BIM to Digital Twins

  Comprehensive adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the recent advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications provide various new insights and decision-making capabilities throughout the life cycle of the built environment. The capacity of real-time connectivity to online sensors put in an area has led to the concept of the Digital Twin of the Built Environment emerging in recent years. The purpose of digital twins is to integrate the real world with a virtual environment for seamless monitoring and administration of the construction process, facility management, environmental monitoring, and other processes in the life cycle operations. Digital Twins is rapidly progressing and would play a major role in the coming days enabling asset-centric organizations to combine their engineering, operational, and information technologies into a portal or augmented/immersive experiences.  The confluence of 3D visualization, reality modeling, mixed reality (AR/VR), and geotechnical engineering has made this possible, allowing for a comprehensive and integrated representation of infrastructure assets underground, on the surface, and above the surface. As a result, better-informed decisions would be made to enhance network/service reliability, consumer and worker safety, regulatory compliance, and environmental impact mitigation. BIM to Digital Twins: The Evolution Building design and management tools have progressed for decades, starting with Computer-aided Design (CAD). The term “Building Information Model” was first developed in the early 1990s, and it was then renamed “Building Information Modeling (BIM)” and has gained a lot of popularity in recent decades. A BIM model is a 3D digital representation of a building that incorporates both geometric and semantic information about the elements. BIM enables smooth communication between AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) experts because of the sharable and consistent database, and is thus widely used in building life cycle management, including the design and operational stages. Also, BIM-based 4D simulations with detailed material and cost information can aid the construction process of building projects. Building management plans can also be optimized by the building manager with the use of 3D visualization and specifics of building elements offered by BIM to assist with the management of building equipment and the internal environment. However, without additional data sources, BIM can only give static data about the built environment and cannot automatically update real-time information in the models. The integration of real-time sensing data and static information supplied by BIM models became possible with the introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT), which is defined as the interconnection of sensing devices that are able to allow information interchange across different platforms. Evolve to Building Back Better