OpenBuildings: design and beyond

Bentley Systems’ new OpenBuildings platform is more than just AECOsim Building Designer rebranded. Greg Corke explores how Bentley intends to play to its strengths with focused, vertical design tools, cross disciplinary workflows and open data

With the arrival of OpenRoads and OpenRail for civils and rail design, and the much-needed simplification of the Bentley Systems product portfolio, an ‘OpenBuildings’ was inevitable. But the new Bentley Systems brand, announced in October, isn’t just about giving AECOsim Building Designer a new name; it’s about transforming the building design tool into an open platform that can be tightly integrated with tools for other disciplines; not just the road / rail design and simulation (structural, geotechnical, energy and pedestrian) applications from the Bentley stable but those from third parties as well.

Bentley is also looking to use OpenBuildings as a platform on which to build niche vertical design tools, focused on specific workflows. AECOsim Building Designer simply isn’t getting a look in on many bread and butter building projects because of the dominance of Autodesk Revit.

“We realised that half of the [awards] submissions at YII [Bentley’s annual Year in Infrastructure conference] use [AECOsim] Building Designer; they don’t use it for vertical buildings, they use it for non-traditional buildings — stadiums, airports, metro stations, water treatment plants,” explains Santanu Das, Bentley’s SVP of design modelling. He adds that firms working on those types of specialist projects don’t want a ‘Swiss Army knife’ type product like Revit or ArchiCAD that they then have to try to customise extensively.

“The deliverables, the integration with specific analyses, the sharing [collaboration], it’s different whether you’re doing an airport or a train station, versus a hospital – even the construction sequencing,” he adds.

All aboard AECOsim Building Designer has always been relatively strong in rail and metro station design because of Bentley’s dominance in the civil and rail markets, so it makes sense that the first asset-specific design tool that Bentley has built on top of its new platform is OpenBuildings Station Designer.

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Das uses the example of HS2, the highspeed rail link that will connect London to Manchester in the North of England, to explain the need for a bespoke station design tool that works closely with other disciplines. “They have their Mott MacDonalds doing the rail / civil side of it, then they’ve got people doing the train station, the architectural stuff, in Revit or something like that,” he says. “The first thing they come to us and say is, can you fix this interoperability, because when we’re changing the track alignment or changing the tunnel, everything [in the station design] has got to be changed manually.”

OpenBuildings Station Designer includes special templates for creating tunnel segments (by utilising Bentley’s computational design tool GC), which are based on linear alignments from OpenRail. So, if the track changes, the tunnel will automatically change as well, and the station will also align.

As one would expect, the software also includes parametric digital components such as gates, turnstiles, signs, lifts and escalators that are very specific to an asset type like a station. Das emphasises the importance of being able to link seamlessly to Bentley’s simulation tools, highlighting the company’s ‘unique’ geotechnical engineering capability through the recently acquired Plaxis.

However, simulation isn’t limited to stresses, strains, deformation and stability; it also encompasses human behaviour. Bentley’s newly acquired pedestrian simulation technology, Legion, which uses machine learning to predict how people will move through a building, will sit on top of OpenBuildings Station Designer. The software can be used for emergency evacuation, circulation and operational efficiency, such as working out how to get passengers off trains faster, down into the metro or into the retail stores.

“We can actually identify where the congestion is happening at any time, and therefore, as an owner, as a designer, do something about it,” explains Das. “Maybe move my lift over 15 feet, maybe put an extra turnstile in there, maybe switch the

barrier around at 5 O’clock so there are more people going in one direction than going in another direction.”

Pedestrian simulation is not just applicable to station design and will almost certainly play an important role in other vertical OpenBuildings design tools, which Bentley has said it intends to launch in the future. Stadium and airport design seem the most likely candidates although there is a risk of becoming too niche.

Customisation and collaboration There is a long history of Bentley customers developing bespoke solutions to work with MicroStation and MicroStationbased product like AECOsim Building Designer. Das says that this has happened a lot in China, where workflows and deliverables are often different.

‘‘ OpenBuildings is different to AECOsim Building

Designer because it can take full advantage of

Bentley’s new integrated product stack ’’

“[Chinese infrastructure services company] ECIDI, for example, has been taking our product, MicroStation, for years and bolting on their own workflows and calling it their own,” he says.

Customisation and collaboration are key differentiators between AECOsim Building Designer and OpenBuildings. They currently share the same traditional software development kit (SDK) but what makes OpenBuildings different is that it can take full advantage of Bentley’s new integrated product stack. Firms can use the new cloud-based services and also connect to third-party applications through the open source iModel.js library and the iModelHub, which offer web-based APIs.

“Because the technologies are open source, everybody has access to them and it actually makes it really, really easy — much easier than the standard SDKs that came with AECOsim Building Designer,” says Das who goes on to explain that because the schema is open, firms can also dive into extract additional data from OpenBuildings, such as meta data that may not have come across.

Returning to the example of ECIDI, Das explains that the Chinese firm is already looking to build its next generation of applications on top of OpenBuildings, rather than on top of MicroStation. He says this is because it gives them a better granular starting point and with iModels they get web visualisation tied into the iModelHub, and they can also work with their cost estimation partner.

Conclusion For some years now, Bentley has been losing the battle with Autodesk and other firms when it comes to mainstream building design software. Now with a focus on verticals like station design it is starting to play to its strengths, offering a building design tool that can take advantage of its ‘open’ applications in areas such as rail and road design, pedestrian simulation, structural analysis and geotechnical engineering.

While we expect to see Bentley develop other niche building design tools for large scale assets such as airports and stadiums, perhaps the biggest opportunity for the company is not as a traditional provider of design software. Through iModel.js and iModelHub it’s all about what you can do with the project data that comes from Bentley tools and other applications, which is something we explore in more detail on page 16.

■ bentley.com

1 OpenBuildings Station Designer 2 Pedestrian simulation will play a key role in Bentley’s new OpenBuildings design tools 3 With OpenBuildings Station Designer, Bentley will be looking to gain traction in projects like the Nagpur Metro in India, which used OpenRail

Connecting design and construction

It’s been two years since Greg Bentley coined the term ‘constructioneering’, describing a process that aims to solve the fragmented workflow between design and construction. Greg Corke looks at how the latest developments are starting to make this joint vision of Bentley Systems and Topcon a reality

Having a vision is one thing; ly transformed into engineering-ready Magnet Live delivering on it is another reality meshes or digital surface models. Topcon is currently developing a new serthing entirely. And for a It involves an integration between vice called Magnet Live which, in Hallett’s vision as bold as construction- Topcon’s Magnet Collage Web platform words, aids communication, data eering was in 2016, Bentley and Topcon and Bentley’s ContextCapture reality exchange and collaboration around conknew the engineering and construction modelling cloud services. structible models. Much of this centres on gap would take some time to fill. The cre- “Big data that is collected by Topcon can making survey data instantly more usaation of a digital twin, a design / con- be pushed through to the cloud service in ble, without having to change the estabstruction model that responds to the ever ContextCapture and returned as a reality lished workflows of those on site. changing reality on site, not only model,” explains Hallett. “The engineer “If you can go out and generate a BIM requires great technological change but a can now take the reality mesh and go do model from a survey then you can actusignificant cultural one as well. something a lot more meaningful. Point ally introduce that right into the design

Bentley and Topcon laid the first foun- clouds are very cumbersome to work with tools in a more meaningful way, explains dations last year by connecting their — all of us recognise that. The reality Hallett. “So, as they [surveyors] are cloud platforms – ProjectWise for engi- mesh is very useful, especially when doing their traditional practices, it neering project collaboration [Magnet Live] generates a and Magnet Enterprise for construction execution. Projects in ProjectWise can ‘‘ If you can go out and generate a BIM survey BIM model.” “They [surveyors] don’t have time to change their now be associated with pro- model from a survey then you can actually practices and re-train their jects in Magnet Enterprise, making it easier to share data introduce that right into the design tools people, so what we’re trying to do is make that more of an and then push that data out to in a more meaningful way automated thing.” site, as Jason Hallett, vice president of global software business development at Topcon Positioning you’re planning out concept designs.” ’’ Topcon is also looking to use Magnet Live to help contractors get more value out of construction Systems explains, “It allows a cloud-to- This is reality modelling as a service, estimation. “When you’re doing your esticloud connection without actually having where operators can upload UAV image- mating, you’re building take off models, so to move data all the time. You can have ry direct-to-web and all of the heavy-duty do that into a BIM model as well,” says access to the data whenever you need it.” processing is done in the cloud. It means Hallett, adding that by creating a digital

Bentley and Topcon have also added an firms can get results back very quickly twin at this preliminary stage helps catch online cloud conversion service that and they do not have to invest in expen- potential errors much earlier on. Hallett says allows firms to take iModels sive local hardware. and transform the portions they need This helps pave the way for keeping the Real time flow straight out to the field for machine control design and on-site reality in sync, as Ted One of the key visions for constructioneeror surveyors or anybody that might need it. Lamboo, senior vice president of ing is for information to flow seamlessly Bentley’s strategic partnerships, explains between the construction site and the Capturing reality “Now, all of Topcon’s positioning technol- design office. The quicker an engineer gets Constructioneering was never designed ogies can help to continuously survey a eyes on an issue, the quicker it can be to be a one-way street and Topcon and site’s digital context, synchronising pro- resolved and the quicker the new design Bentley recently announced a new inte- ject digital twins to make construction- can be implemented on site. Bentley’s new gration that allows survey data to be easi- eering even more compelling.” iModelHub, which tracks and manages

change, is set to play an essential role here.

“Our future with the iModelHub and this new open source, iModel.js, will make it more real-time,” says Hallett. “As soon as the guy is done with something in the field he can say ‘here’s my survey for the day, I’ve picked that area you needed’. The engineer gets notified and iModelHub tracks the latest stuff it receives and all of a sudden, they’ve got an iModel sitting out there that represents everything that’s been done.

“You’ll get to a point where it will say ‘hey, there’s a new design’ and it pulls right in and you can see it and you can push that out to the machines.”

Adding intelligence Topcon has been a driving force in construction automation for some time with machine control technology that guides construction machinery. Currently there still needs to be a driver in the cabin with a red button for safety but Hallett says this will evolve. “You’ll get to a point where you don’t need to have the people because when the machines are aware of the design, the constructible model, the environment around us, then you can have a safe working environment. And that will be where we go with construction and survey.”

True construction automation through the application of Artificial Intelligence may still be some way off, but the impact of AI is already being felt in some areas of construction.

Earlier this year Topcon acquired ClearEdge, a specialist in computer vision and object recognition whose software compares point clouds of as-built construction against design or fabrication models, flagging out-of-tolerance or poorly installed elements.

“ClearEdge is used by a lot of people to make sure stuff is put into the right place,” says Hallett. “Once you start pouring concrete it gets pretty tough to change!”

It’s a very cool application of the technology he says, but there is also a huge value in applying to other areas. “We don’t typically acquire tech and leave it as an island,” he says. “[We consider] how can this augment our business and improve our workflows across the board?”

Hallett gives an example of an autonomous car driving down the street which instantly recognises ‘people’, ‘stop signs’ etc. “That’s object recognition from video and it’s not real precise but imagine what you can do if you start integrating some of this stuff.

“I always love scanning devices. They pick up so much information, but maybe I don’t need all of it. So maybe I can recognise something and only scan that.”

Hallett is being somewhat cryptic, but appears to be describing a world of automatic construction verification, where a drone with a video camera records a site, recognises features, captures specific areas precisely, then highlights any construction errors or future clashes. “Imagine what you can catch just by reviewing the iModel at the end of the day,” he says.

Topcon and Bentley still have a long way to go before constructioneering becomes a seamless workflow. But with links between their cloud platforms and extended services, they have started to lay solid foundations. Automating and regulating the flow of information is the next challenge and iModelHub and iModel.js look set to play an important part here.

The ultimate goal for constructioneering is for a continuous representation of reality, where as-built data is captured automatically and fed into a digital twin, identifying and resolving construction issues along the way. This is still some way off, and will require significant change in technology and industry, but it’s a very compelling vision all the same.

■ topconpositioning.com ■ bentley.com

1 2 Aerial photographs captured by an Intel Falcon 8+ Drone – Topcon Edition, can be fed into Bentley’s ContextCapture reality modelling cloud service, via the Topcon Magnet Collage Web platform, to create engineering-ready reality meshes or digital surface models