By Randall S. Newton
Editor-in-Chief
Next week at COFES 2006 I'm going to badger as many AEC-related attendees as I can about one specific theme. “Google Earth has changed AEC technology,” I'll tell as many of them as I can corner in 2½ days. “What are you doing with location-based simulation for AEC?”
I define location-based simulation for AEC as the use of 3D geospatial visualization to study AEC models. It is a subset of Virtual Design and Construction, the catch-all description that I hope overtakes BIM (building information modeling) as an industry acronym. I wish I could take credit for inventing the term, but location-based simulation has been around for years in other contexts, including the military; war games are a form of location-based simulation.
There are already a variety of AEC visualization and simulation products on the market, including streaming viewers (popular in plant design), construction simulation sequencing, and animations created by using a fly-through view of a model. Sometimes users will add a bit of background to their models, to fake a geospatial context. With the launch of Google Earth in July 2005, the industry now has a de facto, open standard for project visualization in a geospatial context. Google really didn't need to give the industry an encore, but it did anyway, as we reported in March when Google acquired 3D CAD modeler SketchUp.
To complete the toolset for location-based simulation using Google Earth and AEC 3D CAD, we need the 4th D, time. A few products and services already do project sequencing, where a construction sequencing model is set in motion using time-based animation. But we need the ability to set these animations in their intended geospatial context to arrive at true location-based simulation.
In Search of the Clued-In
Two scheduled COFES attendees will get my special attention in this regard. The first is Mark Sawyer, who was CEO of atLast Software, the makers of SketchUp, until Google acquired the firm. (I need to remember to ask Sawyer what his new googlized title is, since “CEO” is already taken.) Google pretty much gags its employees when it comes to discussing the specifics of future products, but I'm sure he'll be able to speak to the bigger vision of using Google Earth and SketchUp for location-based simulation.
The second COFES attendee whom I really want to talk to about location-based simulation will be Carl Bass, incoming CEO of Autodesk. Bass has few inhibitions regarding the discussion of future products, and has more than once told me about R&D work at Autodesk that no one else there would discuss. (I can hear his PR people cringing in their cubicles.) There's more than one third-party solutions for getting AutoCAD models into Google Earth, but not a solution directly from Autodesk.
Last week I had a brief conversation with Gary Lang, the VP of Engineering for Autodesk's Infrastructure Solutions Division. The specific topic was whether or not Autodesk had a Google Earth strategy. He told me that the programmers in his division had created a tool for exporting models to Google Earth, but he wasn't sure if they would ever release it. “It is trivial for us to geo-reference [a model] and create a KML file [KML is the Google Earth import format for 3D models --Ed.]. It took us three days to create a robust implementation,” Lang told me. But he insisted that the ability to export models from Autodesk ISD products such as Autodesk Civil 3D is merely “interesting and amusing,” adding that he “doesn't see the business value” for Autodesk in making releasing such a tool to its users.
Setting aside the condescending "interesting and amusing" comment for now, I can see three reasons why Lang—speaking as an Autodesk representative—does not see the business value of releasing a Google Earth exporter. The first is because the Autodesk philosophy is to build the core tools and allow its army of third-party developers fill in around the edges. (Compare this with Bentley, which prefers to leave nothing to chance or to third-party developers. Bentley recently announced its own Google Earth export tool.) The second reason is that another division may be working on a more complete tool, and Lang did not feel at liberty to discuss it. (Thus my need to talk to Bass.) Last year Autodesk hired construction simulation expert Kathleen Liston, and it could be that her team is now adding Google Earth compatibility to whatever they are working on. But it could also be—cue the cheesy “fear and dread” organ music—Lang is reflecting a bit of corporate myopia regarding what its users want to do with the models they create.
Building a 3D Glider to Cruise Google Earth
Mediality is a software start-up in The Netherlands that intends to be front and center on location-based simulation. It is discussing a forthcoming product called M3D Glider, which it says will integrate many web functionalities into Google Earth, including the addition of real-time awareness to the viewing of 3D models of buildings and towns. Mediality is using the term “location-based simulation” to describe what their product will offer. (I first discovered Mediality thanks to Ogle Earth, the excellent Google Earth blog by Stefan Geens.)
I had an email exchange this week with Mediality co-founder Jerome Bertrand. “M3D Glider is a viewer that will integrate Web 2.0 functionalities and 3D for AEC and other location-based information markets,” he told me. “Think of it as 'simulation for everyone.' This includes specific interfaces for special markets.” In use, Bertrand says, M3D Glider will provide geographic real-time simulation using 3D overlays. “These overlays contain 'intelligent' 3D data that can be swapped per location and be updated over time,” he adds. “The user chooses exactly how, where, why and when to view the enriched, streaming content.”
Bertrand credits SketchUp as providing the "Ah Ha!" moment that changed his professional goals. “I have been a SketchUp fanatic from the start. As a matter of fact the guys in Boulder not only helped me design in 3D on a Mac as never possible before but also fused me to re-think about my career as a designer. I decided to switch my job as senior visual design at a IT user interface design consultancy to researching real-time web 3D and the serious game markets. This lead me to create my own firm, Mediality, around the theme of location-based simulation.”
Bertrand thinks the time is right for location-based simulation. “We realized there is a potential powerful bottleneck situation here: the amount of data and business logic models, the need to understand the data, the need to display the data. Simulation-on-demand is what we are trying to accomplish with AJAX and a number of API-related technologies. We are committed to deliver the best possible IT solution to address these typical new bottlenecks for the large Google Earth audience, starters as well as accomplished professionals and businesses. Dedicated 3D databases are [available] but often come at enormous high costs. Do they show the stuff right? Is it easy to use? Is it flexible?”
The Sensor Web: Mining Earth Data in Real Time
There's one more emerging technology to discuss when considering location-based simulation for AEC, the sensor web. As explained by geomatics researcher Vincent Tao in an article for GeoPlace.com:
“[When enabled] the sensor web will offer full-dimensional, full-scale and full-phase sensing and monitoring of Earth at all levels: global, regional and local. The sensor web is a revolutionary concept toward achieving collaborative, coherent, consistent, and consolidated sensor data collection, fusion, and distribution.”
When such a sensor web is in place, you could use real-time data to help analyze design and construction issues. Is the site subject to heavy runoff during storms or spring thaw? Use sensor web data to run an analysis. You won't have to rely on a high-priced consultant to get traffic flow data for a location, just tap into sensor web data.
If you think the sensor web is the stuff of science fiction, others in the know beg to differ. Last week the Open Geospatial Consortium put out a request for public comment on specifications and standards related to the use of the emerging Sensor Web. In a press release, the OCG said, “the OGC membership anticipates that these specifications will be adopted as OpenGIS Specifications and that they will become widely used as open, international standards for Web-based registration, discovery, use and control of sensors, sensor systems, and sensor data stores.”
Google Earth is a 3D Browser
First and foremost Google Earth is a 3D browser, and I think we are only in nursery school in terms of how it will be used. As fast as we find ways to configure data for use in a geospatial, 3D environment, we will be able to view it in Google Earth (as upgraded, of course). There is enormous potential here not only for AEC, but for society in general. Imagine being able to use Google Earth to track rural-urban population migration over time. Such migrations define construction timing and quantity in cities worldwide. Want to know what global warming is doing to the polar regions? Someday you'll be able to model the changes in Google Earth, perhaps using a slider tool to view the changes year by year. As for me, I think I'll start using Google Earth to identify Arctic Ocean waterfront property, then use SketchUp to model my dream beachfront home. I wonder what five acres on a good harbor in arctic Canada will be worth in 20 years?
Recent AECnews articles on Google/SketchUp/Google Earth:
Google Releases Free SketchUp and 3D Warehouse
Shrewd Move: Google Acquires SketchUp
The @Last/Google Earthquake: New SketchUp Tool Places Models in Google Earth
@Last Software and the Great Google Rumor
Google Earth: The People’s GIS
Technorati Tags: Google Earth SketchUp Google location-based simulation 3D AEC CAD GIS architecture design architectural design