Software
Twinview BIM has always held so much promise for the whole building lifecycle, from design through operation but has so far failed to reach most owners/ operators. Fortunately, there’s a new service offering to do exactly that by Martyn Day
I
n the early days, moving to BIM Aided Facilities Management), but on form, as it has a core set of model and was sold as a way to get automatic steroids. Unfortunately, the tools to create data viewing functions with four distinct and coordinated drawings. In a con- these twins have been specialist, or have modules, the number of which will tractual world where drawings been components which would still expand over time. were the deliverable that was a big bene- require programming to create a bespoke The base platform ‘Access’ will take fit. However, as the industry has moved solution. Many of the examples for Digital BIM models from Revit or IFC, uploaded forward and embraced the model as the Twin applications have been oil and gas or or hosted on web servers such as BIM digital prototype, resulting in so much within really large real estate owner/ 360, bring in associated 2D drawings more information being added to the developers. It is not yet mainstream. sheets, COBie data etc. and then stitch it design database, handing over drawings Enter Twinview, which is part of Space all together as a viewable, queryable makes little sense. Group, an architectural practice in model. This can be filtered, slice and The Government’s mandate for BIM Newcastle upon Tyne. Many of you might diced, dynamically sectioned and interrolevel 2 in 2016 added the deliverable of a know Space Group’s Rob Charlton and gated at a granular, component level. In take-off layer for Government-procured Adam Ward, who are key players in the essence this is a great BIM viewing tool. buildings and infrastructure, which UK BIM scene. The ‘Manage’ module is essentially a required a COBie (Construction Space Group is not only an architectur- powerful and fully featured CAFM tool Operations Building Information al practice but also a developer of BIM which operates on the core model data. Exchange) file. This spreadsheet data for- content and applications, with bimstore Within Manage, it’s possible to see any mat contains all related project and asset (bimstore.co), and BIM Technologies asset’s history, lists of ticket issues, maininformation contained in tenance lists and any the design by all project associated files with participants. Twinview is an easy way for everyone to reuse and assets. Twinview can be While COBie is a benefit from BIM model data. This functionality used as the authoring major improvement on tool to define composhould be in the toolkit of all architectural delivering just drawings, nents that should be practices - it’s joined up thinking for BIM it’s still not passing on maintained and assign the full BIM data set and maintenance schedules, is akin to taking a fillet which can all be steak and dicing it up to make sausage. (bimtechnologies.co.uk). Charlton is also accessed onsite through the web. All There’s also the suggestion that the the driving force behind the original UK activity is logged and is traceable in an alleged consumers of this dismembered BIM conference, BIMShow Live. audit trail. In making the Twinview data do not know what to do with it, or Twinview is a model-based platform model data set, if data is being brought in simply leave it in a desk drawer on a USB for accessing, managing and monitoring from various sources, the system can stick. It’s not reasonable to expect that buildings, with a focus on optimising the import a BS1192:4 COBie file supporting end users should have an expensive copy maintenance of assets and enhancing jobs, systems and documents. of a Revit or a Solibri, or know how to use efficiency and performance. It is the With regards to component maintethem. There surely has to be a better way product of four years of work from a nance, as Space Group owns bimstore, of passing on the benefits of BIM to own- small development team, driven by the there is also access to the component ers/operators? needs of Space Group to share its project library of manufacturers’ parts, which is BIM data seamlessly with its clients for updated and maintained to be current Digital Twins post hand-over management and mainte- and includes useful information such as While there is a lot of hype surrounding nance. Twinview is a SaaS application, so price and availability. the Digital Twin concept, the benefits are is cloud-based and securely accessible One of the key tenets of the Digital real. The idea of having a ‘living’ digital online, and therefore available every- Twin, and one that takes it beyond just asset model of a real-world building is where - phone, tablet, PC. being a BIM model, is the ability to interessentially traditional CAFM (Computer Space Group calls Twinview a plat- face with live sensor data coming from
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May / June 2020
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