Design for life

The role of geospatial integration and 3D modeling in infrastructure.

Do infrastructure projects receive the interest from the general public that they actually deserve? Most people working outside of the infrastructure sector find much greater appeal in reading news about entertainment, the latest movie release say, than about infrastructure – such as project funding or the impact that advancements in geospatial and civil technologies are having today.

How many people went to the theatre to see a Hollywood movie last weekend? A very large audience, no doubt. On the other hand, how many people took a shower? This may be a silly question and may not quite pack the punch, dazzle and excitement of the movies, but after a few days without showers, people might reconsider where their priorities lie. People tend to take infrastructure for granted until the electricity at work goes or the highways fail to adequately serve our needs and become congested with traffic.

The core of infrastructure is the distribution of power to our cities, the safe roads and airports that return people to their families each day, and the clean and safe water that arrives at our homes and is available at the turn of a handle. When these things disappear, people begin to appreciate just how important infrastructure really is.

Our economy, health and safety in our surroundings depend on the reliable construction, maintenance and delivery of infrastructure. Furthermore, the industries that support this infrastructure are changing; with ever-improving living standards, infrastructure continues to be built, rehabilitated and managed worldwide.

In the developed world, infrastructure such as bridges, roads, transmission lines and pipelines are aging and must be repaired or replaced. Meanwhile, developing nations are working hard to improve and create their own infrastructure.

Leading software and services company Autodesk is extremely well positioned to grow with these changes and to enable the rehabilitation of existing or design of new infrastructure. It understands that in order to complete today’s complex road, site and pipeline design projects more efficiently than ever, organisations must increase their project capacity with enhanced civil engineering tools. 3D modeling is clearly the forward-looking approach to civil engineering design.

In addition, European firms are engaging in projects worldwide, managing highways in North America or building power utility networks in Asia.

These firms will be consolidating their operations to support this growth, merge with other firms, and expand their disciplines and technologies. For example, instead of specialising in construction alone, they will operate and manage the infrastructure they build – tasks that will require the convergence of geospatial technology.

Geospatial integration of CAD and GIS

Infrastructure organisations are now looking to technology to solve their challenges. Needing more than task automation, these organisations succeed when technologies converge, and nowhere is convergence more acute than in infrastructure.

Traditional engineering (CAD) and management technologies (GIS) have historically been used to design and manage the same spatial infrastructure and perform many similar functions. CAD tools were better at manipulating features, editing data, and maintaining engineering precision throughout a project. GIS technology was best used for managing large spatial databases, performing analyses, and creating cartographic presentations.

Autodesk has been integrating CAD and GIS since the mid-1990s, with over a decade of experience in perfecting this convergence. The company’s customers still want the best tool for the job, and they want these tools to work together. In addition, engineering and GIS professionals need tools that bridge the divide between CAD and GIS without necessarily asking either the CAD or GIS professional to give up the tools they have been using for years.

There are several benefits for organizations where CAD and GIS departments work together:

Leveraging existing resources
GIS teams can leverage the abundance of CAD experts to help maintain data and provide a detailed understanding of specific workflows and data relationships. CAD teams can leverage centralised GIS databases to efficiently store and share valuable infrastructure information. There is no need for either the GIS or CAD teams to prescribe the tools that the other should use. The technology is available to allow each team to utilize the toolsets and environment they are familiar with.

Best data available for the entire organisation
There is great value in providing native data access to CAD and GIS data and spatial data stores. Native data access means no conversion, no data loss, no data copies and, best of all, no stale data. This can mean no more hunting around for the most current version of the data or making decisions based on information that might be out of date.

Streamlined workflows
By leveraging the power of both CAD and GIS, asset management, utility companies, engineering consulting firms, public works departments etc., are able to build more efficient workflows.

Autodesk Map 3D contains the power of both CAD and GIS in a single product. For instance, GIS Managers can use it to manage the GIS database. Autodesk Map 3D acts as a bridge between both these worlds.

3D dynamic modeling in infrastructure
To design new and to rehabilitate existing infrastructure, organisations also need to increase project capacity with enhanced civil engineering tools to be able to complete even the most complicated road, site and pipeline design projects more efficiently than ever.

Design changes are a fact in every infrastructure project. After all, have you ever heard of a project where nothing was revised or even slightly adjusted? Yet, few projects are programmed with this in mind, or have deadlines that take this into account. Consequently, many take longer than anticipated or require additional staff to meet the deadline and complete design. As a result, costs spiral out of control.

Designs are changed for many reasons and often these are due to external factors. For a large infrastructure project, such as a new motorway, dam or tunnel, they can cause huge expense – and even, in worse cases, adverse publicity. Whatever the source of, or reason for, the change, the civil engineering team still has to spend valuable design time going through the whole project, making recalculations and amending drawings appropriately.

On the civil engineering technology side, Autodesk’s new solution, which integrates a 3D dynamic engineering model, is opening up new opportunities. 3D dynamic models maintain intelligent object relationships, so a change made in one place instantly updates the entire project. This is a key benefit to manage infrastructure projects. Design changes no longer imply a delay in the completion of the project or an increase in costs to hire additional staff to be able to meet deadlines.

Additionally, engineers and designers can explore various ‘what-if’ scenarios and easily create different design alternatives. By creating multiple design iterations and communicating them in a visually compelling way to clients and approval boards, organisations can optimize the design of new infrastructure and increase customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, with Autodesk civil solutions, project team members can work from the same consistent, up-to-date model, so they stay synchronised throughout all project phases, including survey, design, drafting, reporting, analysis and visualisation.

Last, but not least, 3D design is an excellent tool to visualise the finished project for presentation to parties impacted by its construction. 3D design is not only excellent for presenting the project to clients and constituents, but also to provide an outstanding visual base to help engineers identify design flaws.

Autodesk Civil 3D is a solution that provides 3D dynamic modeling capabilities for the design of civil engineering projects, including roads, landscaping, railways, airports, dams, water engineering, waste disposal, mining and so on.

Last words

Infrastructure organizations need the technology to converge the geospatial professionals, the civil engineers and the surveyors with mobile field force, executives with facility managers and the finance department with the assets. Autodesk plays an important role in providing the technology needed by organizations to solve the challenges in the design, construction and day-to-day delivery of infrastructure services.

In profile
Autodesk, Inc., is a Fortune 1000 company, wholly focused on ensuring that great ideas are turned into reality. With seven million users, Autodesk is the world's leading software and services company for the infrastructure, building, manufacturing, media and entertainment, and wireless data services fields.

The company’s solutions help customers to create, manage and share their data and digital assets more effectively. As a result, customers are able to turn ideas into competitive advantage, become more productive, streamline project efficiency and maximise profits.

Founded in 1982, Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California. For additional information about the company, please visit www.autodesk.co.uk.