AECCafe Voice 
Susan Smith
Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ … More » Visions, Future-Proofing and Moving OnMarch 24th, 2022 by Susan Smith
It is an interesting time to be working in the AEC industry, and I feel grateful for having experienced the past 25+ years immersed in it from an editorial perspective.
In this time we have seen the growth from paper to CAD to BIM to digital twins, to the culmination of technologies from disparate visions, all coming together in one larger vision. It is the incorporation of Artificial intelligence, simulation and digital twins into a larger whole, always with the goal of greater collaboration and more accurate data as time passes on. I think the pace of development may have accelerated during the pandemic, but the tools were already in place, the visions ready to be put into action before it occurred.  The World Trade Center Transportation Hub by Santiago Calatrava opened in 2016. Photo by Hufton + Crow This past week demonstrated a particular example to me. I received invitations from several foremost AEC vendors to an event that was not their own, but at which they were presenting. The event was the NVIDIA GTC conference. NVIDIA traditionally has been known for its blisteringly fast graphics cards. It is now touting an AI-powered world, with new technologies that have the capability of merging many pieces of the AEC into one more collaborative, more powerful tool. Collaborations and partnerships in the industry sustain it and strengthen visions and ideas moving forward. I was invited to a fireside chat to discuss changes in the AEC industry today by Graphisoft. The talk was about the impact of the latest innovations on the new normal of hybrid work, digital twins, augmented reality, immersive visualization and simulation (including machine learning and AI), and building information modeling. I was invited to find out how solution experts will share how Bentley empowers their users by combining the robust capabilities of digital twin applications with NVIDIA’s technology, including Omniverse, a development platform for 3D simulation and design collaboration. The AEC industry has looked to the tools used by professionals building virtual worlds for some time now. These tools promise to transform the workflows of the 45 million professionals who create virtual worlds, creating games, movies and more. The building of 3D virtual worlds has long been the province of NVIDIA but now their NVIDIA Omniverse platform shows great promise beyond the entertainment industry. NVIDIA Omniverse, the platform for artists to collaborate and accelerate 3D work, remains free and is now generally available for GeForce and NVIDIA RTX Studio creators. According to company materials, Omniverse uses Pixar’s open-standard Universal Scene Description (USD) to connect tools from more than 40 software development partners into a single 3D design platform. That lets creators across the globe collaborate in Omniverse on shared 3D workflows. This was billed as the future of 3D content creation and how virtual worlds will be built.
The biggest breakthrough here is being able to predict and simulate climate change with what NVIDIA is calling Earth Two, the digital twin of the earth. The portal of Omniverse is USD, Universal Scene Description – essentially a digital wormhole that connects people and computers to Omniverse, and for one Omniverse world to connect to another. USD is to Omniverse what HTML is to websites. Omniverse is futuristic. Omniverse can connect design worlds – things created in the Adobe world can be connected to those in the Autodesk, Bentley, Graphisoft and many other worlds through Omniverse – enabling designers to collaborate in a shared space. Companies can build virtual factories and operate them with virtual robots in Omniverse. The virtual factories and robots are the digital twins of their physical replica. The physical version is the replica of the digital since they are produced from the digital original. Omniverse VR will be billed as the world’s first full-frame interactive ray-traced VR. Omniverse digital twins are where we will design, train, and continuously monitor robotic buildings, factories, warehouses, and cars of the future generation for AI, or distributed computing. Omniverse AR streams graphics to phones or AR glasses. The week’s GTC conference highlighted companies who are embracing this technology for their workflows. In response to the number of natural disasters, the pandemic, human-caused disasters, the phrase “future-proofing” has gained currency. We will hear more about that. It is no wonder there is such a buzz about it all. How long it takes for the actual in-the-trenches work to catch up to the visionaries has always been a question in the minds of those who track this stuff, but in the time I’ve been watching many developments have occurred. We now have complete digital cities, and some partial ones. Greater security, and more accurate data.
Tags: 3D, AEC, architects, architecture, artificial intelligence, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, BIM, building information modeling, engineering, Graphisoft, visualization Categories: 3D, AEC, AECCafe, architecture, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, BIM, building information modeling, Cloud, collaboration, construction, reality capture, simulation, virtual reality, wearable devices |
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Omniverse is very different than a game engine – it is designed to be data center scale. This means that it is not just capable of creating 3D virtual worlds for gaming, but also for designing the real world of AEC.
It is at this point in history that I take my leave of AECCafe, and move onto other things that involve real-world applications rather than virtual ones. I am grateful that I have watched and reported on the ever-changing landscape of AEC, enjoyed the colleagues I have met over the years, sharing stories and experiences on our various travels. I leave knowing that those who continue will do a wonderful job honing the solution of the future – and “future-proofing” where necessary.
