Between the Poles

Scanning underground infrastructure with ground penetrating radar at up to 130 km/hour

Underground utility damage during construction is a major safety problem and drag on economies in many countries.  The technologies that are currently considered best practices for detecting underground utilities have been used for decades and are characterized by being slow, unreliable under certain conditions and for certain types of underground equipment, and hazardous for the operator.  Lately ground penetrating radar (GPR) has been getting significantly increased attention primarily because it can detect both metallic and non-metallic underground objects, capture continuous digital scans, and because it can capture 3D position of underground objects.  ImpulseRadar, a company based in Malå, Sweden, has developed a unique ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology which uses real-time sampling (RTS) to gather data thousands of times faster than a conventional GPR.  This is the first technology advance that I am aware of that enables GPR scans of underground utilities with a commercial product at highway speeds up to 130 km/hr.

Introduction

The Common Ground Alliance estimates that there are 400,000 cases of utility damage during construction annually in the U.S. In the U.S. according to Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) underground utility conflicts and relocations are a major cause of project delays during road construction. A study by the Pennsylvania State University found $21 in cost saving for every dollar invested in improved location information about underground infrastructure.

Not knowing where underground infrastructure is has engendered what is estimated to be a $10 billion per year industry in the U.S. Every construction project requires locating underground utilities prior to and during construction.

The most accurate way to determine the location of underground infrastructure is to expose it by carefully digging a hole and then bring in a survey team to survey the location.  But this is time consuming, expensive, and can be hazardous.

An increasingly viable alternative is various types of remote sensing. Currently best practice for locating underground infrastructure is walking the site or right of way with electromagnetic wands (EMI) or ground penetrating radar (GPR) pushcarts. This is slow and can be extremely hazardous.  It can also have major indirect and social costs such as lane closures on busy transportation routes.

Underground reality capture at up to 130 km/hr 

We are beginning to see some promising advances in remote sensing technology for detecting underground utilities. Capturing ground penetrating radar scans of below ground infrastructure data at roadway speeds would be an important step toward efficiently and safely creating 3D maps of the underground.  Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Matthew Wolf of ImpulseRadar, a company based in Malå, Sweden that has developed a unique ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology which uses real-time sampling (RTS) to gather data thousands of times faster than a conventional GPR.  The new Raptor® GPR array is designed to be fitted to a survey vehicle, which supports an arrangement of up to 18-channels.  The real-time sampling (RTS) technology implemented by ImpulseRadar enables very fast collection of GPR data at speeds in excess of 130 km/hr. @ 5 cm point intervals. This is much faster than conventional GPR systems which typically operate below 15 km/hour.  This enables the Raptor® GPR array to collect 3D GPR scans at posted highway speed limits. High precision positioning of the data can be achieved with RTK GPS or robotic total stations in areas of poor GPS coverage. Talon® acquisition software displays data from all channels and depicts the position of the array and the swath of 3D GPR coverage with a moving map in real time while surveying.  In addition capturing GPR data does not require highly-trained personnel.  OF course, post-processing the GPR scans  to create 3D maps of the below ground infrastructure requires qualified, skilled personnel.  Post processed 3D data can be converted to line data for export to CAD for the depiction of utilities in a 3D survey utility/top map.

Real world applications

A recent project involved mapping utilities at 36 rail grade crossings in 3D. The project was for a new commuter rail expansion along an existing rail right of way. The scans resulted in 3D maps of utilities that were previously shown on existing records and identification of additional utilities that were not recorded on maps. The higher quality subsurface utility information reduced the need for unnecessary vacuum excavation test holes with an estimated cost of $1,000 per hole. Test hole results are currently running 90% in very dense corridors demonstrating the value of this approach by eliminating expensive "dry holes" and reducing risk of utility damage during excavation.

Using ImpulseRadar's GPR technology GEL Solutions LLC and David Evans and Associates Inc implemented a multi-sensor system that enables them to perform above and below-ground 3D surveys.  The system combines LiDAR, photogrammetry, and the Raptor array. The LiDAR and and photo cameras and the GPR can be mounted on a vehicle to capture data at speed-limit speeds.  In a pilot project in Redlands, California above and below ground scans were captured over the same corridor and post-processed to create a 3D model of the infrastructure that lies above and below the surface. Ground-painted markouts showing the positions of the underground utilities from conventional EM locate methods seen in the above ground LiDAR/phot scans were extracted and georeferenced to features such as poles, pull-boxes, and so on.

Technical breakthrough

The only competing GPR initiatives of which I am aware that attempt to achieve the goal of operating at roadway speeds are two initiatives reported in 2018. T2 Utility Engineers, based in Whitby, Ontario, reported commercially using a Hexagon IDS GeoRadar Stream EM multi-channel ground penetrating radar (GPR) array towed at 10-12 km/hr to capture subsurface data. In a separate initiative a successful proof of concept has been reported by DGT Associates in Mississauga, Ontario in which data collected by a Siteco rig combining a Faro mobile laser scanner and Sensors and Software GPR arrays collected data simultaneously above and below ground at roadway speeds of 80 to 90 km/hr. But ImpulseRadar's RTS technology with much higher sampling rates appears to be an important technical breakthrough that achieves GPR reality capture of the underground at high speed in a commercial product.

Read more about locating underground infrastructure.

US 3D elevation project as a model for a national infrastructure map

A number of years ago an initiative was funded under the ARRA economic stimulus package to initiate what was then called LiDAR for the Nation.  This has resulted in a USGS initiative called 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) whose goal over an eight year period is to develop a 3D elevation map with horizontal resolution of a meter and vertical resolution of 10 cm for the entire U.S. and territories.  This entails LiDAR scanning the contiguous continental U.S. and Hawaii and interferometric synthetic radar over Alaska.  It also includes bathymetric data for the U.S. coastline.  To date 48% of the U.S. has been covered or scanning is underway.  An inventory of these projects is available.

At GIS in the Rockies this year Carol Lydic of the USGS gave an overview of this program and the most recent initiatives to broaden the partnerships that are instrumental in creating the national 3D elevation map.  The program is based on partnerships with federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies, academic institutions and the private sector.

In 2012 a study was completed that estimated the economic value to 27 different sectors of accurate 3D data.  The top five included in this study (National Enhanced Elevation Assessment) are

• Flood risk management                                  $295m to  $502m
• Infrastructure and construction management $206m to  $942m
• Natural resources conservation                     $159m to  $335m
• Agriculture and precision farming                  $122m to $2,011m
• Water supply and quality                                  $85m to  $156m

The total economic benefits for all sectors was estimated to be between $1.8B to $13B.   I find this to be a very conservative estimate. 

A number of years ago I remember hearing about an outstanding program by the state of North Carolina in cooperation with federal agencies that involved a statewide LiDAR scan and the creation of a database of all structures with a footprint of over 800 square feet that allowed estimates to be made of the economic impact of any type of flood anywhere in the state or of a rise in sea level along North Carolina's coastline.  This is of inestimable value in assessing any mitigation project.

In the infrastructure and construction sector, one of the largest contributors to the cost of a civil construction project such as a highway or a railway, is the amount of earth that has to be moved which can be derived from a 3D terrain model.  Having a reliable digital terrain model is of great value to any civil project for assessing alternative right of ways during the planning stage and could also be used during the design and construction phases especially if supplemented by information about the soil and geological structure of the subsurface and location of underground utilities.

I found the 3DEP project particularly interesting because it represents a potential model for creating a national infrastructure map including underground infrastructure.  Federal organizations that could be involved include USGS, National Map, US DOT, FERC, and NERC.  Partners might include NARUC (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners), CGA (Common Ground Alliance), state and municipal DOTs, AGC (Associated General Contractors of America), utility and telecom network operators, general contractors, tribal government agencies, and academic institutions.

Accelerating the rate of BIM adoption in Canada

There is a general consensus that the development of BIM in Canada lags many other developed countries around the globe. This is partly due to little encouragement from government procurement at the federal and provincial levels and partly due to a fragmented industry effort to push a BIM agenda. I have just spent an exciting day at the Canada BIM Council (CanBIM) Regional Session in Vancouver and had a very illuminating talk with Thomas Strong, President of CanBIM.  I am happy to report that there has been significant progress in accelerating the rate of BIM adoption in Canada by the industry, government and academic sectors.

Background

The Canadian architecture, engineering, construction and owners (AECO) industry represent about $300 billion in capital expenditure, approximately 20% of the Canadian GDP. The construction industry employs over 1.3 million people or 7.5% of total workforce distributed across more than 120 000 enterprises. As in many countries the Canadian architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry suffers from low productivity. To remedy this problem many countries around the globe have prioritized the development of building information modeling (BIM) and related technologies. There is a general consensus that Canada is lagging behind many of these other countries in the adoption and implementation of BIM.

Although a number of private AEC firms in Canada have adopted BIM and are using it on major projects, government procurement with some exceptions does not require or incentivize BIM on public projects. An exception is the the Department of National Defence (DND) which began adopting BIM in a significant way a number of years ago.  However, last year the Department of Public Works and Government Services invited Carleton University School of Business to develop a BIM and energy performance modeling exercise to create an interactive 3D-model of the East Block of Parliament for the purposes of an upcoming rehabilitation project of the building.  The project includes documenting heritage objects.  There are signs that the Federal government is beginning to recognize the potential benefits of BIM for some projects.

Until two or three years ago another hindrance to the development of BIM in Canada was that the industry effort to push BIM adoption was fragmented. Two industry organizations, the Canadian BIM Council and the Institute for BIM in Canada (IBC)/buildingSMART Canada, which work at a national level to encourage BIM adoption, had pursued separate agendas and had not coordinated their efforts to work toward common goals.  The good news is that for over a year now these two organizations have closely coordinated their efforts.

 At the CanBIM Regional conference in Vancouver I had a chance to chat with Thomas Strong, President of the Canada BIM Council (CanBIM) and Managing director of EllisDon’s Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) group. who revealed that there has been significant progress in addressing both of these drags on BIM adoption.

By way of background Thomas told me that CanBIM is a not-for-profit organization founded 10 years ago. It has grown steadily over the past decade and currently has more than 350 members. The membership includes major AECO firms across Canada with good participation on all levels in the industry; owners and residential, commercial, civil construction, architects, engineers, academia, trades and technology providers.

BIM advancement by government

On the government procurement front Thomas told me that BIM requirements have appeared for years in RFPs from Alberta Infrastructure and Infrastructure Ontario, but there has not been a concerted effor to advance BIM as there has been in other countries.  In Quebec the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) has developed an action plan for the progressive and gradual adoption of BIM and related technology.  Since 2016, the SQI has had a rolling deployment plan for BIM that is based on the evolution of the maturity of Québec industry.  Accomplishments to date include

• 2009-2014 - Compile past experience. Submit report in 2014.
• April 2015 - Approval of the business opportunity. International benchmarking study of experience of several international organizations in the field of BIM by l'École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) de Montréal . Development of a deployment scenario.
• May 2016 - Approval of the business case.  Elucidation of costs and benefits. Optimization of the deployment scenario and initiation of deployment.

Planned future developments include

• 3D - Interdisciplinary collaboration using the 3-dimensional model.
• 6D - Use of the model and associated data to simulate and integrate the elements of sustainable development.
• 4D and 5D - 4D:Addition of schedule to the model. Simulation of the virtual construction. 5D Integration of the project cost component.
• 7D - Use all data collected for infrastructure operations.

The University of Alberta completed a review in 2016 of international BIM standards including AEC (UK) BIM Technology Protocol, National BIM Standard- United States, AEC (CAN) BIM Technology Protocol, Singapore BIM Guide, New York City BIM Guidelines, Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission BIM Guide, State of Ohio Building Information Modeling Protocol, and Texas Facilities Commission Professional Architectural/Engineering Guidelines.  Alberta Infrastructure plans to release Digital Project Delivery and Handover Standards on March 31st, 2018. Quebec and Alberta represent the leading edge of planned BIM advancement by top levels of government in Canada.

BIM advancement by industry associations

Secondly, CanBIM is starting to drive integration with other construction organizations across Canada. Since CanBIM is a cross-disciplinary organization representing members from design, engineering, general contractors, and facility management, there are many associations representing those disciplines. BIM tends to touch all of these disciplines. CanBIM wants to work with these industry associations, pull them into what they are doing, participate in what they are doing and drive a consistent methodology and best practices. Thomas revealed that CanBIM has set up a regular communication channel with the Institute for BIM in Canada (IBC)/buildingSMART Canada to ensure that two groups coordinate their efforts toward common goals. 

CanBIM attends IBC/BSC meetings and vice versa. CanBIM and BSC have signed an official MOU as of November 2017 stating CanBIM and BSC will co-brand, work jointly, and share resources, workload and costs to develop and maintain a mutually agreeable set of initiatives; committees, publications, events, standards, practice documents, newsletters, leaving open the possibility to incorporate further mutually agreeable initiatives as needed.  In 2016, CanBIM and IBC/buildingSMART Canada announced that they are bringing together two of their key committees to work hand in hand to further the interests of BIM in Canada. Their Owners and Education Committees will combine their efforts to address the most pressing issues facing the AECO community in Canada so that there is a clear set of outcomes that both agencies can support and endorse in a variety of ways. Furthermore the two organizations launched the joint bSC/CanBIM Canadian Education initiative. The aim of the BIM initiative is to provide a clear scope and sequence of education activities that must be carried out to support and enable the transformation of the Canadian AECO community.  Thomas expressed his hope that over the next few years, CanBIM and IBC/buildingSMART will be tied together in some form. With respect to both government procurement and industry associations this represents significant progress. That CanBIM and IBC/BSM have agreed to cooperate on a BIM education initiative is very good news especially for young Canadians who will require BIM skills in order to participate, not only in the future domestic construction industry, but also in the burgeoning international construction market. 

In summary significant progress has been made in the development of BIM in Canada by industry, government, and academic sectors.  To date BIM has been primarily an industry initiative with industry early adopters implementing BIM for business reasons, primarily, to reduce risk and improve efficiency.  Thomas noted that there have been Public – Private Partnerships (P3s) RFPs for years that have included BIM requirements, but there have not been concerted federal or provincial government efforts to promote BIM at the procurement level until very recently.  That Quebec and Alberta provincial governments have recognized that BIM could help reduce the cost of designing, building and maintaining and operating public infrastructure and have taken concrete steps with respect to BIM represents important progress.  Secondly industry leaders in BIM have coalesced their efforts through Canadian industry BIM organizations and have begun reaching out to other industry associations.  Thirdly, that universities like Carleton University, University of Alberta, and l'École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) de Montréal have gotten involved in the process of helping digitalize construction is also contributing to the acceleration of BIM and digital technology adoption in the construction industry in Canada.

SPAR2016: Digitalizing highway construction at the Oregon DoT

At SPAR 2013Ron Singh, Engineering Automation Manager/Chief of Surveys, Oregon Department of Transportation (DoT) made a startling proposal that would stand the traditional highway construction process on its head by making the post-construction as-built survey the critical source of reliable survey and asset information in the form of a geo-referenced 3D BIM model (also known as horizontal BIM, heavy BIM, VDC, civil information modeling, BIM on its side, and BIM for infrastructure) and associated scanned and other data.  One of the implications of this is that when a new project is initiated in the same area over 80 % of the necessary survey-grade information is already available in the DoT's geospatially-enabled database making the traditional complete resurvey unnecessary - saving time and money.   Ron foresees that one of the consumers of this digital highway information would be autonomous vehicles.

This year at the Spar 3D 2016 Expo and Conference in Houston I had a chance to sit down with Ron to see how his and other DoTs have progressed on his vision since then.

Ron, the last time we chatted you mentioned you were organizing an event for Western State DoTs in July 2014. How did that go?

It was very successful. I did this on behalf of the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) who approached me and said they planned to do an event similar to the one I organized in 2010 which was called Design to Dozer. In that one we used digital technology including automated GPS-equipped dozers, graders, and excavators to build a sub grade of a road.  It was well attended and it really made a change for my DoT.

The FHA asked me to do another one to promote the use of intelligent construction technologies by providing information and training relating to 3D design, automated machine guidance (AMG) and related technologies for highway construction.  This time I decided to go all the way to paving including ditches, culverts, and drainage. I called it Design to Paver.  We invited the DoTs from the18 Western States plus Florida, North Carolina, and Michigan.  From each Dot we invited their chief engineer and their chief construction engineer.  Altogether we had about 250 people at the event.  It was a two day event and combined classroom work in the morning with on-site in afternoon.

This event included building a demonstration road but I wanted to build one we wouldn't have to tear up and restore. I found a piece of land that was a training facility for the Oregon National Guard. It was a big complex of about 40 or 50 acres and had been a training site since WWII. I went out to see the site and met with them and their environmental people.  I sketched out a plan for a road about 1500 feet long. I picked a site where the road would gain 200 feet in elevation because I wanted it to be fairly complex. I wanted to make some radical curves with superelevations and exaggerated superelevations, so we would have some drainage issues to deal with.  I wanted it to look like a real road and have some interesting geometry. No underground utilities. I wanted to take it from bare earth to a finished 1500 foot road with several curves, ditches, culverts, and paved in less than 2 days.  I don't know exactly but with a traditional approach this would probably have required about a week's work.  We could actually have done it in less than two days, but we were demonstrating.

We did all the surveying for the site months in advance.  We also had a geo-referenced 3D design model with rendering and animation.  We brought in the construction equipment the day before.  We had training sessions for the operators on safety including unexploded ordnance since this was a military training site.

I chunked the 1500 feet of road out in pieces and choreographed the whole thing.  For example, the dozer operator on each section of the road did not break ground until the audience showed up.  They stepped out of the buses and on their badges they had colour codes which allocated them to a team of about 25 people. Each group would go to station A at staggered times.  At station A they would be showed automated dozer operation. Then at a certain time they would go to station B and so on. It was very well coordinated.

What impact do you think the event had on the highway engineers who attended ?

It was amazing - the feedback through the emails I received was so positive.  People still talk about it. If you go to any of the DoTs who attended, the staff who had been there were just amazed.  One of the reasons is that what we were able to show them was something that would have taken a single individual many, many years to see, because none of them had experienced a project with automated equipment from breaking ground to paving.  They were able to experience it all in 2 days. We had all types of equipment, dozers, excavators, curb machines, paving machines, and so on.  We even had unmanned aircraft system (UAVs) for monitoring the construction and ground penetrating radar systems for detecting underground utilities.

Is there a way to find out more about this event?

We created a web site DesignToPaver.org which we intend to leave up for two more years. There is a guide book which you can download. It has more than the agenda. It has all the names of all the companies and  presenters.  If you would like to ask somebody questions, you can find that information in there.

Do you think the road map and time frame for 3D models and construction automation that you outlined is still realistic or is it accelerating?

The technology behind autonomous vehicles is really accelerating as is the engineering automation of highway construction, but the social and legal aspects of highway construction may be the barriers that are keeping it in check. If it were only up to to the technology we would be there much quicker, but I think the social and legal aspects are actually providing good balance, by making sure we are not breaking something that we can't replace.

You mentioned the legal aspects, do you think new legislation will be required to enable to the full digitialization of highway construction and maintenance ?

As long as you put a box around the question and restrict it to engineering automation, not autonomous cars, I think we are well-suited to get there with the existing laws.  I could imagine that to further capitalize on this technology, legislation to register another profession, such as remote sensing, might be beneficial.  I don't necessarily feel that it has to be a surveyor's function to do, let's say, mobile mapping or UAV mapping. I feel it needs to be somebody who is licensed, who has gone through training, who is able to prove that they know how to do this work, and who maintains ongoing professional development training.  The key requirement is that they stand behind their products in a legal sense.

There are many different technologies for capturing data now, even a consumer digital camera can be used to create a point cloud. If I  am a highway engineer how do I decide what data I can rely on for designing a highway ?

The data that has the level of rigour required for engineering design is what I call authoritative data. As an example, if you intend to use a boat with a sonar system and cameras for underwater bathymetric surveying in search of treasure, that's fine. I don't think anyone should regulate that. But if you are going to use the same tools to model bathymetry for the design of a public bridge, then it better be authoritative.  It better be data that you can track the lineage and source of.

One of the key questions I have is about the database of digital data including, in the case of Oregon, data from overflights and mobile LiDAR for the entire state highway system plus the digital as-built models and other data from actual construction projects.  Who do you see is responsible for maintaining this database including updates from ongoing highway maintenance work ?

In Oregon we think we at the DoT are responsible for maintaining it. As long as it is inside our corridor, it was either created by us or by our agents, companies that we hired. There is tremendous value in this data, but the value is only there if in the future people feel confident in using the data.  For that they need to know its provenance.  For example, if you consider our as-built plans, we have had these for generations, but we don't rely on them for anything but to help us find things. We don't rely on them for survey data, because the current as-builts were never created with that in mind.

If we collected very accurate, very rich data and we didn't track its lineage including metadata about how it was captured and when, a future engineering user would legitimately say I don't trust it, because I have no narrative about this data, for example, even something as fundamental as what coordinate system it is in.  But if we can compile all this information together in the form of comprehensive metadata that gives the future user trust in its provenance and reliability, then there should be nothing to prevent the data from being reused.

Are contractors who bit to build roads in Oregon interested in the data you are collecting - do they ask you for it ?

For construction project work, when we use mobile LiDAR or terrestrial laser scanning, we are very careful about precision, for example, we put in ground control points. We do the entire survey in such a way that we end up with a certain level of accuracy, a certain level of point density, and a certain level of reliability. 

When we collect mobile LiDAR data for the whole state, it is impossible to do collect data with the same rigour for the whole state.  We don't put ground control points in and we don't do other things that are required for high precision and reliability.  The data is still very usable for many things, but it is not authoritative, high accuracy survey data, that is required for engineering design.

If you are planning a project in an area where there was a previous project with a digital model, high precision data including ground control points and high density laser scans, would you tell contractors planning to bid on the project about the existing data ?

Absolutely. If we don' t tell them then we might as well as had not collected, documented (metadata) and stored it. We have to tell them because it helps drive the cost down.  To give you some background, our first automated machine guidance (AMG) project was in 1997.  In Oregon some contractors had invested in AMG technology and wanted to use it. In those days contractors who had done this were winning the bids by lowering their bid just enough to beat the other contractors.  When they did the work with AMG technology, they saved a lot of money, but most of the savings was going to the contractors, not to the DoT.  To redress this, starting in early 2015, we began specifying on our bid web site that projects were "AMG ready". We provide all the data we have which they can download to see the models, mobile LiDAR, overflight data, and so on.  The effect is to drive bids down, because there is less risk for the contractor.  Asa result we at the DoT are now sharing in the savings.

Is Oregon alone among DoTs in applying these technologies or are other DoTs also applying them ?

There are about five or six that are leaders in using different aspects of digital technology.  For example, the Wisconsin DoT is focusing on 3D design - they are ahead of us in this technology. Michigan is leading in some areas,  for example, data storage and data management. We met with them because we were interested to finding out what they were doing with engineering data management.  In return they were interested in what we were doing with 3D design and AMG. Utah his way ahead of most DoTs in asset management.  None of the DoTs including us are applying every aspect of 3D digital highway construction and maintenance.

Are there any ROI studies demonstrating the financial benefits of these digital technologies ?

We are doing one. We have a research project we call the OSU Engineering Automation project with Oregon State University in Corvalis.  They are studying our entire engineering automation process. They have already put a good project team together.   The final report is due by next April, about a year from now.

Singapore's national 3D model wins Be Inspired Award at YII2015

At the the Year in Infrastructure conference in London the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) won the annual Be Inspired Award for Innovation in Government.  Comprising only 700 square kilometers for the entire nation, land is a valuable and critical national resource for Singapore and the Singapore Land Authority is responsible for making the most of the resource. 

Specifically SLA is responsible for the national land management system and for all geographical information (GIS) management.  At the Be Inspired Awards at the Year in Infrastructure 2015 conference in London, I had an opportunity to chat with Victor Khoo and Kean Huat Soon.  Victor Khoo is Deputy Director Land Survey at the SLA and Kean Huat Soon is a Senior Surveyor and the technical lead for the project.

Singapore intends to be the world's first "smart nation".  Part of this initiative involves developing a virtual Singapore that is intended to be the source of authoritative information about Singapore for use by government.  The current priority is a 3D model of buildings and below and above ground infrastructure.

The Mapping Singapore in 3D project is financed 50% by the Government of Singapore and 50% by agencies, primarily the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB).   Several government agencies including the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the Housing Development Board (HDB) are already using it.  CAAS finds it essential for maintaining aviation glide paths over the city as does the PUB for assessing the impact of flooding. HDB uses it for planning purposes. 

The project involves capturing large amounts of data using multiple rapid mapping technologies including oblique imagery, airborne laser scanning, mobile laser scanning, and terrestrial scanning.  The data is compiled into 3D city model in a single database repository. The database includes geometry, topology, semantics and appearance.  It relies on CityGML, a standard managed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), for the database schema and for data exchange.  The project works at the Level of Detail (LOD) Level 1-3. The data is stored in a single geospatially-enabled relational database (Oracle Spatial).  The total volume of data is more than 50 terabytes.The most challenging part of the project has been the development of business processes and technologies for ensuring the data remains current. The database is open and accessible to all government agencies. 

3D Cadastre

Victor Khoo is also responsible for developing a 3D cadastre for Singapore which is a separate project at SLA.  A 3D cadastre is especially critical for Singapore for several reasons.  85 % of the population of Singapore lives in public high rise buildings. Underground space is heavily used and underground density is increasing.  Land developers are being very creative and packaging complex volumetric parcels that include both underground and above ground. 

A 3D cadastre has data, legal, system and process dimensions.  The legislation required for the legal aspect is already in place.  The system and processes are intended to be completed by the end of 2016.  With respect to data a 3D GIS is being populated at SLA starting with 2D land parcel data.

Land surveyors are an essential part of the 3D cadastre project.  As a first step surveyors are required to use electronic data exchange instead of paper (Singapore mandated electronic submissions for building permitting over a decade ago.)  Singapore has decided to support ePlan LandXML as an open standard for the exchange of survey data.  In 2013 Singapore joined the ePlan working group which is focussed on developing a digital protocol for the transfer of cadastral data between the surveying Industry and government.  The working group was originally made up of technical experts from the eight states and territories of Australia and New Zealand working in the management of cadastral data.

By way of background LandXML is a widely used standard used by the transportation and land development sectors.  A subset of the LandXML standard including alignment, road, rail, survey, terrain, land parcels, drainage, wastewater, and water distribution systems is being incorporated in a new standard called InfraGML which is supported by the OGC. Its focus is alignments/roads, survey, and land parcels and it synchronizes with the concurrent efforts by buildingSMART International in its development of infrastructure-based Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs), for example, for alignments, as well as with CityGML and TransXML. The first public draft of the OGC's proposed UML conceptual model for land parcels and the built environment was released for public comment at the beginning of the year.

BIM IFC and CityGML

An outstanding issue is the integration of BIM models into the Singapore city model.  A number of groups are working on a way of integrating CityGML and the BIM Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard.  An example is the Dutch 3D standard. 

Energy modeling for cities

The European SUNSHINE (Smart Urban Services for Higher Energy Efficiency) project has found a data model within the INSPIRE standard that is adequate for energy performance modeling for cities.  CityGML has strongly influenced the development of the INSPIRE BU model, both for 2D and for 3D profiles.  Many use cases that were considered for INSPIRE BU require a three-dimensional representation of buildings such as a building information model (BIM). Examples are noise emission simulation and mapping, solar radiation computation or the design of an infrastructure project. To allow for that, the building representation in Level of Detail (LoD1 - LoD4) of CityGML has been added to the INSPIRE BU model as a core 3D profile. For large scale energy performance at the urban level, the SUNSHINE team concluded that detailed interior elements of each building are not required.  It is possible to work at a simple Level of Detail 3 (LOD3) and just include elements like roofs, envelope walls, and windows.

Be Inspired Awards at Year in Infrastructure 2015: Creating a 3D cadastre for Singapore

Singapore, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany and Malaysia are on the leading edge of creating and maintaining 3D cadastres for their respective countries. 

A 3D cadastre is in the cards for Singapore for several reasions;

1. Land developers are being very creative and packaging complex volumetric parcels both underground and above ground.  
2. Current survey techniques cannot capture accurate 3D coordinates.  
3. The current 2D GIS used to capture and store cadastral information is unable to represent volumetric parcels.
4. All strata boundaries are not in the cadastral GIS, making it impossible to perform effective spatial planning for national development goals.

Underground space is heavily used and underground density is increasing.  Underground lots are getting very close to each other and accurate delineation of boundaries is required.

At the the Year in Infrastructure conference in London the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is one of the finalists for the annual the Be Inspired Awards.  The SLA submission describes a SGD 8 million government initiative to create and maintain a high-resolution 3D map of Singapore, more than 700 square kilometers, which is the first step in the development of a 3D cadastre for Singapore.  Maintaining a 3D cadastre requires multi-user access to the 3D city model with secure processes for updating the 3D parcel mesh of the city.  It also requires maintaining accurate historical records of all changes to 3D property boundaries.

The project involved capturing large amounts of data using multiple rapid mapping technologies such as oblique imagery, airborne laser scanning, mobile laser scanning, and terrestrial scanning.  The data was compiled into 3D city model in a single (Oracle Spatial) repository. The total volume of data is more than 50 terabytes. The most challenging part of the project was the development of business processes and technologies for ensuring the data remains current.

Progress on the Dutch 3D geospatial standard-integration with open source geospatial tools

At the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam two years ago, Jantien Stoter of the Delft Univeristy of Technology and an advisor to Geonovum, gave an overview of the work on a Dutch 3D standard, which has been piloted by about 100 organizations in the Netherlands.  The Dutch 3D standard integrates CityGML and the Dutch IMGeo standard.  A recent Safe blog post gives an interesting account of how FME was used to provide integration with open source tools.

Indoor location tracking and mapping are developing rapidly

One of the new generation of geospatial-related conferences that I have attended for two years now is Location Intelligence for Enterprise USA.  It is not a traditional GIS conference but includes talks about vertical business challenges in the commercial space that have benefited from geospatial data and technology.  This year it was hosted by Natasha Léger, Editor, LBx Journal and included speakers from Fedex (managing infrastructure), IBM Business Analytics (business intelligence), Walgreens (retail), Microsoft Azure (cloud computing), Jones Lang Lasalle (Healthcare), Thomson Reuters (predictive analytics), Piteny Bowes (business rules in the cloud), Nate Hole of Loeb and Loeb (privacy), and I talked about gaming and data visualization.

Indoor mapping and tracking

One of the panel discussions focussed on indoor location and mappping.  It was moderated by George Percivall, Chief Architect and Executive Director of the OGC Interoperability Program, and included Kipp Jones, Chief Architect ,Skyhook, Ankit Agarwal , CEO, Micello Inc, Corey Mandell, Chief Technology Officer, Point inside   and Chris Galo, Regional Director of Sales, Aeroscout.

To kick it off George Percivall gave an overview of where things stand wit respec to indoor location.  He mentrioned that the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has initiated an IndoorGML Indoor Location Standards Working Group.  The objective of the working group to provide a common schema framework for interoperability between indoor navigation applications as well as to integrate indoor space and outdoor space in a seamless way.  Indoor mapping is already supported by Google and Bing.  Micello is in the business of creating indoor maps of major venues around the world.  Most of the activity seems to be focussed on consumers and locations such as malls, airports and department stores.  A typical indoor application would help you find particular products in a mall or department store.

Challenges

The major problem that distinguishes indoor from outdoor location and mapping is that there is no indoor equivalent of GPS.  When you are outside of buildings on most of the Earth's surface you can use GPS  to determine where you, other people and things are.  As soon as you walk into a building, GPS no longer works and it is difficult to automatically track people and objects.  For example, to be able to track a firefighter in a building  that has not been prepared in advance remains a challenge.

There have been a number of attempts to solve this problem.  Aeroscout, recently acquired by Stanley Black & Decker, uses Wifi signals from transmitters with known locations to triangulate locations to with an accuracy of 10-15 feet.  Other technologies involve tracking cell phone location by triangulation, RFID, accelerometers, or tracking by low frequency radio frequency waves that are not as affected by walls as high frequency waves.  Recently magnetic anomaly-based indoor positioning using smart phones has been developed by IndoorAtlas. 

Another challenge is 3D location in tall buildings, translating an elevation in meters or feet to a particular floor and vice versa.

The industry is also facing a serious lack of standards right now like, for example, the CityGML standard for everything outside of buildings.  So the OGC's IndoorGML working group initiative is opportune.  In the Netherlands there is a working group associated with Geonovum and the Dutch 3D cadastre that is attempting to align the CityGML ADE GeoBIM standard and the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) BIM standard maintained by BuildingSmart.  IFC is intended to enable the exchange of BIM data between applications developed by different software vendors in a vendor-neutral way.  The objective of the work group is to define a standard, semantically meaningful mapping between IFC and GeoBIM. 

The business benefit of indoor location is significant because it increases the value of your assets - when you can locate equipment and facilities easily, you will use them more.  In the case of hospitals it can be a matter of life and death to find the "crash cart" in seconds rather than minutes.

Benefits of a 3D land and property information system for sustainable urbanization

At the GSDI 13 conference in Quebec City, Serene Ho and Abbas Rajabifard from Australia delivered a paper on the benefits of a 3D land and property information system (3D-LPIS) to an increasingly urbanized society.  70% of the population of Australia lives in urban centres and this proportion is increasing.

The land administration system in Australia is widely regarded to be of high quality and integrity, but as in Canada, the lack of a single federal authority with responsibility for land administration makes it difficult to aggregate information collected at local and state levels up to the national level.  This represents an inhibitor to understanding increasingly complex urban challenges from a national perspective.

In 2011 the federal government in consultation with the state governments published the National Urban Policy (NUP) that attempted to delineate the broad urban challenges Australia is facing and the implications for land and property management.  The NUP defines the primary goals of government policy as

• improving productivity
• improving sustainability and resilience of built and natural environment
• improving the liveability in terms of housing, transport and community services
• improving governance through integration of processes, engagement and evaluation.

In this paper the authors argue that implementing the NUP should be a key driver for the development of a 3D‐LPIS in Australia.

Improving productivity

Efficiencies in productivity would be gained from more holistic planning, incorporating social and economic aspects as well as improving transportation modes and improving land use and development. A 3D‐LPIS provides a platform to catalogue and connect ‘above the line’ with ‘below the line’ interests of a given property, resulting in improved analytical capabilities and potentially dramatically improving current regulatory processes.

Improving sustainability

Improving the sustainability of the built and natural environments involves protection of the environment, improvements in air and water quality, sustainable management and increasing the ability of cities to adapt and respond to natural disasters. Recent Australian legislation on greenhouse gas emissions means that carbon emissions and energy information are becoming mandatory elements of modern land administration system in Australia. A 3D-LPIS would provide the appropriate infrastructure for collecting, managing and visualizing this information, because land and property information is used as the common denominator. This information could then be accessed and used by relevant industries such as risk and disaster management, for example, as a 3D model is already being used for emergency planning and management in Sydney Down Under.

Improving liveability

A 3D‐LPIS would help planners achieve better urban design by providing a visual representation to planners and the public of the types of land use currently in place, as well as the types of structures and how these may impact upon the well‐being of residents in adjacent properties. It would help analyze land use by spatial clustering of land use type to ensure an appropriate mixture of land use. And It would provide an intuitive spatial representation of land use policies to foster a better understanding of these policies among the public and evaluate their relevance to the communities they serve.

Improving governance

A 3D‐LPIS could facilitate open access of information and communication between stakeholders by presenting land and property data in an intuitive 3D visualization. This would support federal initiatives supporting open, transparent government in Australia.  This system would not only link citizens with governments and industry with each other, it could link the various levels and branches of governments dealing with land and property matters.

Geospatial World Forum: Dutch 3D standard integrates CityGML/GeoBIM and large scale geography

At the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam, Jantien Stoter of the Delft Univeristy of Technology and an advisor to Geonovum, gave an overview of the ongoing work on the Dutch 3D standard, which is being piloted by about 100 organizations in the Netherlands.  Geonovum is the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) executive committee in the Netherlands. Its goal is to provide better access to geo-information in the public sector and is responisble for developing and maintaining the standards for geospatial information that are necessary to achieve this goal.

The Dutch 3D standard integrates CityGML and the Dutch IMGeo standard. 

• CityGML is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard for 3D information (geometry and semantics) about cities, external to buildings. GeoBIM is a CityGML Application Domain Extension (ADE) intended to extend CityGML to include detailed, semantic information about the inside of buildings.  GeoBIM was initiated in 2009. The last official update was completed in 2010.
• IMGeo is the Dutch standard for the exchange of large scale geography such as roads, tunnels, water bodies, land use, and so on.  IMGeo is intended to be a scale-independent object model providing a uniform nationwide coverage.  IMGeo 2.0 contains a mandatory part, the Basisregistratie Grootschalige Topografie (BGT). which has legal status in the Netherlands, plus additonal data. IMGeo is 2D, but is extensible to 2.5D and ultimately to 3D.  Like CityGML, IMGeo recognizes levels of detail (LOD).

There are six work groups involved in the Dutch 3D standard effort. For example, one is responsible for compiling killer applications using the 3D standard.

Relationship to IFC

One of the work groups could have broad implications, potentially beyond the borders of the Netherlands, This work group is responsible for aligning the CityGML ADE GeoBIM standard and the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) BIM standard maintained by BuildingSmart.  IFC is intended to enable the exchange of BIM data between applications developed by different software vendors in a vendor-neutral way.  The objective of the work group is to define a standard, semantically meaningful mapping between IFC and GeoBIM.