While BIM serves as the backbone of the Digital Twin, Metaverse would be its redefined, immersive future. And together they will transform the AEC sector
What seems utterly fantastic today becomes a grim reality tomorrow. This is how the path of innovation has evolved, from the age of the loom to mechanization, from analogue devices to digitization and to the era of information overload.
Digital twin and metaverse – driven by the convergence of all advanced technologies and based on data exchange and interoperability – would appear to be the grand peak of this trend.
universe in a box
On the second exciting day of the GWF 2023 in Rotterdam, Alessandro Annoni, Consultant, Digital Twin & Metaverse, Geospatial World, moderated the exciting Digital Twin and Metaverse session for the AEC industry. He told how the term digital twin was coined and what an exciting history it has.
It may come as a surprise that the term “digital twin” was first used in a forward-thinking book from 1991 “Mirror Worlds: Or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox”, written by Yale computer scientist David Gelernter. The subtitle conjures up images of subdivision, miniaturization, encapsulation and digital laconicism, all embodying BIM, Digital Twin and its transformative energies.
Intricate details of complex mosaics and fine observations through GIS, BIM and geospatial visualization enable a granular bird’s-eye view.
That’s why countries from Tuvalu in Polynesia to Grenada in the Caribbean and from Singapore to Greece are vying to build a national digital twin – for better planning, decision-making, identifying gaps and developing sustainable solutions to the key issues plaguing them .
From BIM to Digital Twin
To fast forward to 2023 and make the interesting digression short: At the GWF 2023, new use cases of digital twins in the AEC sector and their immense benefits over the entire project life cycle will be highlighted. AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) has traditionally been seen as an industry that is sluggish to new innovation and developing at a snail’s pace in the technology space compared to other industries that have consistently embraced digitization and reaped huge dividends from it.
“Digital technologies are emerging all around us and AEC is undergoing a rapid digital transformation. Data is all around us, yet 95% of it remains unused. “BIM is the enabler of digital transformation combined with cloud and collaboration,” he says Eric DesRoche, Director, Infrastructure Business Strategy, AEC Design Solutions, Autodesk.
“BIM is the backbone of digital transformation, and today it’s very sequential, disjointed and coming to a final end.” So tomorrow’s BIM will be heavily data-centric and a collaborative platform environment,” he adds.
collaborative mechanism
Not only did Eric highlight the intertwining of BIM and Digital Twin, with the former serving as the ‘backbone’, but he also took us on an insightful tour of the advances in AEC in terms of engineering transformations over the years – from CAD to BIM to Digital Twin 2.0, with Metaverse being the next step in the equation.
“Digital twins and all AEC environments are a ‘system of systems’. You cannot build a system isolated from the local environment without understanding how it is connected by roads, rails, waterways and other utilities. A large part of the digital twins would be driven by the technology convergence, especially between BIM and GIS. Digital twins for AEC must support analytical use cases,” adds Eric.
It goes without saying that BIM and Digital Twins increase workflow efficiencies, save time, reduce costs and result in a better return on investment, but that’s just the start. Its full potential has yet to be realised, and insightful data and a collaborative built environment hold the key to the future.
Immersive visualization
What is not visible can nevertheless be perceived immaterially. But what cannot be measured or monitored is tantamount to a cipher, at least when solving real-world problems. Such is the power of geospatial visualization, lighting up dark zones in the form of myriad iridescent rectangles on a dashboard.
In the age of smart cities and automation, IoT and green transition, the need for this visualization is increasing drastically and becoming more prominent in all aspects of daily life.
“We can visualize and analyze the data collected, enabling our consumers to make data-driven decisions. “As IoT and other myriad sensors are being placed everywhere at an exponential rate, there is a need for highly precise layers and layers of information about exactly where they’ve been placed,” he says Serge Lupas, CEO, Cyclomedia.
Luc De Heyn, Chief Commercial Officer, Mercatorsays, “For a digital twin, the data must be complete, accurate, and up-to-date.” This statement can serve as a fitting conclusion to the power of real-time data and the mutual reinforcement and complementarity between geospatial visualization and BIM.
