Entering the metaverse

Editorial Type: Software Focus Date: 2021-04-01 Views: 2,606 Tags: CAD, BIM, Cloud, Asset Management, Information Management, Digitalisation, 3D Repo PDF Version:
David Chadwick talks to 3D Repo's CEO Dr Jozef Dobos about the company's recent MegaGrant award from Epic Games

Iremember asking Dr Jozef Dobos, the CEO of 3D Repo, a question some years ago at a Futurebuild exhibition at Excel. He had just described the way in which his company handles data linked to its 3D visualisation tools which, in essence, enables users to click on any element in a 3D model and access any data associated with it. That probably puts it rather simply, but it immediately begged the question whether the same technology could be used successfully in other applications beyond the AEC industry?

He agreed that it could but, at that stage of its existence, 3D Repo was focusing entirely on providing a flexible and comprehensive tool for architects and construction companies to visualise and navigate through any depiction of the 3D building models they had created, and interrogate its properties.

I posed the question again when Jozef and I spoke about the recent decision of Epic Games, developers of the hugely popular game Fortnite, to award 3D Repo a MegaGrant, part of Epic's $100 million commitment to support creative software development. The grant will be used to further 3D Repo's development of its infinitely scaleable 3D rendering and data delivery platform.

Jozef's answer highlighted the true scale of the possibilities now available to 3D Repo. He pointed out that we have now evolved from BIM, and the latest industry trends are towards the creation of digital twins, which revolve around the ability to provide a digital entity that completely mirrors the lifecycle of a building, from its conception, through its construction and during its occupancy and subsequent dismantling. 3D Repo's focus on AEC, he said, is because it is the most complex structure that could be encompassed by a digital twin. The ultimate goal is to build a 'metaverse', a seamless blend between the physical and virtual world for the benefit of society as a whole.

Throughout all stages of a building's lifecycle assets are subject to updates, revisions, engineering changes, accessibility issues, component and labour costs, up to and during construction - and running and maintenance costs when delivered to the clients. Compare that to another complex digital twin, the digital human. Whilst both types of digital twin can be used to extract real-time data for analytical purposes, the human body doesn't undergo many physical changes throughout its life. We might get sick or age, but many buildings will undergo substantial structural modification over time, which will necessitate complete reevaluations of their environmental attributes. A fanciful comparison, but it illustrates the benefits that the creation of a digital twin provides.

WHY EPIC GAMES?
Games created with the Unreal Engine such as Fortnite have their assets 'baked in' by the developers, whereas 3D Repo users are able to utilise their persistent storage layer in the cloud, which allows for the latest revision to be retrieved on the fly. To put it more precisely, within a game like Fortnite the individual elements - the environment, characters, cutscenes and so on - are all preconfigured. Despite the flexibility that a player has within a game, the ability to update its environments to incorporate additional assets is usually unavailable.

Using Epic Games' Unreal Engine, 3D Repo can provide pre-optimised assets via its Open APIs, which are then available to be viewed dynamically using the software's standard viewing capabilities, continuing the Epic Games analogy that makes each updated version of the 3D model and its data an entirely new version of the game.

AN INFINITELY SCALEABLE 3D MODEL
3D Repo enables AEC professionals to visualise very large and complex models in real-time. 3D models from most applications - IFC, Autodesk Revit, Bentley Microstation, Synchro, and many more - are supported in a variety of formats including plug-ins and integrations. These are held, for all intents and purposes, in an infinitely scaleable cloud, which is updated with each revision that is available, with all of its relevant data every time the client accesses the model.

3D Repo allows users to take the information within a BIM model and turn it into a digital twin, creating federated models using 3drepo.io. As such it integrates with CDEs, such as Asite, ProjectWise and OpenText, and can use custom analytics tools like PowerBi, Power Automate, Excel and Dynamo as well as regular expressions built directly into 3D Repo.

Users are then able to filter searches and drill down into the smallest details, assisted by a wide selection of model display tools and customised dashboards, providing links to associated information and facilitating better informed management decisions. It is not restricted to single projects either, as 3D Repo can be used to compare the performance of a number of projects within a client's portfolio against each other, or the models can be used to look at the performance levels of individual contractors or suppliers. A case in point is the use of 3D Repo at Mace, where it is being used, amongst other things, to track and visualise a number of performance characteristics across different sites.

Autodesk Navisworks, Revit and Civil 3D are just some of the formats supported by the plugins, each of which allows for the seamless exchange of model and markup data between the authoring tools and the cloud. SafetiBase, 3D Repo's own Health and Safety tool, links 3D model elements and equipment to areas of concern on a building site, identifying problems while also mitigating risk using ready-made curated mitigation strategies developed in collaboration with HSE via their Discovering Safety programme.

I asked Jozef whether there were any limitations to its use, and how they were able to teach their clients how to use such a potentially wide-ranging and complex package. He explained that they provide a training facility for their users which not only allows them to use 3D Repo alongside their chosen application, but enables them to incorporate additional step-by-step training material which may be specific to their requirements. When a client has unique requirements - say a need to link environmental data to certain elements within the model - they can easily do so via the freely available and well documented 3D Repo APIs.

Think of the flexibility and scaleability of such a platform and the implications it has on the future of the metaverse as an underlying open-source technology for the rest of us to build upon. This could be the start of a new technological era with its socioeconomic benefits reaching every corner of the planet, much as the Internet did in just a couple of decades.

3D SEND
As well as their Epic Games MegaGrant news 3D Repo also recently announced the release of another utility, 3D Send, which allows users to quickly and easily share their 3D models quickly and easily. This is a free application which enables selected model files to be sent between collaborators, who can navigate through the model using standard, pan, zoom and rotate commands. It’s free to use, but doesn’t provide access to the bulk of the cloud-based information available with 3D Repo, which charges purely for cloud storage costs with all the engineering functionality bundled in, effectively, for free.

3D Repo has already been trialled and supported by industry leading companies such as Arup, Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Buro Happold, HOK, Mace, and Mott MacDonald. I believe it will quickly extend beyond the construction industry, and you will see its ability to integrate data and visuals utilised in many large-scale multi-screen control rooms or environments: grid control in power stations, commodity and financial trading rooms, sports events to monitor and manage multi-camera views, and more. It may even be fed back into Epic Games and help them step up to another level when building their version of the metaverse.

www.3drepo.com