages of the workflow solutions you are talking about?

The issue is how you put across the message. And I think the message many a times is different from one economy to another. The message probably for India from our building construction perspective would be more around safety and quality. There might be a bigger price issue, as compared to, say Germany, where there may be a bigger productivity message.

Most customers have a multitude of products, and the key for us is to integrate that entire process. That integration has to come up at the API level, more than just an open standard data transfer 54 / Geospatial World / March 2014

That is why localisation is very important. High content is as important in Mozambique, as in Delhi or Alabama. The issue is sending the right message and making sure that the solution is localised for Delhi, New York or Cape Town.

You may say awareness levels about this technology are low in the emerging nations. But then, even in the developed economies, the awareness level could be strong or weak depending on the solutions. We have some countries where the technology is very penetrative but in some places this has not been so. In those places, perhaps we have not got the right message across to the people and we have not had the right go at the market in terms of having the right people to help us sell there. To me, it is irrelevant whether that is an emerging economy or a developed country. The difference between the two would be the right price point and localisation. The price point is different in India than it is China than in the US. Also, if penetration is low for us, it is just as low for our competitors as well. Therefore, we have to collectively come up with the right message, the right way to deliver that message and the way to sell, service and support the technology.

You talked about renovation of existing infrastructure.

How can we convert the existing 2D models into intelligent 3D and 4D models?

For precisely this reason, scanning has become such an important part of the building construction industry. Scanning

There is huge cost savings with BIM in actual building of the structures. I think more and more governments would approve of such legislations in the future as the benefits become increasingly apparent.

From grade control for construction machinery, to Site Tablets for connecting the office to the field, to GNSS receivers, Trimble offers complete solutions across the entire workflow — right from the concept of the construction work to all the way in operation.

helps us create a new model and supplement existing models to be able to rebuild. Scanning has been the biggest change in the building construction remodelling business.

For the construction industry, how important is empowering the field workforce?

Connectivity between the field and the office is becoming more and more important. Is your smartphone an office device or a field device? It depends on how you are using it and where you are sitting. An architect is not going to be just looking at a computer sitting in his office. He could also be looking at a tablet or smartphone, and doing sketches or modifications right at the construction site. With technology advances, data sync is happening in real time and there is a blurring of line between the field and the office.

Improving workflow connectivity, from feasibility or concept through operation, is the key R&D area for us. Our solutions focus on improving interoperability between Trimble and non-Trimble products. We are also looking at integrating all Trimble sensors to help measure data in the field and building appropriate user interfaces around that to be able to collect and create accurate 3D models. The direction is how to improve connectivity and mobility, and empowering the workforce on the field.

Trimble is now transforming into a services and total solutions company. What does this mean from the

construction industry perspective?

In the construction business, Trimble looks at the entire workflow — from the concept of the construction work to all the way in operation. We use technology to improve either productivity or reduce rework, and improve quality, which involves using hardware or software or an entire solution to solve a customer’s problem. And we use a multitude of technologies across all our franchise businesses to address the workflow from A to Z. If I have to build a road from Delhi to Chennai, the first piece of that work is feasibility study. Trimble software can be applied to determine the best alignment on the road from Delhi to Chennai. And that ‘best’ is in terms of cost, safety or avoiding certain cultural artefacts that you may not want to destroy in the process. We then get into the estimation and design phase. Here, we have partnerships; for instance, we have a strong tie-up with Bentley for design software. We also have our own design software.

Once the design is done, a surveyor needs to measure the ground. We also use geospatial imagery from satellite data or fixed wing airpoint. A comparison of the actual ground and the design gives the estimate of how much dirt must be moved to create that road. Trimble has the software and surveying equipment required to do that. The completed design goes on into a machine like a JCB or a Caterpillar, which pushes the dirt in the right places for building the road.

The last is the operation part, where we have RFID tracking systems to track various assets along the actual roadway for maintenance and estimating the amount of traffic passing through a particular toll booth.

So, Trimble has the complete range of software and hardware solutions which are sold as solutions or as a complete service that goes through the entire workflow. Our solutions also have a worldwide view, so that they can build a road not only from Delhi to Chennai but also from Frankfurt to Munich, or Washington DC to Pittsburgh or Paris to Nice.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 55

3D/Case Study

Using innovative technologies, plans for the first multi-lane roundabouts in Iowa were delivered in six weeks, 24 days less than the original schedule, saving $23,100, while onsite inspection reporting saved around 10 hours a week valued at $57,200 over the 52-week construction period

D

uPont Pioneer, the largest US producer of genetically modified seeds, was expanding its headquarters in Johnston, Iowa. In early 2010, it announced to city and state officials that two campus expansions would create 638 new jobs, contributing to a significant increase in traffic on NW 62nd Avenue.

Foth Infrastructure and Environment led a collaborative effort among the City of Johnston, the Johnston Economic Development Company, and DuPont Pioneer to secure $6.38 million in state funding for widening and reconstructing nearly 1.5 miles of NW 62nd Avenue.

Given the existing traffic characteristics and imminent congestion, Foth saw an opportunity to implement a non-traditional intersection solution. Multi-lane roundabouts improve traffic flow, reduce delays, and promote pedestrian safety while presenting a smaller carbon footprint. Because this type of roundabout was new to Iowa, Foth was challenged to demonstrate the benefits to stakeholders. MicroStation was used extensively to prepare conceptual drawings and preliminary geometric layouts. These illustrations assisted in educating city staff, city councilmen, and key

56 / Geospatial World / March 2014

stakeholders about the benefits of the proposed solution.

Once approved, the project was put on the fast track mode, making it imperative for Foth’s multi-discipline 12-member team to engage in collaborative design using optimal tools. While Bentley SELECT subscription benefitted its geographically dispersed team, flexible licensing and Bentley LEARN training helped with workload balancing.

Foth streamlined design and automated repetitive tasks, facilitating a lean project delivery approach. Typically, a project of this magnitude would take a design team of that size more than 16 weeks to finish. Foth’s team completed the design and sent the project to bid in just six weeks.

Interoperability produces master model

GEOPAK Civil Engineering Suite offered a flexible suite of integrated tools for surveying and design of roads, sites, drainage networks, and storm and sanitary sewer systems. The solution was further integrated with other software solutions to take on the challenging scope of work. In addition to multiple multi-lane roundabouts, the corridor featured a two-lane bridge, box-culvert underpass, recreational trail, and stream realignment.

Site design tools were used to model the roundabouts, bridge berms, and stream realignment, while Corridor Modeler was used to model the roadway in between roundabouts, which involved the design of pavement widening and full reconstruction, as well as recreational trails. Data acquisition tools helped import the models and create a 3D master model of the entire project. The master model was ultimately used to cut cross sections and serve as a reference during plan preparation.

In areas where the storm sewer network had to be retrofitted, drainage tools allowed the designers to lay out the existing network, then place additional nodes and pipes relative to the new alignment. This drainage model was exported into StormCAD for advanced network modelling, and then imported back into GEOPAK for final plan preparation.

Flood protection, pedestrian safety priorities

Foth used FlowMaster and CulvertMaster to perform the extensive hydraulic analyses required for correction of Beaver Creek’s course at the site where a two-lane bridge accommodated vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The channel was realigned, and the creek banks were reinforced to protect the new roadway embankment. The roadway was also raised above the creek’s 100-year flood elevation to ensure it would be passable during seasonal flooding. The Roadway Designer generated the cross sections, which were imported into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System software. LEAP Bridge was used for the concrete bridge design.

Pedestrian safety was another major design concern, since the project corridor passed through DuPont Pioneer’s campus. Each leg of each roundabout contained pedestrian ramps that were modelled in the site design tools to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines. A 12-by-8 foot reinforced concrete box culvert was designed as an underpass allowing pedestrian traffic to cross safely under NW 62nd Avenue.

Automating plan preparation

Laying out the roundabouts and pedestrian crossings required a staggering number of geometric and staking details.

The design team devised an efficient process for detailing plan sheets using the 3D roadway design models. A Visual Basic routine automated the assignment of proposed elevations to coordinate geometry points. Advanced plan preparation tools were used to automatically label the IDs of the points by selection sets, rather than individually. Once the ID labels were placed, tables containing location information were automatically generated.

Design of the roundabouts was also influenced by the requirement to maintain two-way traffic flow during all stages of construction. A fire station and half of the community’s schools are located on the east end of the project corridor, which is one of only two corridors connecting the city across Beaver Creek. Foth used alternate surfaces within the software solution to piece together the construction stages. The 3D surface model was also used to create a 3D rendering of the project.

The ability of Bentley software to convert to and from numerous file formats allowed design data to be passed along to other internal specialty applications; sub-consultants and vendors using other design platforms; utility company databases; surveyor staking applications; and contractor machine-control grading applications. Making files accessible in users’ preferred formats eliminated errors that can occur during data transfer.

Customised inspection reporting

Surfaces, alignments, and drawings were imported into Bentley OnSite for use during construction inspection. Foth developed a custom application that exported Bentley OnSite XML output to a central database. Inspectors had access to this data on rugged tablet PCs with survey-grade GPS capabilities, enabling the creation of real-time, as-built construction records.

By extracting data from electronic diary entries and bid item inspections, Foth was able to automatically populate three unique inspection reports. One, the daily inspection report, contained several fields from the Bentley OnSite diary entry and had the capability to detect all bid items inspected during the same day. These bid items were pulled by name,

Fast Facts • Foth’s 12-member team designed and sent the project out for bid in just six weeks.

• Innovative plan preparation trimmed 24 days from the schedule, saving $23,100.

• The low bid of $7 million was 20% below the estimate and 0.2% lower than the next lowest bid.

• Use of master model as a reference during plan preparation saved an estimated 120 hours valued at $13,200 and cut 14 days from the project schedule

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 57

3D / Case Study

Left: The actual site of the project; right: 3D rendering of the project site

along with quantity and location information, to populate a final report. Upon project delivery, the as-built data was converted into GIS format for the owner’s use in long-term maintenance.

Measurable returns on innovation

Innovations in plan preparation shaved a total of 24 days from the project schedule, according to Foth’s estimates.

The design team streamlined the process by merging the 3D models built in various modules to create one 3D master model. With the master model to use as a reference during plan preparation, this methodology saved an estimated 120 hours valued at $13,200 and cut 14 days from the project schedule. Plan sheet detailing took up to 60% less time, thanks to the automated workflow used to detail more than 1,000 geometric and staking callouts on the plan sheets.

When final design revisions were made, it took minutes to update the plan sheets rather than the hours spent identifying which points had changed and updating them individually.

Foth estimated that automating this process saved about 90 hours of manual drafting valued at $9,000 and cut 10 days from the project schedule. It also reduced errors on the final plan sheets and, subsequently, during construction stakeout.

When the bidding time was shortened to 10 days, Foth was able to create a solid plan set and released electronic data to all contractors and sub-contractors. Bentley software was used to create data in various file formats requested by contractors, including non-native formats such as DWG, XML, and TTM. The availability of electronic plan sets reduced the risk to contractors and made their bids more competitive. Of the eight bids submitted, six were within 3.7% of each other. Coming in 20% below the engineer’s estimate,

58 / Geospatial World / March 2014

the low bid of $7 million was just 0.2% lower than the next lowest bid.

Finally, Foth’s innovative approach to onsite inspection reporting saved an estimated 10 hours per week valued at $57,200 over the 52-week construction contract. The automated reporting process replaced handwritten diary entries, manual as-built measurements and calculations, and manual data entry on final inspection reports. Now all diaries and quantities are stored in a database, adding value for the owner after project completion.

“By combining Bentley solutions with Foth’s exceptional technical staff and innovative spirit, we delivered the project to the client on time, on budget, and with advanced, sustainable electronic deliverables,” says Blaine Buenger, Senior Technology Manager, Foth.

Construction on the NW 62nd Avenue began on September 19, 2011, and was officially completed on November 26, 2012. Transportation studies suggest that the multiple, multi-lane roundabouts will result in a 90% reduction in traffic fatalities, 76% reduction in injuries, and 35% reduction in crashes. In addition to improved safety, the design will save $1,500 per day in travel time value and an estimated $3,600 per day in fuel consumption. Foth’s innovative engineering, powered by Bentley’s flexible toolset, delivered an efficient design that will have a lasting impact on the community and the environment.

Courtesy: Bentley Systems

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Construction/Interview

‘BIM is changing the game for construction’ Even though the uptake of BIM and 3D modelling is an encouraging trend, the AEC industry is lagging behind sectors like manufacturing, says Richard Humphrey, Senior Director, Infrastructure and Collaboration Products, Autodesk

H

ow is building information modelling (BIM) turning the construction and infrastructure industry on their head?

Building Information Modelling or BIM is a process and it is already changing the game for people in the construction and infrastructure industry. However, the AEC industry is lagging behind in many respects. Based on my previous experience of working in the manufacturing industry, I would say AEC is roughly 15 years behind what manufacturing refers to as digital prototyping. What we call BIM today was adopted by the manufacturing industry in their digital design and manufacturing processes a long ago. As a result, while the manufacturing industry has seen an exponential curve in productivity gains over the last 15-20 years, we have not witnessed much productivity gains in the AEC sector even in the last 50 years.

BIM for infrastructure is enabled by technology, and recent technology developments should help the AEC industry cross the chasm towards greater BIM productivity gains. Autodesk’s InfraWorks 360 is one such technology. It is a 3D modelling solution that helps unlock all the available data to design and make better decisions in the context of reality. One can extract various bits of information from GIS data, CAD or satellite imagery and integrate all that into a 3D model. The key for BIM is to create a model that can be leveraged in the entire project lifecycle right from the delivery process. For example, the city of San Francisco leveraged BIM to create different scenarios for their master and project plans.

But the vision now is to move towards re-use of this data

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from project delivery. If the data that is collected and processed during project initiation and construction phases by engineers and architecture firms is delivered back to the owner in a 3D model, it can used for asset management or maintenance.

This way, the BIM model for the entire city also continues to get bigger and bigger for authorities to make better decisions about managing existing assets and planning capital projects.

Therefore, the key is that the model as well as the associated data remains in the entire lifecycle of the project.

What according to you are the main business/economic benefits of BIM for infrastructure?

It is all about productivity gains. If owners and planners utilise BIM in the project planning stage, they can save time in generating proposals. A 3D model that can be explored is also far better in communicating design intent to key stakeholders, thus reducing the time needed to gain approvals.

According to the San Francisco Planning Department, earlier it used to take months to gain alignment with engineers in the public works department, but now the same work is being accomplished in just a day’s time. Another example is the Denver International Airport, one of the largest airports in the US, which has created full 3D models of the airport and its surroundings. Earlier,

it used to take airport authorities months of meetings with various people even to add a fire station or any such facility.

But in one recent case, they were able to coordinate with multiple stakeholders the initial conceptual designs in a single one-hour meeting. The authorities did all their planning with the help of Autodesk InfraWorks 360 and were able to improve their efficiency and productivity.

3D Digital modelling also adds a lot of new essence to the infrastructure industry. For example in the Middle East it takes years to get approvals for planning processes either from the government agencies or high-end stakeholders. However, if they have a model with which they can engage the stakeholders and help them become part of the process, this whole process can be reduced from, say, five years to less than a year.

A BIM model-based process can achieve 30% more efficiency either through more productive or efficient design or through better coordination and collaboration. One can easily detect fine errors and clash detection in the digital/virtual world. Also, one can perform simulation and analysis to predict and simulate how their project will perform.

This is accomplished because errors can be address virtually before construction and the ability to simulate project performance and maintenance costs ensures that the optimal design is chosen early in the project life when changes are easier to make and have a greater impact.

If you can design a better road or highway, which delivers best level service, in such a way that it has reduced construction time and material costs, ultimately your operation costs will be less and you will have huge long term efficiencies and cost gains.

How much have we progressed on the road to BIM-GIS integration?

BIM is a model-centric process. Its core is a data model which is all about information. Therefore, the BIM model data about roads and buildings is one type of information and the actual spatial data that exists is another kind. We have to bring both of them in a single environment. This kind of convergence is happening today. Different types of information are leveraged in one single process. More importantly, it is the convergence of BIM and GIS that unifies all kinds of data and leverages the Cloud, Web, mobile and social technologies.

How is implementation of BIM taking off globally?

There have been a number of countries which have mandated the use of BIM. Autodesk is among many other companies which are a part of UK’s effort to define BIM specification for public projects. There are many other Infrastructure owners that are including or planning to mandate BIM deliverables. For example, several US transportation departments are calling for building according to

A BIM model-based process can achieve 30% more efficiency either through more productive or efficient design or through better coordination and collaboration.

BIM specifications. In fact, the Map-21 policy of the US incentivises states for using 3D models and visualisations, and using BIM effectively. We recently gave BIM tours to the government in Japan where the RMIT group is leveraging Autodesk technology.

Countries like Brazil, Mexico, Japan and Finland are also pursuing BIM standards similar to that of than UK. In fact, Finland is two years ahead of UK; by the end of this year, all its public projects will have a BIM mandate. In the Middle East, Qatar, Dubai and Saudi Arabia have BIM as part of their Infrastructure specifications. We are working in Qatar around BIM specifications for infrastructure and buildings.

Big economies are betting on BIM for public projects, the rest will certainly follow. However, there is still a long way to go.

What are the Autodesk offerings in this area?

We have a broad portfolio of products, and InfraWorks 360 is our latest solution. It can be integrated with our other solutions such as Civil 3D, Map 3D, Revit, BIM360 and Recap. With this portfolio, engineers and planners can aggregate BIM data from Civil 3D and Revit with existing conditions data from GIS or reality capture into a single 3D context model. Reality capture refers primarily to the use of photogrammetry and LiDAR/laser scans of the existing conditions. The power comes when this data can be integrated with BIM and GIS, so planning and design can start with a high-quality model of what is real. InfraWorks 360 enables this aggregated data model to be visualised and provides tools to rapidly generate and analyse new designs in that real work context model.

BIM is mainly deployed for design and project delivery process, and with InfraWorks 360, we pushed it down to master plan and project planning phase. The next stage would be to have owners and engineering companies align around BIM deliverables to be included as part of the Owner Asset Management process.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 61

Construction/Integration

The Crossover Revolution There is a need for the parallel worlds of geospatial and construction industry to merge today. As the AEC industry recognises the benefits of geotechnologies, experts have to come out of their shells to integrate with each other. By Bram Mommers

T

he worlds of construction and geoinformation have been working closely for many years, but there have not been any efforts to integrate it until recently. In fact, one can argue that the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) and geospatial disciplines are separated by a common language. For example, while the geospatial world makes maps, engineers and architects produce drawings. Engineers and architects use CAD or BIM design tools, while the geospatial experts use GIS. The geospatial 3D standard is CityGML, whilst the AEC standard for BIM models is the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC).

This separation extends into the way in which the disciplines develop. AEC companies and agencies usually have different departments for construction and geospatial activities.

There are also different initiatives and innovation projects in both the worlds that are clearly trying to achieve the same goals.

This situation is wasteful and unsustainable. But there is change ahead, and the possibilities offered by ICT are a big driver.

There is a marked difference between the geospatial and AEC industry. Geospatial experts have to learn how to map the existing world into models and perform abstract statistical calculations to ensure the quality of these models. It is only when GIS experts translate these models into (digital) maps or GIS files, engineers can perform various kinds of analysis for their own purposes. In summary, GIS experts deal with the universal data so that the engineer can fill in the specifics related to their design solutions.

The geospatial industry has been using graphic objects like points, polylines and polygons for decades, which corresponds at the graphical level of 2D and 3D CAD, which is used in Level 1 BIM for construction. Using ICT to connect different data sources for performing complex analysis is a daily practice in construction and is called Level 2 BIM. It is interesting how

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geospatial software has evolved. Obviously a great extent of work is produced using software from the bigger software companies. However, open source software is also mature and there are many smaller companies who are using these open tools every day. There are even open standards for the Web-based exchange of geoinformation. In construction this is called Level 3 BIM. This is something the AEC industry is still striving for.

Momentum for integration

Because of the size of the AEC industry and its dynamics, and the highly fragmented way in which it is organised, the adoption of ICT has been slow. The level of technology adoption in the AEC industry varies from country to country, but it is safe to say that with the exception of some forerunners in the Nordic Countries and Northern Europe, the great majority are at this moment only just developing capabilities to work with object-based models.

But the AEC industry has to change. Due to recent market crisis, companies are realising the need to innovate and be more competitive. Herein lies a lot to gain, for clients as well as the industry. The costs of waste and failure are high, and ICT can be used to not only avoid failure but also to bring huge benefits.

Around 10% of the total construction costs are a result of mistakes and miscommunications, and other savings can also be made through design and construction optimisation.

Another big thing driving the adoption of geospatial and BIM is the change in spending from capex (capital expenditures) to opex (operating expenditures). Increasingly, the developed world’s focus is more on facility management, partly because it has built most of the assets it needs. As the geospatial world knows, to be able to do this efficiently, owners need information about their assets. However, because in the last 60 years government organisations and other users were too busy building, and did not manage asset information in the right way, there is now a scarcity of information about the existing assets. This is already having big financial consequences as owners move to asset management regimes based on asset condition.

Given the shortage of public money, it is not surprising to see the willingness of national governments to stimulate these innovations to bring in the changes for creating a more competitive economy. In the Netherlands, for example, public asset managers of infrastructure embraced BIM and collaborated with the AEC industry specifically to solve the asset data problem and get the asset information to the right

level and keep it up-to-date. The solution is to obtain the information as a structured BIM model from contractors.

To achieve the desired level of interoperability, and to have a seamless flow of information between the AEC industry and public asset managers, standards have to be defined. These standards need to cover the information process, the data format and more importantly the semantics, which describe the meaning of ‘things’ such as crash barriers or track switches.

The semantics need to be defined so that systems can handle information automatically without interpretation.

When defining these standards, it became clear that the AEC industry could not stay within its own knowledge world. Information about the environment would also be exchanged requiring the use of geospatial technology.

This integration is being supported by developments from the software providers and this is independent of the policy-related initiatives designed to encourage the interaction between construction and geospatial industries. Commercial companies also discovered the added value of an integrated model that incorporated both construction and geospatial data.

The following three examples from ARCADIS, the engineering and consultancy company which has for some time now been involved in projects that integrate geospatial into the designing process, illustrate this. » HOV Nijmegen project: To perform impact assessment on the project, ARCADIS combined different environmental datasets and the outlined design to find the best infrastructural solution for a new light rail connection. This information was used for several sessions with the experts and this made it easier to focus on the main aspects and to visualise some ideas. The combined model was also used to communicate with the stakeholders, which made it possible to decide about a solution directly, instead of another session in which results were elaborated. » Light Rail Groningen: In the tender phase of light rail project in the municipality of Groningen, the Netherlands, underground infrastructure, mapping and aerial- and terrestrial laser scan data was combined with the design of the structures to control the risks and calculate the costs. Since price and risks are the main drivers during the tender phase, to be able to control the biggest risks with relatively small effort was a big advantage. Another important aspect was to check if the proposed construction process was possible in the narrow streets of Groningen. The combination of environmental data and design made it possible to determine the feasibility of the project more precisely. » The Hoornbrug Bridge: To design a new bridge in a rural area, GIS data (mapping data and aerial laser scan data was used to process 3D models of existing buildings) was combined with the design of the structure. The

The model of HOV Nijmegan project

The model of Light Rail Groningen project

requirements were then included in a combined model.

Besides the usual benefit of communication with the stakeholders, the project was significant in the way that it revealed in the very beginning that the pre-existing mapping data that was used was not completely correct. With some specific laser scan data this was corrected.

Shall the twain meet?

Integrating the AEC and geospatial industry will have big advantages and will bring about several changes. Implementation of BIM in the Netherlands has showed that cooperation between the two industries can speed up the processes.

Geospatial industry has a lot to offer which the AEC industry can use to take bigger steps on its own journey towards BIM adoption. Besides these implementation aspects, the adoption of an integrated approach on projects can produce a lot of added value for the user. The impact of design choices on the environment, for example, is communicated immediately to the designer and the project owner.

There are challenges of course, and the main risk is the workforce aspect. Are two proud cultures ready to team up?

Are two distinct professions ready to work toward common standards? This transition is a big challenge for both worlds.

Bram Mommers, Senior consultant Information management, ARCADIS, bram.mommers@arcadis.nl Co-authored by Simon Rawlinson, Partner, Head of Strategic Research and Insight, ARCADIS EC Harris simon.rawlinson@echarris.com

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 63

Machine Control/Interview

‘Machine control facilitates true management of construction projects’ Construction is the least automated industry in the world, so the automation opportunities it affords are very attractive, feels Murray Lodge, Senior Vice President, Construction Precision Automation, Topcon Positioning Systems

W

hat is the need for automated control and navigation systems in construction?

If you step back and look at the construction industry 15-20 years ago and compare it with how construction is happening at the job site today, the basic processes remain much the same. But the harsh reality is that while all costs have gone up, contractors are typically getting paid the same as they did 15-20 years ago, taking inflation into account.

So, it is important to think about moving the earth and managing equipment more efficiently in order to make reasonable profit. This is where machine control plays a big role. Another aspect is the skill set of the operators. Traditionally, being a skilled machine operator in the construction sector has been a prestigious job. But productivity demands and the increased need for operators have played a big role in the adoption of machine control and other intelligent construction technology. Also, consider that construction tolerances are much tighter today than they were 10-15 years ago. It is important to figure out how we take the average operator and turn him into a very good one. Machine

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control gives them the instant knowledge of where they are grade-wise versus where they need to be, and better control of their machines. These are a couple of key reasons why machine control is needed and why it has made an impact on the bottom line of many contractors.

Technology space is increasingly moving towards solutions. What are Topcon’s solutions for an enterprise level implementation?

On the job site, we start by controlling the machines. Earlier, contractors used machine control just for finishing, but controlling the rest of the 80-90% jobs was the costliest and most difficult task for contractors. Once a contractor adopts machine control, the next thing he would want is a way to do the job even faster to increase productivity. That is why Topcon introduced the MC Squared technology, which took our machine control systems and allowed them to operate twice as fast and twice as accurate as before. That really revolutionised the finishing phase of grading, especially on dozers because these machines are difficult to control. With MC Squared, we can make the dozer grade faster, both in rough and finish grading phases.

Now, how can a company leverage the benefits of machine control and bring them into the office for more efficient management of his equipment and job sites? Using technology much like that of telematics, we know where the machine is and what is it doing; we can remotely monitor it and resolve grading problems quickly. This way, one can head off to solve problems even before they occur and also assign changes quickly.

That is where we get into the aspects of remote connectivity from an office to the job site. Topcon’s site management system, Sitelink 3D, can help manage and visualise multiple aspects remotely. A contractor can solve the problems in real time, saving cost, time and efforts of the engineer going to the construction site. With Sitelink3D, the contractor is able to tie the whole job process together by sharing digital information and using cloud-based systems. Using this solution, he can monitor productivity, send data and, in essence, monitor the entire project in real time. That is a breakthrough in construction management.

How important is the connection between design (CAD and BIM) and machine control systems in design-build-operate projects? How is Topcon facilitating this connection/integration?

We see design-build projects with massive earthwork in highway projects. Contractors who bid for the job and built the highway are also often responsible for the maintenance of those projects in long term. If they use machine automation for building the road, they are doing a better job in ensuring the quality of the road so that it lasts longer and ensures the safety and comfort of the passengers.

If I am also able to document everything in digital format while laying the utilities underground, it is very similar to doing these in a building using BIM. If there are questions, or someone needs to understand the underground utilities for repair and

maintenance work, he can refer to the digital information to understand exactly where a pipe or structure is located.

The BIM segment is giving contractors the ability to know exactly how everything is documented in digital format and this ensures continuous repair, maintenance and management of the road, utility, or building well after the construction is completed by the contractor.

How are the advancements in associated technologies like laser scanning, cloud, telematics, BIM enhancing Topcon’s products and solutions? How is this facilitating the quick uptake of machine control technologies?

In the past, machine control was more focused on just the finishing aspects of the project. That is 10% of the machines at the job site. But several things have changed to make its productive advantages more widespread. One, there are other machines that are doing bulk earth moving, including big push dozers and excavators. Earlier, the cost of GPS on machine control was very expensive and contractors did not feel it was justified to put it on other machines. But now, the cost of GPS has come down and there are systems designed for high-end finishing machines which are different from the systems designed for mass earth moving. For mass excavation, low-cost GPS systems are more than capable to meet those demands.

Other vehicles on the job site can also benefit from this since even the low-cost GPS can track where the equipment is. This is a third level of very low-cost GPS that can be put on machines, which is referred to as telematics in asset management. This scenario facilitates having different levels of control on every machine. That is when the contractor really starts to get the true management control of the project.

Cloud connectivity enables contractors to have quick access to information and status without having to visit the site.

Information is addictive and once contractors find out that they

In 1990, the control segment of agriculture business was less than $100 mn. But today, it is a $2-bn industry.

Interestingly, control segment of construction in 1990 was bigger than agri, but today it is half of that Geospatial World / March 2014 / 65

Machine Control/Interview

can readily access and use the information, it has explosive impact on the bottom line of the company. The Cloud is what is making that happen as people want information in real time.

How is the adoption of this technology worldwide?

The adoption of machine control is beginning to take off.

In fact, machine control is being adopted in the agriculture industry much faster. In 1990, the control segment of agriculture business was probably less than $100 million. But today, it is a $2-billion industry. Control segment of construction business worldwide in 1990 was bigger than agriculture at about $150 million. But today, we estimate it is half of the agriculture business.

Agricultural positioning automation started off slowly, but customers quickly found that if they put different controls on the tractor — for steering the machine, spraying, fertilising, harvest monitoring – a great deal of information was available to them. This had a dramatic impact on their productivity as a farmer could also work during the nights.

What earlier used to take two weeks, now takes just 4-5 days. So, this impact has ramped up the uptake of machine control in agriculture. Agriculture is high focus area for Topcon as, like construction, it is a critical industry to maintain the social and physical well being of all populations.

How are the emerging countries, where massive infrastructure projects are on, adopting this technology?

The adoption rate in those countries is not near that of developed countries, and there are several reasons for this. Firstly, because the control systems used for finishing are quite expensive. Where lower cost systems are available, the adoption has been quicker. Secondly, in many of these markets productivity is still not the biggest concern.

The cost of labour, and sometimes equipment, is not very high in many of these markets, so the perceived need

66 / Geospatial World / March 2014

for machine control is less. The third aspect is that machine control does require some expertise to implement.

There are a lot of things affecting its operation such as the calibration of the sensors, base stations for GPS, data collection, communications protocols and other technical expertise that may be taken for granted in developed markets. But the good news is that now we are seeing these technical barriers in emerging countries going down much more quickly.

Considering that Topcon, together with Sokkia, is doing business worldwide, what are the prospective geographies for you with respect to machine control solutions?

Construction is the least automated industry, so the opportunities it affords are very attractive. So we are looking into every market. It was extremely difficult and almost impossible to get machine control adoption in countries where there were only a few experienced distributors. But now things are changing as original equipment manufacturers are providing more standard automation functionality from the factory. That makes it easier for us to automate the machine than it was earlier. Or, because of the new, lower-cost entry-level systems we discussed earlier, it is becoming easier to start off with the indicate system where you do not have to tie-in the hydraulics.

With those capabilities, and now with the Sitelink3D connectivity, markets are opening up.

Latin America is certainly a market for growth. Asia is such a big opportunity. More infrastructure is being built there than anywhere else in the world. We definitely see machine control taking off in these countries much more quickly. We do not expect it to take 20 years to pick up as it happened in North America or Europe but in one-fourth of that time. The barriers to get into the market today are much less than what they were five years ago.

Machine Control/Case Study

Moving Earth, Tracking Progress North Carolina construction firm utilises machine control systems to streamline earth moving, monitor haul trucks’ productivity and save costs

T

he New Ragged Mountain Dam Project is currently in progress and under construction since April 2012. The dam is located in Albemarle County, Virginia. The project includes construction of a new earthen dam along with an adjacent tunnel system and raw water pipeline that will serve as the principal spillway for the new dam structure. Thalle Construction Company, a North Carolina-based firm, has undertaken this project at an estimated cost of $26 million.

The project involves earth moving activity of more than 700,000 cubic yards of material.

To streamline this activity and manage the jobsite better, Thalle utilised GNSS-based machine control system on two of its dozers. It also used Topcon’s Sitelink3D job-site management solution. A vehicle tracking and reporting module, HT-30, was also utilised to monitor haul trucks’ productivity.

“In addition to moving those huge volumes of earth, this project also has some extremely tight tolerances,” says Andrew Wells, Project Manager, Thalles Construction, which gets paid on adherence to neat lines and grades. Further, on the blanket drain segment of the job, different materials are being placed in different lifts. “Since we only get paid for each neat thickness, we have to account for compaction, material loss, sub-compaction and so on. So if we happen to put in an extra tenth to ensure we get those numbers, we are eating that cost,” he adds. Topcon’s 3D-MC2 kept the dozers right on track. As a result, there is no waste of costly import material, which includes some 40,000

68 / Geospatial World / March 2014

tonne of filtered sand, 5,000 tonne of drain fill stone, and 5,000 cubic-yards of top soil.”

Without machine control, the company would have had to deploy a group of people to check and verify the depths and then pass along that information to the dozer operator as they progressed. “Not only does GPS eliminate the need for that crew, but machine control grading is much faster and accurate,” underlines Wells.

No room for error

Thalle also utilised a jobsite management system along with a vehicle tracking and reporting module. Doing so has helped the team eliminate the risk of costly load tallying errors, which can skew volume totals in one direction or the other, prompting a project manager to either add a truck to the operation or take one out of rotation.

The average base rental for a haul truck is about $10,000 a month — a significant expense. If one adds the operator’s salary, cost of fuel and other expenses, the monthly bill comes to at least $25,000. Cutting a haul truck is also not an option since that would hit onsite production. “It’s a system

Without machine control, the company would have had to deploy a group of people to check and verify the depths and then pass along that information to the dozer operator as they progressed early on can bring in huge savings At the dam site, Sitelink3D also collects information from other areas of the job site such as from the several data collectors and the GNSS-equipped dozers. In addition to generating valuable progress or volume reports, the system allows file transfers and remote support on each connected machine. Using a grade management system, Thalle’s onsite surveying personnel were able to connect to Sitelink3D,

The New Ragged Mountain Dam project site

that needed fixing and that’s the basis of what HT-30 and Sitelink3D are designed to do,” adds Wells.

The Thalle team at the New Ragged Mountain has equipped two of their haul trucks — a Volvo 840D and a Volvo 835D — with vehicle tracking solutions. As a result, the trucks are now able to continually feed data (load time, time to destination, drop time, type of material, etc.) into the Web-based Sitelink3D system. The solutions have helped the company to constantly monitor the load-to-unload cycles and then create reports (in both time and volumes).

“We can immediately identify the potential problems now. If the report shows an hour of daily idle time per haul truck over a two week period, we know that one more truck is needed,” says Wells. “And being able to identify that issue

allowing activities such as topos to be visualised in real-time in the office.

Further, just having the ability to send updated files to the dozers or look at the screen in one of the haul trucks without having to physically go out there is a huge plus for the team.

“And being able to have a real, verifiable sense of where we are from week to week is invaluable from a budgetary point of view,” says Wells, who has even installed a version of Sitelink3D on his phone to keep a check on the project even when he is away from the site.

The New Ragged Mountain Dam project is slated for completion in mid-2014.

Courtesy: Topcon Positioning Systems

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 69

Conference Report / India Geospatial Forum

Convergence is the Need of the Hour C onvergence of various kinds of geospatial technologies and the increasing need for such a practice across workflows was the focus of the India Geospatial Forum 2014 held in Hyderabad. Over 1,400 people from geospatial community along with technology providers, array of users, policy makers and academicians attended the conference. The three-day event, organised by Geospatial Media & Communications was the organisation’s 100th conference. The event was based on the theme, ‘Converging Geospatial Trade and Practices’.

Setting the stage, Steven W. Berglund, President and CEO, Trimble Navigation, said in his inaugural address the economic impact of geospatial technology was shifting from a mandated discrete use to systematic value addition. “Convergence will impact the expectations placed on the geospatial industry,” he said, urging the professionals in this domain to mark this change in the way

70 / Geospatial World / March 2014

they work. This requires them to move from the traditional comfort zone of data collection to data management. For this, they need to embrace 3D modelling, adopt technology early, adapt to specific industry needs, enlarge their role to data and quality management and collaborate across entire workflows.

Giving business directions of the geospatial industry, Juergen Dold, President, Hexagon Geosystems, stressed that businesses needed to change the way they work to manage the growing population, increasing urbanisation and the resulting demand for resources. He even pointed out that India’s 12th Plan specifically mentions geospatial technology as a key to becoming the third largest economy of the world.

Advocating adoption of geotechnologies, Rajesh Kalra, Managing Director of Atkins India said, “Geospatial technology can develop future cities which are economically, socially and environmentally prosperous.” Bhupinder

Singh, Senior Vice President, Bentley Systems, USA was of the similar opinion. He talked about importance of sustainable infrastructure which can only be achieved by GIS. Another important subject highlighted at the Forum was the rate at which geospatial technology is revolutionising work lifecycles of industries. “LiDAR can reduce the work that was earlier accomplished in weeks and months to just hours,” said Dr Andreas Ullrich, CTO, RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems, Austria.

Underscoring that the economic value of earth observation data is in the downstream use, Barbara Ryan, Secretariat Director, (GEO) said regional, national and international collaboration is required to take the benefits of EO closer to the general public.

Agendra Kumar, President, Esri India explained how location analytics and location enablement are adding new dimension to applications spanning all major economic activities. “GIS brings together information existing in silos within an enterprise and analyses the same for better decisions for various departments and for the organisation as a

whole,” he said.

Talking about the future of geo-enabled design, Pradeep Nair, MD, India and SAARC, Autodesk said that almost 60% of major projects fail to meet the cost and schedule deadlines which could be overcome by the use of geospatial technology and building information modelling (BIM).

Democratisation of GIS

Geospatial technologies are playing a big role in a wide spectrum of fields in India — from navigating on roads to capturing the world’s biggest terrorist, underscored K.K. Singh, President and CEO, Rolta Group. “The good news is From far left: Dr V.K. Dhadwal, Director, National Remote Sensing Centre; Steven W. Berglund, President and CEO, Trimble Navigation; Dr S. Subba Rao, Surveyor General of India; Dr Maj. Gen. R. Siva Kumar, CEO, National Spatial Data Infrastructure; Dr Vandana Sharma, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre; Juergen Dold, President, Hexagon Geosystems; Suren Ruhela, Director, Google Maps Content Operations, India Maps; Pradeep Nair, MD, India and SAARC, Autodesk; and Kamal K. Singh, CEO, Rolta India.

Dr. B.V.R. Mohan Reddy, Chairman of Infotech, receives the India Geospatial Leadership Award for Lifetime achievement from Former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu

that niche technologies have become mainstream and converging geospatial technologies with others is producing new solutions and increasing productivity across new domains,” he said.

In a similar vein, Suren Ruhela, Director, Google Maps Content Operations & Product Manager, India Maps said that GIS technology should be available for all. He described how the technology is getting democratised and is no longer restricted to just the big industries. “Around 45-50% of small and medium businesses are interested in using GIS,” he added. However, the challenges of talent, affordability, awareness still plague the industry.

NGIS is the key

Dr. M.P. Narayanan, Chairman, Geospatial Media and Communications, receives the India Geospatial Leadership Award for Making a Difference

Kaushik Chakraborty, Regional President, India, Hexagon Geosystems, receives the India Geospatial Leadership Award for Geospatial Business Leader 2013

An exclusive session on National Geospatial Information System (NGIS) was also held at the conference. Dr Maj Gen R Siva Kumar, CEO, National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) said that the Government of India was planning to establish NGIS with an estimated investment of Rs 3,000 crore ($480 million).

Highlighting issues of data sharing/duplication and metadata, he said people today want user-centric solutions and NSDI is working in this direction.

Dr Vandana Sharma, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC) said that around 5,000-6,000 datasets had been uploaded by users on data.gov.in. Also, 60-65 ministries have participated in the portal.

While some experts like Dr K.S. Rajan from IIT Hyderabad was of the view that crowdsourced data could become part of SDIs; Suren Ruhela and Arijit Roy from Google India sought for collaboration with the national mapping agencies for effective data sharing. Commenting on the NGIS initiative to come out with their own updated maps, Roy said that Google Maps were widely used in India, even by government departments which established their accuracy and usability. “In such a situation instead of developing their own maps it will be better if the government collaborates with the private industry which will be beneficial for the users,” he said.

In addition to the seminal plenary sessions, the conference hosted a number of symposiums on segments that are big ticket areas for geospatial technology, as well as seminars on technology developments and innovations. The need to manage spatial information in a collaborative partnership of government authorities, private sector and citizens reverberated across all the symposiums. An exhibition displaying new and innovative technologies was also organised. The award ceremony recognised and encouraged innovations and excellence brought forward by geospatial technology developers, professionals, end users and policy makers that have fostered the geospatial industry in India.

Rishikesh Bharti, Research Scholar, Remote Sensing & Geomorphology lab, Dept of Earth Sciences, IIT-Bombay, receives Young Geospatial Scientist Award 2013 by Rachapudi Kamakshi Memorial Trust

Conference Report/Middle East Geospatial Forum

Abdul Karim Al Raeesi, Director of Strategy & Planning, ADSIC (second from right) along with other dignitaries at Forum

Middle East on a Smart Path

T

From top: Barbara Ryan, Director, GEO Secretariat, Switzerland; Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems, USA; Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General, Dubai Municipality; Brig.

Eng. Kamel Buti Al Suwaidi, Director General, Department of Operations, Dubai Police; and Nasser Mohd.

Abdullah, Director of Spatial Data Directorate, Al Ain Municipality.

he Middle East region is embracing geosmart governance rapidly, which means planned infrastructure development, efficient use of resources, improved citizen services and a smarter life for the people. Over 600 people from around the world converged in Dubai for the Middle East Geospatial Forum 2014. The two-day event, based on the theme ‘GeoSmart Government’, saw experts from various organisations talk about the applicability of the technology in their fields and highlighted its extensive use in the Middle East region.

Abdul Karim Al Raeesi, Director of Strategy & Planning, ADSIC, Abu Dhabi gave an overview of the e-government initiatives undertaken by his organisation. He said that Abu Dhabi through the Abu Dhabi Spatial Data Infrastructure is advancing its vision of a geosmart city.

Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General, Dubai Municipality, talked about the municipality’s innovative street addressing project. He elaborated upon the Makani app, developed by the municipality, which aimed to provide a geocode to every street in the city.

“The app has taken thousands of coordinates throughout the city and there had not been a single repetition,” he said, adding that the app would be updated every six months.

Nasser Mohd Abdullah, Director of Spatial Data Directorate, Al Ain Municipality, UAE ,explained how his municipality was using 3D, LiDAR, RS and many other technologies to maintain up-to-date datasets. Eng. Khalid A Hameed Al Hammadi, Act Director of GIS, Central Informatics Organisation (CIO), Bahrain explained how CIO aims to empower the Kingdom by promoting a dynamic GIS system, Brig. Eng. Kamel Buti Al Suwaidi, Director General, Department of Operations, Dubai Police explained how his department uses modern technologies to fight crime and provide various citizen services to the residents of Dubai.

Giving the industry perspective Greg Bentley, CEO, Bentley Systems talked about the various software solutions and services of the company which helps in development of a smart city. “The main goal of a geosmart government should be to accelerate infrastructure delivery, mitigate project risk and nurture world class innovation,” he said. Geospatial veterans like Michael Jones, Chief Technology Advocate, Google, USA, Barbara Ryan, Director, Geo Secretariat and others underlined the importance of maps, GIS and EO in delivering smart governance.

A pre-conference session on ‘Geospatial Enterprise for Smart Governance in the Middle East: Challenges and Prospects’ was also organised alongwith an exhibition showcasing some of the latest cutting-edge technologies.

Geospatial World / March 2014 / 73

Events

May

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March

Mark Your Calender 2014 March 11-12

March 17-20

March 24 - 27

March 29 - April 2

Malaysia Geospatial Forum

Asia Mining Congress

2014 Land and Poverty Conference

17th Annual AAAE GIS Conference

Malaysia

Singapore

Washington DC, USA

California, USA

www.malaysiageospatialforum.org/

www.terrapinn.com/2014/

http://goo.gl/s5yb3f

www.events.aaae.org/sites/140305/

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GEOINT 2014

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Rotterdam, The Netherlands

tional/

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Geospatial World Forum

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