CC1705

EVENTfocus
Looking Ahead, not Back
Instead of leveraging the tools of the past, information modelling should be planning for the future and
taking advantage of the latest trends in 3D, virtual reality modelling and the cloud
Iam sure you will be familiar with
Moore's Law, which states that the
number of transistors on a chip will
double every year. That has held since
the 1970s, and despite a bit of a
slowdown we are now into nano-sized
transistors, and in more recent
developments IBM has announced its
ability to place 30 billion 5nm transistors
on a chip the size of a fingernail. But you
don't need such incredible stats to tell
you that the pace of change in
computing is still as blindingly fast,
because the evidence is, literally, right
before your eyes.
Andrew Norrie of 3D Repo highlighted
this at the recent CAD User seminar on
COBie, pointing out that the
development of handheld computing
devices and high-performance gaming
devices, supported by ultra-realistic
videogames, virtual reality software and
3D visualisations, have conditioned both
children and adults to become
completely au fait with new technologies.
This is even more pronounced in the
new generation entering the design
industry who, besides being completely
proficient in traditional CAD/BIM
platforms, are now happy to play around
with advanced computational design
packages like Grasshopper and
Dynamo, and are fluent in programming
languages like Python and JavaScript.
It makes sense, therefore, as Andrew
pointed out, to create and manage data
in a format that we are now familiar with,
rather than a manufactured format from a
few short years ago when BIM was first
mandated. To really harness the power of
that data, though, 3D Repo realised it
would be better to treat it as individual
objects, rather than in the file format that
we see within COBie.
Instead of holding the data in the
model, the elements are broken down
and stored at object level in a NoSQL
database, where additional information
can be attached to support many
different functions. NoSQL means exactly
that - an SQL database accumulates
data in formal rows and columns, rather
like COBie in fact.
NoSQL databases avoid rigid table
structures and can be optimised for large
read/write operations. This allows easy
access to associated objects, to track
semantic relationships and individual
revisions done in 3D Repo, and to create
associations with other data or objects.
3D Repo then recreates the 3D model in
a web browser, giving access to any data
associated with each object.
A CENTRAL BIM HUB
As 3D Repo is able to take files in
multiple formats - currently most open
standards, but also native formats - it is
able to incorporate objects from all
disciplines working on a project, break
them down into small component parts,
and store them in the NoSQL database.
Deployed in either public or private
clouds, or even hosted locally on servers
then recreated, models can be viewed
and analysed by all members of a project
team, providing a single source of truth at
all stages of the project. Because the
data is held as individual objects, models
can be put together in any configuration -
architectural and structural, MEP, or
infrastructure, etc. This enables project
members to share data on the project at
any stage of its design and construction
using BCF standard within authoring
tools. It also acts as a version control
system, ensuring that data from whatever
source is always up to date, or,
alternatively, able to be rolled back to
previous versions. 3D Repo's pending 3D
Diff technology also visualises changes
between any two revisions in real time
regardless of which modelling package
they came from.
VIEWING THE DATA
Building the model from the data
objects is then quite straightforward,
and with it comes all of the tools you
would expect from a visual navigation
tool. These include sections, slicing,
different model views, adding object
time and cost information to conduct 4D
and 5D simulations, and the ability to
add comments, ask questions, raise
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May/June 2017