One of the most important goals of utilities in this time of aging and shrinking workforces is improving the productivity of operations staff. Many utilities are finding that many tasks that used to require sending staff into the field can now be done much more efficiently in the office. High resolution oblique imagery not only can provide orthophotography with resolution down to 4 inches (10 cm), but allows measurement in three dimensions. Building, vegetation and pole heights, slope and aspect of rooves for determining suitability for solar PV panels are just some of the measurements that can be made from oblique imagery using a plug-in that is available for AutoCAD Map 3D from Pictometry, who have flown about 80% of the populated parts of the U.S. as well as parts of other countries.
Geoff Zeiss
September 2024
Links
- Lidar News
Gene Roe's laser scanning industry news - Open Source Geospatial Foundation OSGEO
OSGeo was created to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software and promote its widespread use - Proven guidelines for reducing underground infrastructure damage at airports, university, industrial, and commercial campuses, and towns
There are proven measures that an administration, owner, or municipal government responsible for an airport, university, industrial or commercial campus, or town can undertake to reduce the risk of underground utility damage, the associated disruptions to operations and business and the danger for workers and the public. - Sharing information about the location of underground utilities
The U.S. devotes an estimated $10 billion annually to locating underground infrastructure. Every construction project requiring excavation involves significant efforts in locating underground utilities prior to and during construction to reduce the risk of injuries and unexpected project delays. But this information is rarely shared and the location of underground infrastructure is recaptured over and over again. There are successful examples around the world where municipal and regional governments have helped enable a shared underground utility network database. - Growing evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction
Building information modeling (BIM) has been applied to design-build construction projects for many years. A growing number of countries are mandating BIM for public projects. While the UK government has said that "...we know that the largest prize for BIM lies in the operational stages of the project life-cycle", until recently there has not been hard data to support this conjecture. Similarly there has been only anecdotal support for an integrated BIM and geospatial approach for design, build, operate and maintain projects. Now we are beginning to see data from real world projects that offer evidence for the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects. - Progress in geospatial, civil, and BIM interoperability promises efficient workflows for infrastructure
The BIM and geospatial interoperability challenge is the latest symptom of the broader problem of integrating AEC and geospatial workflows, that has contributed to low productivity in the construction sector. After the announcement about a year ago by Jack Dangermond and Andrew Anagnost of a new relationship to build a bridge between Autodesk and ESRI technologies, I thought it a good time to review progress toward interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds. - Geography2050: Accurate location information about underground infrastructure is essential for powering our future planet
I thought it would be worth while to include here a talk I gave at GEOGRAPHY 2050 Powering Our Future Planet at Columbia University in New York about the importance of accurate location information about underground infrastructure for the future development of the energy grid. With some notable exceptions accurately recording the location of subsurface infrastructure including oil, gas, electric power and other energy infrastructure is ignored - perhaps this is a case of out-of-sight is indeed out-of-mind. The reality is that knowing the location of underground energy infrastructure is critical for national security, for disaster planning and management, for public safety and for economic efficiency. Everyone is aware of at least one disaster resulting from or exacerbated by not knowing where our energy infrastructure is - the explosions in San Bruno in California (2010) and Belgium (2004) immediately come to mind. - Deep learning enables automated extraction of building footprints and road networks from satellite imagery
Automated feature extraction from satellite imagery has made major progress in the last year. Accurate building footprints extracted from high resolution satellite imagery are becoming available from companies such as Ecopia, which has just announced a partnership with DigitalGlobe, whose satellites are capable of 30 cm (approximately one foot) resolution. Also NVIDIA has demonstrated the ability to automate detection of many road networks using sophisticated algorithms and multi-spectral high resolution imagery. - BIM + geospatial interoperability would avoid another CAD + GIS quagmire
A specific challenge currently facing the AEC and geospatial industries is integrating building information models (BIM) and geospatial infrastructure and building models. There are parallels between what happened in the 1990s in unsuccessfully addressing CAD+GIS interoperability and the current challenge of BIM+geospatial interoperability. But there are also important differences which provide grounds for optimism that the availability of both BIM and geospatial standards, a vibrant open source geospatial community, and a new willingness on the part of major software players in the BIM and geospatial industries will make it possible to successfully address the latest interoperability challenge facing the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) and geospatial industries. - BVLOS drones improve power line inspections amid increasing fire and storm risks for utilities | Utility Dive
Transmission line inspections for vegetation management and other purposes are essential in ensuring grid reliability and resilience. We saw the devastating effect of vegetation encroachment in the recent California fires, which in part have been blamed on failure to maintain properly cleared transmission lines. With drones that can cover great distances in a single flight and provide detailed and accurate aerial imagery of transmission lines and other infrastructure, it is now possible to almost completely automate this expensive process. Automating transmission line inspections for vegetation management using BVLOS drones not only saves money, but also could improve the resiliency and reliability of the transmission grid.
« State regulatory commissioners express concerns to FERC over Order 1000 | Main | BIM for shale-gas extraction at Autodesk University »
November 18, 2011
The comments to this entry are closed.
RSS Feed
SubscribeSearch
Categories
- 3D cadastre
- 3D data
- 3D printing
- 3D stereoscopic imagery
- 3D Visualization
- Access to Spatial Data
- Aging infrastructure
- Aging workforce
- AI
- Airports
- Analytics
- Asset management
- Augmented reality
- Autonomous vehicles
- Big data
- BIM
- BIM+geospatial for full lifecycle project management
- Blockchain
- Broadband
- Buildings
- BVLOS UAVs
- CAD
- Climate remediation
- Community
- Construction
- Convergence
- Crowd modeling
- Crowdsourced data
- Cyber security
- Data Quality
- Data science
- Data versioning
- Deep learning
- Design
- Digital Cities
- Digital elevation models
- Digital twin
- Disaster management
- Drinking water
- Earth from space
- Earth observation from satellites
- Earthquake
- Economic Data
- Economic Stimulus
- Education
- Electric Power
- Electrifying transportation
- Emissions
- Energy
- Energy conservation
- Energy efficient buildings
- Energy performance analysis
- Energy storage
- Engineering
- Environment
- Evolving Landbases for Infrastructure
- Facilities and operations management
- Feature extraction
- Field Force Automation
- Food production
- Fukushima Nuclear Incidents
- General Database
- General Infrastructure
- General IT
- Geodesign
- Geomatics
- Geospatial IT
- Geospatial Open Source
- Geospatial Standards
- Geotechnical information management
- Global Climate Change
- Grid reliability
- Grid resilience
- Handheld scanners
- Imagery
- Indoor location
- Infrastructure Management for Telcos
- Interdependent utility networks
- Internet of things
- Interoperability
- Land management
- Landuse
- Laser scanning
- Leveraging CAD data
- Long transactions
- Mapping Applications
- Mars from space
- Microgrid
- Mobile
- Modeling
- Municipal infrastructure
- Nanosatellites
- Natural gas
- Net zero plants
- New Technology
- Nuclear power
- Oil and gas
- Onagawa nuclear incidents
- Open Data
- Open Source
- Open Source Geospatial
- Open Standards
- Parcel fabric
- Pipeline safety
- Preservation
- Privacy
- Private funding for infrastructure
- Productivity
- Reality capture
- Renewable energy
- Resilience
- Road Infrastructure
- ROI
- Semantic content
- Sensor web
- Sharing Spatial Data
- Shrinking workforce
- Simulation
- Smart cities
- Smart-grid
- Social media
- Space
- Spatial analytics
- Spatial Data
- Spatial Databases
- Substation design
- Sustainability
- Temporal geospatial
- Transactive energy
- Transmission
- Transportation infrastructure
- UAVs
- Underground infrastructure
- Urbanization
- Utility of the future
- Utility Solutions
- Value of spatial data
- Vegetation management for utilities
- Waste Water
- Water and wastewater
- Web/Tech
- zero energy buildings
Recent Posts
- Knowing What's Below: Maps Save Lives at SUMSF
- Advancing Underground Data Management: Insights from MUDDI, NUAR, and International Collaboration
- City of Kelowna - MMCD Infrastructure Data Standards
- Spring 2024 Update on the Subsurface Utility Map Data Exchange (SUMDEx) project
- The Geoff Zeiss Utilities & Infrastructure Panel at 2023 GoGeomatics Expo
- SUMSF 2023 Panel: Next Steps in the Evolution of Damage Prevention
- SUMSF 2023: CUIR Presents the Minnesota Utilities Mapping Project
- Deep Learning-Based Underground Digital Twins: Scan to BIM at SUMSF 2023
- SUMSF 2023: Reduct Presents the Importance of 3D Gyroscopic Pipeline Mapping Technology
- Establishing an Urban Infrastructure Mapping Research Program: Remembering Dr. Geoff Zeiss / Introduction to the National Digital Twin Initiative
Comments