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New projects embrace Avatar-style 3D technology
By Roger Yohem, Inside Tucson Business
Published Friday, Feb. 5, 2010
Hollywood has arrived in Tucson, spinning off bits of Avatar-style, virtual reality technology to the world of construction. The same sort of special effects that produced the billion-dollar blockbuster movie is being used by architects and engineers to design airports, malls, and other commercial buildings.
Sounding like the names of characters from the movie, "3D" and "BIM" have major roles in the $4.3 million, grand entry addition now being constructed at the Tucson Convention Center. At the site, 3D laser scans have documented the "actual production" for comparison to the written script, known as "as-built drawings."
In simple terms, 3D laser scanning is a precision measurement process. At the convention center, Tucson-based Darling Environmental & Surveying is providing the service.
BIM stands for Building Information Modeling, a technology so advanced it makes Computer-Aided Design (CAD) seem pre-historic. BIM enables engineers to manage a building’s data for its entire life cycle. It captures real-time, spatial data that includes digitally embedded details of the building’s structural and mechanical properties.
The convention center’s BIM is being done by DLR Group, a national design firm based in Omaha, Neb.
"All of a building’s parts in BIM are smart objects, the specs are embedded in the construction documents. When you click on an exterior wall, you see what type of glass or insulation quality is there," said Ken Martin, the DLR principal leading the firm’s work at the Tucson Convention Center.
"BIM puts all the systems together in 3D detail: the structural, mechanical, electrical, the plumbing. We have all the information in one place to transfer to contractors and other people working on the project," Martin explained. "In the old days, contractors had drawings, notes and separate spec sheets, having to refer back and forth to different pieces of paper."
Darling Environment’s scans are part of the BIM process. From billions of laser impulses, 3D scans look like a digital picture composed of a million points of data. Scanning is so detailed, it can zoom in on a single bolt and measure its exact size.
As crews were excavating the south entry, the company scanned the wall.
"To document as-built conditions in 3D, we are the first step. When it was exposed, they needed extremely precise data on the existing wall. Our scans monitored the wall for movement," said President Richard Darling.
The scans are critical to renovations because "no one really knows exactly where things are," he said. "The precise locations of supports and beams shown on as-built drawings will vary slightly, that’s just the nature of building."
The benefit to clients like the City of Tucson is saved time and money to help engineers resolve any structural issues that come up during construction.
"For buildings, 3D laser scanning takes real life and puts it into virtual reality. Scanning a blueprint document is 2D, we digitize the real world," he said.
Contact reporter Roger Yohem at ryohem@azbiz.com or 520-295-4254 |
