Between the Poles

Assessment of BIM adoption by government in Québec

Beginning in 2006/2007 a number of national governments including Finland, Norway, U.S., U.K., France, Singapore, Russia and others  began mandating building information modeling (BIM) for public construction projects.  Although the private sector in Canada has been quite active in adopting BIM, at the government and institutional level BIM penetration has been limited. The two provinces where there has been significant progress in developing BIM awareness at the government level are Québec and Alberta. A recent report based on a survey of public owners in the province of Québec aims at capturing a picture of the deployment of BIM in Québec from the perspective of public owners in order to identify gaps in BIM adoption and provide a basis for the development of a comprehensive strategy for BIM deployment in Quebec.

Background

There is a general consensus that the development of BIM in Canada lags many other developed countries around the globe. This can be ascribed partly to little encouragement from government procurement at the federal and provincial levels.

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.

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.  BIM requirements have appeared for years in RFPs from Alberta Infrastructure and Infrastructure Ontario, but there has not been a concerted effort to advance BIM as there has been in other countries.

On the provincial government procurement policy front Quebec and Alberta represent the leading edge of planned BIM advancement by top levels of provincial government in Canada. In Quebec the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) 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. The University of Alberta completed a review in 2016 of international BIM standards and released Digital Project Delivery and Handover Standards last year.

State of BIM adoption by public owners in Quebec

The Initiative Québécoise pour la Construction 4.0 (Groupe BIM du Québec) has just released a report Macro Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption in the province of Quebec Canada based on a survey of eleven public owners at the federal, provincial and municipal levels as well as representing public institutions (eg. Universities) and provincial associations. The objectives of the study are to capture a picture of the deployment of BIM in Québec from the perspective of public owners and associations and identify gaps in BIM adoption to provide a basis for the development of a comprehensive strategy for BIM deployment in Quebec.  Eleven organization responded to the survey including three at the federal level, five at the provincial level, and three at the municipal and institutional level.

A key question asked of the respondents was about the overall understanding of the benefits of BIM by policy makers in their respective organizations. A majority of respondents at the federal and municipal levels indicated that policy makers were only partially aware of the benefits of BIM. Provincial respondents reported a higher awareness of the benefits of BIM. It was concluded that there is a need for greater awareness about the BIM value proposition as part of the digitalization of the construction industry.

The survey found that indicated there were no local, provincial, or national standards or regulatory directives that were obligatory (such as the Canadian National Building Code or Canadian National Energy Code). Furthermore the survey indicated that current insurance policies don’t reflect the realities of BIM-enabled project delivery.  BIM mandates are still sparse across Quebec and at the federal level. However, there is active engagement and widespread support by most respondents in the digital transformation agenda. Interestingly, only a small majority of respondents indicated that their organization had developed pilot projects.

The findings also suggest there is little in the way of development of formal process maps to guide digital workflows and deliverables for project participants. The survey found that BIM specific education and training is still very marginal within organizations. While specific programs in BIM education  can be found in colleges and universities across Quebec and Canada, there does not seem to be a concerted or coherent BIM education plan across Quebec.

Affordability of technology was not a key issue in influencing large scale BIM adoption rates. However, there are technological issues including cloud-based computing and file exchange as well as data security concerns.

Key takeaways from the survey highlight the need to focus on municipal and institutional bodies being the procurers and managers of considerable (if not a majority) of Canada’s built environment.

The key recommendation from the study was the development of a national BIM strategy including a harmonized strategy for BIM deployment across Canada with action items with clear responsibilities attributed to the various stakeholders involved in this transformation effort and milestones.

GeoIgnite: Evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach to construction

I thought it would be worth while to include here the plenary talk I gave at GeoIgnite 2019 in Ottawa about the growing evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM + geospatial approach to full-lifecycle construction. 

The UK government and others have stated clearly that they expect the largest benefits of BIM to flow from a full-lifecycle approach to construction.  As construction companies who have taken on design, build, operate and/or maintain projects have found, for full life-cycle construction projects an approach that combines BIM + geospatial significantly improves outcomes. Until the last year or two evidence of the benefits of BIM + geospatial from real world projects has not been available. Now we are beginning to see substantive data that offer evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.

Some owners have begun procuring using a design, build, maintain, and or operate model.   Engineering and construction companies who have undertaken these projects have reported significant business benefits from adopting an integrated BIM+geospatial approach to construction. Further evidence of the benefits of this approach is provided recently by the owner of a major $1.3 billion PPP construction project.  Nagpur Metro has estimated that it expects total savings in excess of US$225 million over the 25 year lifetime of a design-build-operate-maintain project.

In Canada construction contributes $137 billion, about 7 %, to the GDP annually. Construction in advanced economies have worldwide have a serious problem. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the world will need to spend $57 trillion on infrastructure through 2030 to keep up with global GDP growth. This will require huge amounts of private investment from pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds. To attract this money will require improvements in construction productivity, but in many of the world's advanced economies, construction productivity has been flat for the past 40 years. McKinsey reports that large construction projects typically take 20 percent longer to finish than scheduled and are up to 80 percent over budget. McKinsey & Company suggests that the construction industry is ripe for disruption and two of the technologies that it believes will be key in that anticipated transformation are geospatial and BIM. 

The UK Government as part of its building information modeling (BIM) initiative has said repeatedly that it expects the big payoff of a digital model will be during operations and maintenance, which typically represents 80% of the cost of a facility.  But to date there has been little uptake of this approach in the facilities management (FM) sector. A recent survey of the FM industry found that while 92% had heard about BIM and 84% agreed that BIM has the potential to deliver value add to FM, over two thirds said that the FM is not prepared for BIM.

The early adopters of a BIM+geospatial approach are companies who take on design, build, and maintain and/or operate projects, variously referred to as DBFM in the Netherlands, BOT in Southeast Asia, and PPP in Canada and India. Among these companies are some well-known names in global construction; Major construction firms have realized that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value for full lifecycle projects. EllisDon, Parsons Brinckerhoff , Atkins Global , Arcadis , BAM and AECOM.

For example, in Canada In Canada public–private partnership (PPP) have been remarkably successful for building and maintaining infrastructure. 15 years ago EllisDon began taking on PPP projects and quickly recognized that an integrated BIM+geospatial simplified capturing and maintaining data over the full project lifecyle of a project. As a result Integrated BIM + geospatial has become a best practice on P3 projects at EllisDon.

Owners have found that BIM+geospatial integration provides greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. A leader in this space, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch transportation authority, began offering design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects a number of years ago which has motivated private Dutch engineering and construction companies to adopt an integrated geospatial+BIM approach to construction. The firm Royal BAM Group nv/BAM Infraconsult adopted integrated BIM + geospatial because of market developments including more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project. This includes reality capture using LiDAR scanning at the beginning of the project, before design, to capture an acuurate representation of the location where construction will take place. During the design and build phases of the project everything captured is georeferenced so that it can be migrated to an integrated GIS+FM system for maintenance activities. 

The Crossrail project in London which was the largest engineering project in Europe at the time, adopted a full-lifecycle BIM+geospatial approach with targets of 20% savings on design and construction and 40% savings during operations and maintenance.

In Southeast Asia for a BOT (build-operate-transfer) substation expansion project won by Malaysian company PESTECH to design, build and operate the substation for 25 years. PESTECH adopted an integrated BIM+geospatial approach which included reality capture of the existing substation at the beginning of the project using LiDAR and georeferencing everything including engineering drawings, digital photos, point clouds, BIM models, and other construction documents. The benefits that were realized as a result of this apporach included reduced design time, fewer site visits, reduced land requirement and material waste, and most importantly for keeping the project on budgets and on schedule no change orders.

In China a geospatial+BIM approach was adopted for the Miaoshan 220kV Secondary Transformer Substation project. This was a large indoor substation in Dongxihu District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The project integrated digital tools for construction, site preparation, mechanical, electrical, and protection. The 3D digital modeling approach enabled collaborative design of an indoor substation with restricted space with multiple voltages in a very congested urban area with minimal impact on the existing buildings and infrastructure and all of this within a tight time frame. One of the important benefits of the approach was that minimized the impact of the substation on the existing infrastructure. Since the transformer substation is located in the downtown of Wuhan where buildings are dense, reality capture (laser scanning) was used to model the area surrounding the substation. This helped to ensure the substation site design did not conflict with surrounding buildings. To enable combining the model, the point cloud data, the digital terrain model and other external data everything was geolocated (Bentley calls this geo-coordinated). Geo-coordination, a term minted by Bentley, enables engineers and facilities managers to find things that are tagged,related, or close to a building element and it makes it possible to navigate the information environment, not only 3D design models (virtual reality), but also 3D models in a real world context (augmented reality). For this project it was fundamental not only for integrating the substation design in its real world context, but also for making it possible to reuse the BIM model and associated data during operation and maintenance.

In the U.S. AECOM, which is a US$18.2 billion a year firm in the construction sector and has been ranked for eight years running #1 in Engineering News Record‘s “Top 500 Design Firms”, uses BIM + GIS on design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) projects around the world. AECOM has applied this approach to the external campus of Denver International Airport, and to lease management at Orlando, Hong Kong, and South West Florida international airports. AECOM has found that the advantage of an integrated BIM+GIS approach based on a centralized integration of information is that it allows the client to make strategic decisions during the design, build and operate phases of the construction life-cycle.

The first project I have come across that has attempted estimate total savings attributable to an integrated BIM+geospatial full life-cycle approach to construction is the Napgur Metro project. This is a US$1.3 billion project underway in Nagpur, and appears to be the first project in Asia to integrate a digital twin with an asset management system to eliminate information loss about assets during design and construction. Since the Nagpur system implements a full-lifecycle approach to project management, the location of each of the 500,000 assets comprising the systems is recorded making it possible to click on an asset in SAP and be shown the location of the asset in a 3D map. Final deliverables are digital models rather than paper drawings providing a basis for digitalizing operations and maintenance. The benefits of a 3D BIM+geospatial approach have been projected based on a 25 year lifetime for the project. It is estimated that this will result in US$400,000 savings during plan, design and build. But the big benefit of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach is expected during the 25 year maintain and operate phase of the project. It is expected that operating manpower requirements will be reduced by 20%. The really big payoff is an estimated savings of US$222 million over the lifetime of the project.

Reflecting this trend toward integrated BIM+geospatial there has been a massive consolidation over the past decade of the major hardware and software vendors providing geospatial, BIM and reality capture equipment and software. Hexagon AB, founded in in 1975, began major acquistions in the 1990s which included Leica Geosystems and Intergraph. It has now reached $3.49 billion annual revenue. Trimble founded in 1978 also embarked on major acquisitions including Sketchup and Tekla and is now a $2.7 billion construction equipment and software company. More recently Topcon (Japan) acquired Sokkia and Clearedge and has achieved $1.2 billion in annual revenue. Perhaps most significantly as an indicator for this trend in the industry, Autodesk ($2.46 billlion) and ESRI ($1.1 billion), the 800 pound gorillas in BIM and GIS, respectively, have announced a partnership to improve interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds. Finally, Bentley ($700 million) + Siemens ($105 billion) are working closely on a number of construction projects.

As a growing number of owners see the advantages of a full life-cycle approach in construction projects and begin to change their procurement practices, construction companies are changing their business processes to optimize facility maintenance and operation.  The leading edge of this trend is AEC companies that have taken on the challenge of design, build, operate and/or maintain projects. They have reported that they have realized significant benefits from an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction. Now it appears that the word is getting out. Standards organizations in both the AEC and geospatial worlds are making progress on BIM+geospatial interoperability. Major software vendors Autodesk and ESRI have announced an agreement to partner for greater interoperability between their products. The open source community is also addressing the issue of BIM+geospatial interoperability. In the past the quantified advantages of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach have remained for the most part company internal, but we are now beginning to see data from real world projects that offer quantitative evidence for the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.

Geospatial + BIM interoperability essential for the development of smart cities

Integrated geospatial and BIM is increasingly being recognized as essential for full lifecycle construction and for enabling urban digital twins.  At this year's Geo Business in London the importance of integrating these technologies was asserted by several speakers.  From the perspective of developing smart cities, Hong Kong has made integrating these technologies a policy priority for its goal of becoming a smart city.

In an award winning paper at a 2011 conference organized by Britain’s Association for Geographic Information (AGI), Ann Kemp, then head of GIS at Atkins Global, the design and engineering firm, asked the question ‘BIM isn’t geospatial — or is it?’ and then argued that integration of geospatial and BIM was essential to address the challenges of the 21st century.  At that time within the UK construction company this was a radical suggestion, but since then the need to integrate geospatial and BIM has been gaining traction in the construction industry.  Among the construction vendor community it was adopted by Bentley, Hexagon, and Trimble a number of years ago and in 2017 Autodesk also jumped on board, forming an alliance with ESRI.  At this year's Geo Business event in London the importance of an integrated geospatial and BIM approach in construction was recognized by several speakers.  For example, Marek Suchocki, Autodesk argued that GIS and BIM are not separate, quite a change for Autodesk compared to a couple of years ago.

Hong Kong has the highest population density (26,100 per km²) in the world.  In Hong Kong 50% of the construction industry is government providing government with a key role in moving the entire construction industry, both public and private, forward. The city is quite advanced in adopting BIM.  BIM is mandatory for projects over HK$30 million. The city has developed a BIM Data Repository prototype to allow BIM models of public structures to be shared among government departments and with the public.  BIM has been accepted for General Building Plan submission (permitting) and all of this has been done in collaboration with the Construction Industry Council (CIC).  Finally a study of BIM/GIS integration has been completed.

In his inspiring talk at Geo Business Thomas Chan, Director of Lands, Hong Kong SAR Government, asserted geospatial has to go hand in hand with BIM in creating the common spatial data infrastructure (CSDI) that will underpin Hong Kong as a smart city. As a basis for moving toward a smart city Hong Kong has adopted common spatial data infrastructure,  3D GIS city model, and open data as public policies.  The city has already initiated a pilot open CSDI data portal with over 70 data types available.   But the BIM-GIS integration study found that it is currently difficult to bring BIM models into GIS.  Thomas Chan mentioned the OGC standards CityGML and IndoorGML as essential smart city standards.  Research has shown these standards have some incompatibilities with buildingSmart BIM standards. He is strongly encouraging the geospatial and BIM communities to collaborate to ensure that BIM models submitted to the city can be easily brought into the city's CSDI.

I would suggest that the most important takeaway from this is that in addition to the now widely recognized benefits of geospatial+BIM integration for the construction industry, it is also essential for creating a common spatial data basis for smart cities.  If we cannot resolve AEC+geospatial interoperability now through collaborative work between the two communities, we will continue to be plagued by this issue for decades to come much as we have been by CAD/GIS incompatibility for the past 25 years.

Urgent: Standards-based geospatial + BIM interoperability requires broad vendor participation

At the International Standards Summit 2019 in Düsseldorf a group of people representing owners, engineering and construction firms, vendors and services providers in the AEC space, and standards organization Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and buildingSMART International (bSI) were invited to meet to discuss ways to move forward in promoting a standards-based approach to geospatial + BIM interoperability.

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.  One of the areas of broad agreement at the meetup was that developing a standards-based approach to the BIM+geospatial interoperability problem is urgent.  There are two reasons for this.

The first is that there is growing evidence of the significant business benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction. Design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM), build-operate-transfer (BOT), and public-private-partnerships (PPP) are among the projects that have reported positive benefits of an integrated approach.

The second reason for urgency is that without standards proprietary interoperability will become the de facto standard. In November 2017 the BIM and geospatial market-leaders Autodesk and ESRI announced an agreement to address the interoperability problem. Since then both ESRI and Auto desk have been busy implementing proprietary ways to bring each other's data into their software environment.

ArcGIS is ESRI's market-leading GIS product.  Revit is Autodesk's market-leading BIM application that is utilized by designers for vertical BIM (buildings), although there are landscape architects that have managed to use it as well. Revit models include spatial data and related non-spatial information.  With the release of ArcGIS Pro 2.2 in June 2018 direct reading of Revit BIM (.RVT) files is now supported. In the past Revit models had to be imported through conversion to IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) files and then go through a second conversion to an ESRI geodatabase.  ArcGIS Pro 2.2 makes it possible to open a Revit BIM model directly. Tools are provided for correctly georeferencing BIM models in ArcGIS. Revit data added to ArcGIS behaves like any other 3D GIS data and can be queried, measured and analyzed.

InfraWorks is Autodesk's application that allows civil engineers to design roads and highways in context. InfraWorks 19.2, released in September 2018, now supports the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS. Designers and engineers can bring GIS content from ArcGIS Online into InfraWorks allowing content such as roads, pipelines, and electrical transformers to be directly imported. The link is dynamic making it possible to build an InfraWorks model directly from GIS data published into ArcGIS Online. When the GIS data is updated, the InfraWorks model can be updated and refreshed. With the release of Autodesk Civil 3D 2019 InfraWorks models can be brought into Civil 3D, Autodesk's civil design product. Together these enhancements enable workflows from ArcGIS through InfraWorks to Civil 3D.

Together these implementations represent a proprietary (but incomplete) solution to the BIM+geospatial interoperability challenge.  If you happen to use Tekla, Bentley BIM, Vectorworks or Graphisoft as your BIM software or QGIS, GeoServer/MapServer/PostGIS, GeoMedia, MapInfo, Manifold, or Smallworld as your GIS software, this does not begin to solve your problem.  The objective of the OGC/buildingSMART partnership is to provide a standards-bases solution to the interoperability problem. The Integrated Digital Built Environment Subcommittee (IDBE SC) was founded to increase interoperability between the geospatial and built environment domains, specifically through coordination of standards development activities of the OGC and buildingSMART International (bSI).

At the meetup in Düsseldorf IDBE was represented by Hans-Christoph Gruler of Leica Geosystems, Leif Granholm of Trimble and Jim Plume of bSI Australasia. Also present were representatives of Bentley Systems, NavVis, Solibri(Nemetschek), Schiphol Airport, Hong Kong Housing Authority, Royal Haikoning, CRB, think project!, and others.  Together these folks represent owners, the construction sector, and vendors. 

A second conclusion of the meetup is that the IDBE SC needs more involvement from all sectors of the construction industry, but especially broader representation from vendors and owners. To date most of the efforts that I am aware of involve attempting to map the OGC standard CityGML to bSI's IFC standard.  It is fair to say that the research to date has shown that this is not possible in general.  Leif Granholm has championed another approach to the problem that moves interoperability up the stack from data models to the software level.  To be successful this requires participation from the major vendors in the geospatial  and BIM spaces. Owners, especially government, can encourage a standards-based as opposed to a proprietary approach to interoperability by mandating or requiring standards in RFIs, RFPs and contracts.

Autodesk signals commitment to BIM + geospatial integration for improving construction productivity

We are beginning to see data from real world projects that offer tangible evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.  A few firms such as Parsons Brinckerhoff, Atkins Global, and several Dutch firms including Arcadis and Royal BAM, in the construction sector realized a number of years ago that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance.  Recently Autodesk, arguably the market leader in BIM design software, has been signaling its commitment to geospatial + BIM integration, joining other firms in the construction software industry in improving construction workflows involving BIM and geospatial data and applications.

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.  Fashioning AEC and geospatial data into an efficient data flow from planning through design and construction to operations and maintenance has been an ongoing challenge for owners for decades.  The Between The Poles blog is over ten years old and one of the persistent themes from the very beginning in 2006 was the challenge of integrating CAD and GIS data and applications into efficient workflows (some examples; 2006, 2007, 2008 ).

A few firms such as Parsons Brinckerhoff, Atkins Global, and several Dutch firms including Arcadis and Royal BAM, in the construction sector realized a number of years ago that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. It has been shown that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. A leader in this procurement space, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch transportation authority, began offering design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects a number of years ago which has motivated private Dutch engineering and construction companies to adopt an integrated geospatial+BIM approach to construction. For example, the firm Royal BAM Group nv/BAM Infraconsult adopted integrated BIM + geospatial because of market developments including more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project.   AECOM, which is a US$18.2 billion a year firm in the construction sector and has been ranked for eight years running it has been ranked #1 in Engineering News Record‘s “Top 500 Design Firms”, uses BIM + GIS on design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) projects including the external campus of Denver International Airport, and to lease management at Orlando, Hong Kong, and South West Florida international airports.

Major firms in the construction software industry such as Hexagon, Trimble, and Bentley have integrated geospatial + BIM to varying degrees in their approach to construction for years.  For example, Bentley decided fifteen years ago to support real-world coordinate systems in all of their products including Microstation. Bentley calls this capability geo-coordination and it provides a location-aware foundation which facilitates workflows that require integrated engineering and geospatial data and applications. According to Bentley geo-coordination adds value for asset performance with a very high return on that investment.  Integrating CAD and GIS into an efficient workflow for records management (aka network documentation) has been a challenge for utility and telecom operators for decades. While utility and telecom operators have found ways to address this problem, it is rare to find the benefits for these systems quantified. At Year in Infrastructure 2019 iForte Solusi Infotek presented concrete benefits of a records management system integrating CAD and geospatial worklows that has been in operation for several years for managing their fiber optic networks in Jakarta and on the rest of Java. For these activities iForte estimated that it has realized a return on investment of 203% over three years. The primary benefits of the new system were realized in planning, network maintenance and sales, and there were a number of intangible other benefits.

Over a year ago Jack Dangermond and Andrew Anagnost announced a partnership to build a bridge between Autodesk and ESRI technologies.  I have reviewed the technical progress that the two companies have made in furthering interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds which suggests that the new relationship between Autodesk and ESRI appears to be being translated into concrete actions. There is a considerable distance to go yet, but there are grounds for optimism that there is a commitment to BIM and geospatial interoperability so that in the future workflows that involve both AEC and geospatial data and software will be able to surmount the CAD+GIS barriers that have represented major inefficiencies for the construction, utility and other sectors for decades. 

Further evidence of a serious commitment to furthering efficient integrated BIM and geospatial workflows is provided in a recent article in Geospatial World by Nicolas Mangon, Vice President of AEC, Business Strategy & Marketing at Autodesk, has acknowledged that "there is a growing recognition in the collective AEC industry that geography provides a common language for collaborating on projects." Furthermore, "bringing GIS technologies and BIM processes together provides a broader and deeper understanding of infrastructure in the larger context of the built and natural environment by integrating information and content."  Expanding on the recently announced Autodesk and ESRI partnership, Mangon says that "Autodesk is bringing that knowledge from manufacturing to AEC and our ESRI partnership allows us to improve the way we create spatially accurate digtial representations of the physical. Our current plan is to expand the integration further into our detailed design applications like Civil3D but also connect GIS data into out cloud BIM platform."   This is an important statement from the market leader in BIM software and suggests that the days when architects, engineers, and construction contractors work with an isolated 0,0 coordinate system are numbered.

This is another signal from a major player in the BIM design space of a serious commitment to overcoming the BIM/geospatial integration challenge and ending the decades long clash of tectonic plates between the AEC and geospatial worlds that has contributed to low productivity in construction, utilities, telecommunications and other industries.  It will also an important first step toward the development of maintainable near real-time digital twins of urban infrastructure.

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.

The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the world will need to spend $57 trillion on infrastructure through 2030 to keep up with global GDP growth. This is a massive incentive for the  construction industry to transform productivity and project delivery through new technologies and improved practices.  McKinsey reports that large construction projects typically take 20 percent longer to finish than scheduled and are up to 80 percent over budget. Construction productivity has actually declined in some markets since the 1990s and financial returns for contractors are relatively low and volatile.  Construction has been slow to adopt process and technological innovations. R&D spending in construction lags most other industries - construction R&D  is less than 1% of total industry revenue compared to 3.5-4.5 % in the auto and aerospace sectors.  McKinsey & Company suggests that the construction industry is ripe for disruption and two of the technologies that it believes will be key in that anticipated transformation are geospatial and BIM. 

The UK Government as part of its building information modeling (BIM) initiative has said repeatedly that it expects the big payoff of a digital model will be during operations and maintenance, which typically represents 80% of the cost of a facility.  Companies who take on design, build, and maintain and/or operate projects find significant benefits from a full lifecycle BIM + geospatial strategy. For example, EllisDon in Canada considers BIM+geospatial as best practice for its PPP projects, Rijkswaterstaat pioneered design, build, finance, and maintain (DBFM) projects in the Netherlands, Crossrail, which is currently the largest engineering project in Europe, has adopted this approach, Malaysian firm PESTECH International Berhad employs this approach for build, operate and transmit (BOT) projects, and major U.S. construction firm AECOM is applying BIM+geospatial on large design, build finance and operate (DBFO) projects. But to date there has been little reported quantitative evidence supporting the benefits of this approach.  This is changing with several projects providing estimates of benefits including ROI of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction projects.

Integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach to construction

On many projects information provided by the construction contractor is handed over months after completion of the project. It can take the operator of the facility a year to go through this information to find the information required to operate the facility. This period is what is called the "blind spot" corresponding to the time the facility operator is managing the facility with limited information. Since for many types of equipment the highest probability of failure is in their first month or two of operation - just during the period that the building operator often doesn't have access to information about warranties and extended warranties - this increases the risk of equipment and even facility failures. In addition there is a cost associated with just finding the information required to service equipment. A NIST study across several industries estimated that the cost associated with this is 23 cents/square foot which adds considerable cost to operating the facility.

A full lifecycle facilities information flow starts with a facilities information specification from the owner identifying the building information to be included as part of the final deliverables at the time of commissioning.  The facilities information specification is part of the contract between the owner and the designers and contractors who will construct the building.  The facilities information required by the owner's specification are entered into the BIM database during design and construction by the designers and contractors.  At the completion of construction the facilities information data collected by the designers and contractors and stored with the BIM model in digital form represents a key deliverable to the owner together with the BIM model.   The facilities information can then be used to populate the building manager's asset management/facilities management system database including links to the BIM model of the facility to identify where each element or piece of equipment can be found. Most of the spatial and non-spatial data collected during construction is useful during operations. 100 % of floor plans and most of the 3D model (geometry and associated data) are needed in operations. Some owners find that just the BIM model including geometry and associated data is adequate for managing the facility. Others augment the BIM model by a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) which adds financial, occupancy, maintenance history and other information.

In an award winning paper at a 2011 conference organized by Britain’s Association for Geographic Information (AGI), Ann Kemp, then head of GIS at Atkins Global, the design and engineering firm, asked the question ‘BIM isn’t geospatial — or is it?’ and then argued that integration of geospatial and BIM was essential to address the challenges of the 21st century.  The need to integrate geospatial and BIM has been gaining traction for some time.

BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance.  A leader in this space, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch transportation authority, began offering design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects a number of years ago which has motivated private Dutch engineering and construction companies to adopt an integrated geospatial+BIM approach to construction.

A few firms such as Parsons Brinckerhoff, Atkins Global, and several Dutch firms including Arcadis and Royal BAM, in the construction sector realized a number of years ago that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance.  For example, the firm Royal BAM Group nv/BAM Infraconsult adopted integrated BIM + geospatial because of market developments including more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project. 

Geolocation plays a key role in integrating GIS and engineering data and applications for optimizing asset management workflows.  One of the foundations for an integrated system of this type is Bentley's decision many years ago to geospatially-enable all of their products Bentley calls this capability geocoordination. It provides a location-aware foundation for workflows that require integrated engineering and geospatial data and applications.

Benefits of Integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle construction

Recently, Microdesk has reported case studies including hospitals, a medical research facility, an airport and a university. For each facility several use cases were included in the ROI analysis.  For example, dealing with plumbing leaks, electric power shutdowns, passing on tribal knowledge from senior staff to new hires, and conducting infectious risk assessment (ICRA/PCRA), and so on.  After introducing BIM models for facilities and asset management, FM staff were surveyed and asked whether they found dealing with a plumbing leak, for example, using BIM easier, the same or more difficult than the traditional approach. The analysis quantified the time required to resolve a plumbing leak before and after the introduction of BIM.

Two very interesting examples of the ROI analysis performed by Microdesk relate to maintenance operations in a hospital. Passing tribal knowledge on from the older generation of FM staff to the younger involves a junior FM staffer accompanying a senior staff member walking the building for about a month. This requires about 200 hours of staff time. The hospital hires about 12 people per year so this amounts to 2400 hours per year. With BIM and virtual reality (VR) this was reduced to 22 hrs per person, a very significant staff time savings.  In another example, a review of infectious risk assessment (ICRA/PCRA) analysis in a hospital takes about 152 hrs and this has to be repeated 200 times per year. With BIM the time required to conduct these analysis was reduced to 74 hrs per review saving 15,600 hrs annually.

At the conclusion of five years running on the projects, the ROI analysis found a positive BIM in all cases, and estimated that introducing BIM for FM saved on average 5 % of operating costs per annum. It was estimated that introducing BIM reduced the time looking for things by 83% of the 23 cents per square foot cost for doing this from the NIST study. Since operations and maintenance are roughly 75% of the total cost of a facility, these results represents a substantial savings over the full lifecycle of a building.

The Napgur Metro, which is a US$1.3 billion project underway in Nagpur, is the first project in Asia to integrate a digital twin with an asset management system to eliminate information loss about assets during design and construction.   A 23 digit asset code was used to link 3D models developed using Bentley BIM tools with SAP financial management making it possible to track assets right from design through to operation and maintenance. BIM best practices followed the British PAS 1192 guidelines. Since the Nagpur system implements a full-lifecycle approach to project management, the location of each of the 500,000 assets comprising the systems is recorded making it possible to click on an asset in SAP and be shown the location of the asset in a 3D map.  Final deliverables are digital models rather than paper drawings providing a basis for digitalizing operations and maintenance.  The benefits of a 3D BIM+geospatial approach have been projected based on a 25 year lifetime for the project.  It is estimated that this will result in US$400,000 savings during plan, design and build, a reduction in operating manpower requirements by 20%, and increased availability and reliability.  The really big payoff is an estimated savings of US$222 million over the lifetime of the project.

 

PESTECH International Berhad, the winner of a Year in Infrastructure award, used geocoordinated digital design for the development of a new substation Kratie and Kampong Cham, Cambodia.  The decision to use geocordinated design technology for this project was partially motivated by the requirement that the company would not only be responsible for designing and building the substation but also for operating it for a period of 25 years before transferring it to the utility.

 

A number of projects in the Netherlands have been initiated by Rijkswaterstaat (RWS), the Dutch highway authority, using a design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) approach. The Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) board is convinced of the benefits of BIM and BIM/geospatial integration and rolled out BIM/geospatial for four DBFM projects with the intention to require BIM on all DBFM-contracts in the future. Royal BAM Group nv / BAM Infraconsult was responsible for several of these projects.  A DBFM project at BAM starts with 2D geographic data that is visualized through a GIS web portal. The web portal gives everyone on the team an early perspective on the project site including underground utilities and aboveground structures before design begins. During the tender process the geospatial data is combined with 3D data including 3D representations of nearby natural and man-made features as well as proposed designs to create a 3D environment for assessing alternative designs. The 3D environment improves collaboration among the team members as well as enabling better communication with the client through 3D visualization of proposed designs. After award, the first step is conducting LiDAR scans of the site/proposed route. At completion of construction, the data collected during design and construction is migrated to an integrated GIS + asset management system system to support maintenance activities. 

 

In Canada public–private partnership (P3) have been remarkably successful for building and maintaining infrastructure. For EllisDon, a major construction and building services company, integrated BIM + geospatial is considered best practices on full lifecycle projects P3 projects in Canada.  EllisDon was involved in its first P3 project in Canada fifteen years ago. Since then the P3 business has grown and now P3 is a big part of EllisDon's business. For P3 projects EllisDon builds a wide variety types of structures including hospitals. In the P3 world the contractor often shares the risk of operating and/or maintaining a facility for an extended period. This means that people who are going to be running and managing a facility need to be involved in designing the facility right from the beginning. It is necessary to cost out the lifecycle of each piece of equipment whether it be a carpet, baseboard or cooling unit because you have to be able to maintain it and at the end of the 30 year period you are expected to turn over a hospital that looks brand new. For this reason P3 projects are very different from design+build projects.

 

AECOM, which is a US$18.2 billion a year firm in the construction sector and has been ranked for eight years running it has been ranked #1 in Engineering News Record‘s “Top 500 Design Firms”, uses BIM + GIS on design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) projects around the world.  At AECOM, the discussion has shifted from CAD/BIM alone to include geospatial and its capabilities specifically for design, build finance and operate (DBFO) projects. This mirrors the Dutch experience with design, build, finance and maintain (DBFM) projects encouraged by the Dutch highway authority. AECOM has found that by adding real world coordinates they increase the value and types of data for all stakeholders across the entire lifecycle. Integrated geospatial + BIM connects data types together. BIM holds the utility content and GIS is a visual platform for maintenance linked to a maintenance workflow. AECOM has applied this approach to the external campus of Denver International Airport, and to lease management at Orlando, Hong Kong, and South West Florida international airports. For the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) in Hong Kong AECOM developed and maintains a central repository with district-wide data from various sources including all operational data - architectural planning and engineering- for the district. The advantage of an integrated BIM+GIS approach based on a centralized integration of information is that it allows the client to make strategic decisions during the design, build and operate phases of the construction lifecycle.

BIM+geospatial interoperability

Fashioning AEC and geospatial data into an efficient data flow from planning through design and construction to operations and maintenance represented a challenge that remains a problem for owners.  The Between The Poles blog is over ten years old and one of the persistent themes from the very beginning in 2006 was the challenge of integrating CAD and GIS data and applications in an efficient workflow (some examples; 2006, 2007, 2008 ). It is indicative of the importance of the integration of BIM and geospatial data and technologies that Autodesk and ESRI, 800 lb gorillas in their respective areas of AEC and GIS, have announced an agreement (for the second time) to collaborate to help bridge the gap between CAD/BIM and GIS/geospatial. 

 

Over the past decade, there has been impressive progress in developing open standards for the integration of geospatial and AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) views of city infrastructure which provides a standards-based basis for full lifecycle management from design through to operations and maintenance of infrastructure projects. 

 

The Netherlands has led in the development and application of open BIM+geospatial standards‎ in the construction industry. The Netherlands has created a BIM Gateway that is intended to be a national portal for information about open BIM standards including related geospatial standards. 

In the AEC world Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) are the open and neutral data format standard for the exchange of building information models (BIM) that is widely used in the AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction)  sector.  The IFC standard was developed and is supported by buildingSMART International.   The IFC BIM standard is used in the construction industry in many countries and is mandated in countries such as Finland.  The first versions of IFC were intended for buildings (vertical BIM).  Recently buildingSMART initiated the IFC for Infrastructure project to extend the IFC standard to support linear transportation infrastructure (horizontal BIM or BIM for Infrastructure) such as rail, road, bridges, and tunnels. 

In the geospatial world a widely used international geospatial standard for cities is CityGML.  Thomas Kolbe and co-workers are the developers of the CityGML standard that has been adopted by the Open Geospatial Consortium.  Kolbe et al. are translating a vision of the city as an interactive system comprised of functional components, utility networks connecting components, and interdependencies between utility networks into standards-based intelligent models that can be used to analyze urban environments for a variety of purposes including risk- and disaster management energy consumption, carbon balancing and city life-cycle management.

Currently CityGML includes 3D geometry, topology, semantics, and appearance for urban environments. CityGML also supports a standard mechanism for adding extensions, called Application Domain Extensions (ADEs).  There are several Application Domain Extensions (ADEs) that have been developed to extend CityGML to other domains.  For example,  I blogged about a basic extension UtilityNetworksADE that was proposed for city utility networks.  The INSPIRE Data Specifications Annex III contains use case encodings and a data model for Buildings the development of which was strongly influenced by CityGML. There have been attempts to integrate or at least develop a mapping between IFC and CityGML. 

A major breakthrough in bringing the architectural and geospatial views onto a common footing is the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model developed by the OGC in cooperation with buildingSMART International and approved as an OGC standard in August, 2016.  LandInfra  was developed by Bentley Systems, Leica Geosystems, Trimble, Australian Government Department of Communications, Autodesk, Vianova Systems AS, and buildingSMART International and provides a unifying basis for land and civil engineering standards including the OGC's InfraGML and buildingSmart International's IFC for infrastructure standards.  

buildingSmart International's IFC-Alignment project uses this common conceptual model of alignments for roads, railways, tunnels and bridges.  The objectives of the IFC-Alignment project is to enable the exchange of alignment information through the full infrastructure lifecyle from planning through design and construction to asset management. On the geospatial side  InfraGML is the OGC's application schema supporting land development and civil engineering infrastructure facilities.

Open source support for AEC/geospatial interoperability

Where there are recognized open standards, there are more often then not open source projects supporting those standards.  mago3D is a new open source 3D geo-platform.  It is open source and integrates many well-known open source geospatial products and APis.  The importance of this technology is that it shows that it is possible using the available open source, geospatial APis and tools - together with some genuine innovative development - to create an open, non-proprietary 3D geospatial platform for integrating geospatial and BIM. Given the critical importance of addressing the cultural and technical divide between the AEC and geospatial worlds, a viable open source alternative is essential for developing the innovative solutions to the challenge of interfacing the two worlds. 

Bentley has announced that it intends to build its products supporting digital twins around an open source project already on Github called iModel.js.  Bentley is committing its resources to developing an ecosystem around iModel.js. To quote Keith Bentley this is a huge change in direction for Bentley although Bentley had puts its toes in the open source water previously.  Bentley used open source geospatial components to develop a new front-end for its leading road and rail asset management system AssetWise Lifecycle Information Management solution (ALIM).  Bentley has also partnered with AGI to support the open source Cesium project.

Conclusion

As owners see the advantages of design, build, operate and/or maintain projects and are beginning to changing their procurement practices, construction companies are changing their  business processes to optimize facility maintenance and operation.  Construction companies that have taken on the challenge of design, build, operate and maintain projects are realizing that there are significant benefits from an integrated BIM+geospatial approach to full lifecycle construction.   The advantages of an integrated BIM+geospatial approach have remained for the most part company internal.  Now it appears that the word is getting out.  Standards organizations in both the AEC and geospatial worlds are making progress on BIM+geospatial interoperability.  Major software vendors Autodesk and ESRI have announced an agreement to partner for greater interoperability between their products.  The open source community is also addressing the issue of BIM+geospatial interoperability. We are now beginning to see data from real world projects that offer quantitative evidence for the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects.

BIM and reality modeling eliminate change orders for brownfield substation expansion

Companies are recognizing the benefits of an integrated geospatial and building information modeling (BIM) approach to design and construction. At Bentley‘s the Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference in London, the winner of the Year in Infrastructure award in the Utilities Transmission and Distribution category applied BIM processes and reality modeling on a brownfield substation expansion project. The integrated approach enabled the organization to cut design time, minimize site visits, reduce land requirement and material waste, and, most importantly, eliminate change orders during construction.

This year's award winner, Pestech International Berhad, applied reality modeling and 3D modeling in the expansion of an existing substation located in a rapidly growing industrial area close to the largest airport and port in Malaysia. This was a brownfield project that involved adding 500-kilovolt capacity to an existing 275/132-kilovolt substation. 

Substation design requires coordination between multiple disciplines, including site preparation, electrical design, mechanical design, protection design, and communications design. Traditionally, substation design involves a waterfall information flow consisting of CAD drawings and paper documents among the various disciplines. It is characterized by time-consuming, error-prone manual processes that make it difficult to correct errors, change designs, and keep everyone current with the latest documents. For a brownfield project, substation design also requires frequent visits to the site, which is hazardous and time-consuming. As a result of this fractured process, multiple submissions of the design are typically submitted to the client because of design errors. Often, the land area required for the site is overestimated and the bill of materials, which is generated manually in a time-consuming and unreliable process, results in material shortages during construction.

By automating the design process, the design time to complete the electrical drawings could be reduced from five to six months to one to two months. The bill of materials, which could require weeks to months to complete manually, could be generated instantaneously with much greater precision, reducing material waste and avoiding material shortages during construction. Clash detection could be automated, making it possible to detect clashes during design. For a brownfield project, compatibility with the existing structure can be ensured with the reality mesh, thus avoiding site visits. The combined reality and BIM model represented a single source of truth enabling all disciplines to stay current. In contrast to a waterfall information flow, a centralized 3D model enables different disciplines to work in parallel. The most important project benefit is that design errors could be detected and eliminated during design, rather than during construction. As a result, there were no rework orders due to design errors.

Reality modeling is the key technology contributing to this advancement. Reality modeling is the convergence of reality capture using 3D technologies, point clouds from LiDAR, and generating reality meshes from point clouds and digital photographs with BIM design. Geolocation plays a key role in integrating these technologies. Bentley calls this process geocoordination, and it makes it very simple to integrate data from diverse reality capture sources as well as to reuse existing engineering data together with 3D BIM design models. As I have blogged about previously, integrated geospatial and BIM is essential for a full lifecycle approach for managing infrastructure assets. 

State DOT saves millions by creating 3D map of underground utilities prior to design

Unknown or inaccurately located underground utilities can make or break a highway construction project's schedule.  For the largest construction project in the state of Alabama's history, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) used ground penetrating radar (GPR) and other technology to create an accurate 3D model of underground infrastructure prior to designing a replacement for one of the busiest interchanges in the state.  ALDOT estimates that the 3D model, which was provided to all contractors bidding on the project, saved millions of dollars and reduced the risk of budget and schedule over-runs.

The location of existing underground utility infrastructure is more often than not poorly known which creates significant risk for infrastructure and highway construction projects. Typically on highway construction projects, the right of way is chosen, the highway designed and the project readied for construction before the one-call centre is contacted and the affected utilities arrive to detect and locate their underground facilities, usually in 2D.  The utilities that have been detected are then moved to make way for building the highway.  Not infrequently the location of the identified utilities turns out to be unreliable and during construction other unidentified utilities are encountered both of which can lead to delays and to budget overruns.

I blogged previously about a gas line construction project that was a Year in Infrastructure Award finalist in 2015.  For this project a 3D model of the existing underground and above ground infrastructure was created before design and construction.  The benefit of having the 3D model was clear; during construction there were no utility strikes, there were no change orders and the project was completed in 7 weeks instead of the expected 10 weeks. 

At this year's Year in Infrastructure Awards in London an outstanding project submitted by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) was selected as finalist. The I-20/I-59 Corridor is the largest construction project in the State of Alabama’s history with a cost of $750 million.   The project has a very tight timeframe.  ALDOT's Design Bureau’s Visualization Group was tasked to provide a complete 3D proposed model for building information modeling (BIM). The BIM model needed to provide the information necessary for multiple uses including: visualizations, design checks, construction analysis, clash detection, right-of-way negotiations, lawsuits, and aesthetics. The model had to be very accurate because it was intended to be provided to the construction bidders to enable more accurate cost estimates and lower bids.

One of the important challenges faced by this project was utility coordination because the interchange is situated in Birmingham's business district.  Realizing that underground utilities can make or break a project's schedule, ALDOT invested a considerable effort in locating utilities and creating a 3D model of above and below-ground utilities. Potholing and scanning with ground penetrating radar augmented existing as-built records to enable ALDOT to create accurate 3D model of underground utilities.  3D is important because what appear to be clashes in 2D may not actually be.  Also it was much easier to explain to utilities in 3D that a costly move of a utility line is not necessary.   ALDOT’s Visualization Group was tasked with detecting clashes between the proposed design with the existing conditions. Every contractor bidding on the project got the full 3D model.  Because of the reduced risk associated with underground infrastructure ALDOT estimated that it saved over $10 million by using 3D modeling of underground and aboveground utilities.  To date the project is on budget and on schedule. After completion of the project ALDOT plans to retain the 3D model which can be reused for other projects in the same area.

ALDOT found other advantages of 3D modeling as well.  Public and stakeholder perspectives of the project was a major concern and using the 3D model allowed the Visualization Group to provide accurate photomatches, renderings, and animation to relay projects impacts to all stakeholders.  While the project is under construction the 3D model is also being used by inspectors in the field so that construction details are relayed accurately to the workers.

This project provides further evidence of the significant benefits of a 3D model of underground infrastructure which can be used during design and construction to reduce the risk of utility hits, reduce the cost of utility relocates, and avoid unnecessary utility relocates.

ESRI and Autodesk partnership for BIM and geospatial interoperability: one year later

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.

ESRI and Autodesk partnership

In the mid-1990s Autodesk and ESRI, market leaders in their respective areas of CAD and GIS, attempted to collaborate to address the CAD and GIS interoperability problem. The result of the agreement between Jack Dangermond and Carol Bartz at the time resulted in an unsuccessful product called ArcCAD, which satisfied neither CAD nor GIS users.

A year ago Autodesk and ESRI, again agreed to collaborate. Expected benefits cited by Autodesk and ESRI from BIM and GIS interoperability include "unprecedented reductions in permitting through improved stakeholder engagement, more sustainable and resilient design through enhanced project insight, reduced risk via improved end-to-end flow of materials, resource availability and scheduling during construction," and "providing industry and city planners the ability to design in the context of the real world enabling communities to build connected, resilient, sustainable cities and infrastructure." This time around they are probably more aware of the technical and cultural issues hindering AEC and geospatial interoperability.

Integrating BIM and CAD with GIS

Revit is Autodesk's market-leading BIM application that is utilized by designers for vertical BIM (buildings), although there are landscape architects that have managed to use it as well. Revit models include spatial data and related non-spatial information.  With the release of ArcGIS Pro 2.2 in June 2018 direct reading of Revit BIM (.RVT) files is now supported. In the past Revit models had to be imported through conversion to IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) files and then go through a second conversion to a geodatabase.  ArcGIS Pro 2.2 makes it possible to open a Revit BIM model directly. Tools are provided for correctly georeferencing BIM models in ArcGIS. Revit data added to ArcGIS behaves like any other 3D GIS data and can be queried, measured and analyzed.

ESRI has provided for some time a product for AutoCAD users who want to work with ArcGIS data in a familiar context. It allows CAD users to edit GIS data, navigate drawings using location, imtegrate with GIS, and turn CAD data into GIS data. Shortly after the partnership announcement, an incremental release of ArcGIS for AutoCAD 370 was announced with support for the latest versions of AutoCAD. ESRI product management also promised that the future of ArcGIS for AutoCAD would continue with improved integration with ArcGIS Online/Portal. ArcGIS Pro 2.2 provides updated support for reading and exporting AutoCAD version 2018 and 2019 format files. Furthermore ESRI product management said that other CAD/BIM/AEC applications were being considered for future development using a similar integration pattern as ArcGIS for AutoCAD.

Integrating GIS with civil workflows

InfraWorks is Autodesk's application that allows civil engineers to perform conceptual design for roads and highways in context. InfraWorks 19.2, released in September 2018, now supports the Autodesk Connector for ArcGIS. Designers and engineers can bring GIS content from ArcGIS Online into InfraWorks allowing content such as roads, pipelines, and electrical transformers to be directly imported. The link is dynamic making it possible to build an InfraWorks model directly from GIS data published into ArcGIS Online. When the GIS data is updated, the InfraWorks model can be updated and refreshed. With the release of Autodesk Civil 3D 2019 InfraWorks models can be brought into Civil 3D, Autodesk's civil design product. Together these enhancements enable workflows from ArcGIS through InfraWorks to Civil 3D.

Integrating civil and geospatial workflows with BIM

A major challenge is interoperability between Autodesk's own products. A first step for integrating geospatial workflows into Revit is for site preparation. Autodesk offers a Site Designer for Revit plug-in that is intended to enable architects, designers, and planners to shape the terrain for building sites using grading tools to model pads, parking lots, streets, sidewalks, and retaining walls. But the integration between Autodesk's BIM and civil engineering products still inhibits site preparation workflows. Civil 3D was developed on the AutoCAD platform. Revit, which was acquired from Charles River Software in 2002, was built on different data structures. As a recent post from a landscape architecture site pointed out there remains a "gaping hole ... between Civil 3D and Revit".

Improving interoperability between the two products has now become a priority for Autodesk product management. According to the latest Autodesk roadmap associated with the Revit 2019 release, Autodesk is investing in improving how civil engineers and architects can collaborate better on the site design process. The very good news is that according to the Revit product management roadmap, collaboration with Civil 3D and Revit is now an "Accepted Revit Idea", which confirms that Revit/Civil 3D interoperability has become a development priority. Furthermore new features in Civil 3D 2019 includes enhanced structural and civil design collaboration for Civil 3D with Revit..

In conclusion the new relationship between Autodesk and ESRI is being translated into concrete actions to improve the interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds.  There is a considerable distance to go yet, but there are grounds for optimism that there is a commitment to BIM and geospatial interoperability so that in the future workflows that involve both AEC and geospatial data and software will be able to surmount the CAD+GIS barriers that have represented major inefficiencies for the construction, utility and other sectors for decades.

Bentley's digital twin capabilities for cities includes underground infrastructure

Proposed West Link tunnel under central Gothenburg

More and more cities are recognizing the tremendous benefits that a digital twin provides to its planners, private architects and engineers striving for compliance with city ordinances and by-laws, and for communicating with the public.  I remember several years ago when the Prime Minister of Singapore in his annual National Day address included a 3D visualization of what the proposed Marina Bay towers would look like - perhaps the first time 3D visualization has been used to inform citizens on a national scale.  At the Year in Infrastructure 2018 in London, Bentley announced the acquisition of Agency9, a Swedish company that provides web and mobile solutions for 3D visualization of geographic information and maps for collaboration and communication with its product CityPlanner (now OpenPlanner).  With this acquistion, Bentley augments its competitive positioning relative to CityZenith (SmartWorldPro), ESRI (CityEngine), and Autodesk (Infraworks) and open source projects such as mago3D in offering a 3D visualization and analytics platform for the massive data sources required for cities including underground infrastructure.

The requirements of a comprehensive platform for city visualization and analysis for planners, architects and engineers, and the public are the ability to support OGC (KML, CityGML and others), BuildingSmart (IFC), defacto (Shape, DWG, DGN, Revit and others) and other standards such as GeoJSON making it possible to integrate GIS, CAD, and BIM (vertical and horizontal) data, content creating and editing tools, for example, to allow buildings to be extruded from footprints and rooves and facades customized, support for open data sources such as OpenStreetMap, ability to integrate satellite, aerial and ground photo imagery and LiDAR point clouds,  support for both above- and below-ground infrastructure, gaming engine support (such as Unity or Unreal Engine) for interactive 3D visualization, cloud processing for managing, processing and querying massive amounts of data, web and mobile access, and APIs for analytics.

From a technical perspective the acquisition made a lot sense because Bentley's ContextCapture (from the acquisition of Acute3D several years ago), which creates 3D meshes for both inside and outside buildings from aerial and ground photo images and LiDAR point clouds, has been used by Agency9 for many years as the basis for its visualization capabilities.

Proposed West Link tunnel under Gothenburg

The West Link (Swedish: Västlänken) is a railway tunnel under construction under central Gothenburg. As an example of its support for underground infrastructure the City of Gothenburg used CityPlanner to publish a 3D visualization of the planned tunnel going below the entire city which showed stations with points of interest with images in a slideshow. During the first 24 hours that the project was published on its web site, it had over 10,000 unique visitors.