DIGITAL ASSET CAPTURE WORKSTREAM MEETING 29-01-2025
BARRY BASSNETT So if I call it brownfield that’s what I mean, it’s interchangeable. What is actually there, that’s historic property, assets and it can vary, everything from a building construction, a fabrication, down to the MEP to all sorts of things. I’m currently doing a paper mill, all of the assets in a paper mill. And that’s a mixture of the structure or the office stuff, but then the manufacturing plant as well. But how do we gather all of this data, how can we bring it all together? Well, there’s five different techniques which we can use. There’s Lidar which is basically laser scanning and now many of you will know what I’m talking about, but I’m going to assume that you don’t.
I’m going to going to work from the beginning because you may well have to share this information with you client, who probably have not one clue what we’re talking about, so we’ll go back to basics. Lidar is laser scanning. Photogrammetry is the use of images to produce 3D models, that’s my particular field, I am a photogrammetrist really. There’s 360 imagery. There’s another technic we call geotagging photos. And then we’ve got the good old manual systems are paper, clipboard and pen. But now these are interchangeable with digital manual, if that makes sense, because we can actually use tablets as our clipboards and your note takers and our dictaphones and things like this.
But then there is a manual intervention way of creating this data too. And all of these data methods are going to be put into what I call visual user interface. I came up with the term visual asset management 25 years ago and people have stolen it and using it and saying we do visual asset management and I go, well yeah, I named that 25 years ago. Lidar, there are basically two types of Lidar gathering device. It’s a device that spins around and measures distance to a particular point and produces what we call a point cloud, a cloud of points. And there are two types, there’s static scanners which are put on a tripod and you scan and then you move it.
And now we have this new generation of what we call mobile scanners and mobile scanners allow you to put it on a backpack or a car, a bicycle, put it on anything you like and then run it through and then produce a 3D model or a point cloud of wherever you want to produce. This is a fabulous technique, it’s great for doing all sorts of really interesting things, but let’s talk about the pros and cons of these and then we can come back to them later on. The pros of Lidar, basically it gives you a really accurate measurement, so if I want geometry Lidar is a really quick way of doing that. It will get me down a level of accuracy, even over a kilometre down to a few millimetres.
So, if I want lots of points and I want a geometric model, Lidar is great for doing that. It can also do things like penetrate through vegetation, so you can have Lidar mounted on a drone or an aircraft and you can use it for scanning though and getting to the bottom of the wood and get the ground level and stuff. It also works in low light conditions, so I can stick it into a roof space or down an inspection void or a balancing tank or inside a tank. It’s really good for fast data collection, so I can either put it on a tripod or I can walk along the road, stick it on my car, scan hundreds of kilometres of motorway and get a fabulous point cloud.
But there are cons with it as well. It’s quite expensive, typically a laser scanner device or wearable laser scanning device is going to be £60,000 +. If you put one from a mobile device, fi you want to put one on your car and scan and do the asset management of that whole city, you’re looking at £250.000. But the cost is almost insignificant when you realise the amount of data and the time that it saves. So, you look at the cost and you might cough and when you’re writing that requisition your hand might be trembling a bit, but the benefits of data acquisition and speed can overcome those and it can save3 you an enormous amount of time. It’s also limited because it’s not very good at getting colours and colours is really important because colours allows us to see change. And most of what we’re doing in asset management is looking at changes in condition.
It’s no point just having a snapshot, I’ve got to have a data capture system which I can revisit and look at changes in that history of that material. What’s corroding, is the paint peeling off, does the furniture and the carpet need replacing? And colour information is really important, so it’s not very good at colour and certainly not very good in bright lights and dark areas. You have this thing called occlusions which are a posh name for it misses stuff behind other stuff, so there is always a shadow zone. So, you’re not going to get 100% surface coverage, but it’s still going to cover a lot of things for you. And also, there are certain things that it doesn’t really work with.
It’s not very good if you’ve got lots of glass or mirrors in a place, but hardly any of the techniques are anyway. So, that’s Lidar, they can cover anything, you can use Lidar systems for all sorts of different things. You can use Lidar systems in your car park system and you’re going to see more about Lidar in self-driving cars, but we’re using Lidar to measure the geometry of an object, a building, a road, a street, whatever it might be. Amazing technology, costs a lot but will save you an awful lot of time. But, there is a down side in that a lot of people find it really difficult to use point clouds. And point cloud, I did a presentation to a lot of manufacturers of point cloud equipment called What’s The Point Of A Point Cloud?
The point is of a point cloud, it’s only a means to an end, and you’ve got to convert it into something else in order to use it. We’ll come back to this, it’s a big subject and I just want to give you an introduction to the different techniques. Let’s move on to photogrammetry. That’s my subject, I’ve been a photogrammetrist for 40-odd years, since the Jurassic period. There are basically four different types of photogrammetry. There’s drone=based stuff for doing to roofs and material and the outside envelope and things like that. Amazing things have been done with drones and using photogrammetry to produce 3D models you can use for inspection, to see if roof tiles are missing, all sorts of inspection like in telecom towers, thousands of applications.
Then we have what’s called close range photogrammetry. And close range could be using mobile phone or a camera of any type. Normally it’s handheld and it’s for close range stuff, bits that are found in the ground or bits that drones can’t get to. Then we have 360 imagery which is normally thought of as just like looking at Google street view on cocaine, but you can actually produce 3D models from 360 imagery if you know what you’re doing. And the other thing that we’ve got now is 360, it can come in two forms, it can come as a static image or as video. You may have seen lot of these prosumer devices where you want to strap a 360 camera on your head while you’re skateboarding or you’re surfing or mountain biking.
But the point of it is you can use it for asset management and you can use video to produce 3D models as well. Then there is more in sophisticated applications of photogrammetry, if you like doing stuff under water, if you’ve got under water assets (the oil and gas business do). And then there is multispectral which is combing the large EB? 8 mins 29secs or the visible light spectrum with IR or UV where you can overlay and combine these 2D models with thermal imaging. Another big subject we can talk about that in another session and I’m always happy to chat about any of these over a cup of coffee. So, what are the pros and cons of photogrammetry? Photogrammetry really can use anything, I can use my mobile phone or you can use your staff\s mobile phone, it’s really easy to train people to do it. I don’t need special skills, I can teach anybody to do photogrammetry in an hour with their mobile phone.
So, it’s easily accessible and easily deployable and you can get more expensive cameras to do things and do things more quickly and automate the process, but essentially even those you can train people to do. For me, the most important thing is that it captures the colour information because colour information is really important. Lidar will capture the geometry and you will hear it called reality capture or capturing reality. Lidar is about capturing geometry, you’ve got to add the photographs to it in order to get the colours. And colours are really, really important if you want to compare change over a period of time. And it’s quite versatile because you can use it for all sorts of things, I’ve taught it for crime scene documentation, I’ve taught it for inspection of bridges.
I’ve shown people how you can use it for marine and ships in oil and gas, in manufacturing, housing associations. In fact, there was one…we actually used this for figuring out how much grass a housing association had to mow because it turned out they were mowing about a million pounds more grass a year than they needed to because they didn’t realise they didn’t own it. So, there’s lots of different applications and the beauty of it is it’s easily deployable. I can teach anybody in a few minutes how to actually take photographs which can be used. The down side of it is occasionally. it all depends on good lighting. It’s not going to work very well in a place where you’ve got no lighting, without having taken lights with you.
But actually, the weird thing is that it can be too bright as well. So, if you are walking down the corridor and the bright sun is coming in through the window, you get overexposure and lost detail. Now, there are ways of fixing this, but I have to fes up, photogrammetry is, and the clue is in photo. Photo means light, so if you haven’t got good enough light then cameras and stuff can struggle a little bit. But for 95% pf the jobs that you need to document they’re going to be perfectly fine. They can struggle, if IU want to convert it into a 3D model, with smooth or repetitive surfaces, with railings, bannisters and white walls in hospitals. If I wanted to produce a 3D model of a hospital and all the walls are featureless, photogrammetry is not the best solution, I would use Lidar for that.
And the process, in theory, can be a bit time consuming. That’s true, unless you find someone who knows what they’re doing, so you may well have to find and equip and train someone up to do that particular role for you. You don’t want the people in the field doing the process and it’s too much trouble, they’ll just spend all of their rime messing around, but you could have a dedicated person just collating and managing that information. And also the accuracy can vary, it depends on survey control, lots of things, I could talk forever about photogrammetry accuracy. Just suffice to say that in many cases you don’t need to be as accurate as you think you are, especially in assets.
No one is going to come in and say that’s 50 mil out, all they want to know is where is that fire alarm, where is that fire damper, what type of fire door is it. If you can’t get accuracy to 50 mil, or even a 100 mil, does that matter? In many cases just going to what three words? 12mins 35 secs might be all the accuracy you need to locate a lamppost or an asset. But the accuracy can be a bit iffy unless you know what you’re doing. Let’s move on to 360. 360 imagery is something I’ve moved into and, I have to fess up, for asset information it’s the single easiest one to deploy, for lots of different reasons. And there’s two types of 360 cameras out there. The first takes what we call static images, so I walk up with a post or I stand still with a camera on my head or whatever it might be and it takes a 360 bubble of whatever is around me, it’s really straightforward.
There are more advanced systems, these systems can cost from a couple of hundred dollars, but there are more advanced systems like the Mosaic 51 which is a vehicle-mounted 360 camera and they cost £30,000 +, but what they’re doing is basically you’ve seen it everyday when you use Google Street View. And a lot of people talk about, you’ve seen what we’re talking about is Google Street View. The problem with Google Street View is that it can be 4 years old. If you want your own Google Street View of your own assets then this is a really quick way of doing it. And also you only get Google Street View of where vehicles and cars go, you don’t get it of university campuses or pathways or inside a building.
But you can, using Google Street View produce a Google Street View of your school or your restaurant or lots of different things. And there’s two ways that you can gather the data, either as a single accurate images, or you can use what we call 360 video. Now, video is a really quick way of gathering data, there is the compromise on the accuracy if you’re doing geometry, but sometimes video and you’ll find that more and more people are using video. And the simple thing is you can get a bracket for a lens adaptor for your phone, or you can get dedicated 360 cameras. And I think the reason that George is so keen on this is because it’s such a simple way to deliver information that is good enough for the vast majority of asset information.
Do I really need to worry about the geometry and whether it’s accurate to 10 mil or not? But 360 gives us a number of advantages. So, what are the pros? It provides us a comprehensive view of all of the environment and it’s easy to navigate through, you can just carry on walking, see around things. You get 100% coverage of your surface and you also get colour information too. So, depending on the camera you can get amazing resolutions. I’ve just done a big 360 tour of Westminster Cathedral where we can see detail in a roof that’s 30-40 metres away, down to a single mosaic tile. And that’s using just a straightforward digital camera on a bracket, but you can get really good information just from a standard prosumer 360 camera like a Ricoh Theta or Insta360, there’s lots of these about.
It provides a visual context as well. One of the things that we have an issue with is communicating information. I did a lot of research for a book I did a while back about we think in 3D. We don’t think in Excel spreadsheets or in 2D drawings and layouts. We think in 3D, so if you want to communicate ideas and things with people we want to be able to share this information with the janitor and the CEO. We want to share it with the guy who’s going to see what ladders do I need to do that or how much space have I got, and at the same time to procurement who can then share this information and say before you go onsite here is all of the information you need, you don’t have to come and do a site visit.
Because there’s lots of implications about using 360 as a visual asset management tool. So, it provides a visual context that people understand, there is a 2D literate and 3D literate type of person, some people can cope with it and some can’t. But if you put yourself into a 360 Google Street View allows you to see that restaurant or that house that you want to buy, or walk in to a place, you get a much better view of what you can do. It’s really simple to use, increasingly 360 cameras are coming down in price, as I say you can use your mobile phone to do 360 too, or you can get dedicated 360 cameras and they\re not very expensive. So, they’re easily deployable, easy to share, reasonable battery life and, more importantly, they’re easy for people to train. It’s no longer a specialist skill, if I’m using Lidar I’d probably need to have some specialists to help me out on registering these.
GEORGE STEVENSON One of the things that I’m hoping to achieve from this session here is to basically recruit people that are interested in knowing more, so that we can actually look at things from a point of view of how can we learn from each other. So, we’ve got a couple of 360 cameras that we’re willing to loan out to people and we’ve got a couple of housing associations that have already signed up for that. We’re not charging for them, but on the understanding that they will use them for a few days. But the key thing is that what we want them to do is record how they’re using them and also so that we can actually get people to start doing this themselves.
Because if we can do that then we stand a much stronger chance of getting much better quality information. It’s clearly important to, I think Phil from Metron is on the call, people that are professional surveyors, obviously if you’ve got an estate making sure that you’ve got good baseline information is critical. But the challenge is that it’s immediately out-of-date because the following day something is going to change. So, what we really want to do from this call is get, say, building safety managers and people that are working on the ground to have the confidence to actually go and capture this information themselves. And then afterwards we can then…
Sodexo hopefully are going to do a bit of a presentation later of how they’re using 360 photo with the tagging to be able to do that. So, I’m just flagging that up that what we really want to do is to get people to think about this being part of what they do.
BARRY BASSNETT I’m leading into that…what I’m trying to do is show you the different types of things, there’s different methods to do different things. But you’re right, 360 is a really simple way of (I hate this word) ‘democratising’ surveying. You are always going to need accurate surveys where you need to do accurate geometric stuff, but for things like visual asset stuff, 360 lends itself very well to a low-tech easy solution. You’re never going to get around the fact that you’re going to need precision surveying stuff from time to time.
The other one I’d like to talk about, with 360 there are some cons, of course. You can get stitching errors, you’ve got limited resolution if you’re trying to see things far away. It’s just go closer and take another photograph, don’t try and do things from miles away. And there is not very much information in terms of £D. I’m opening up a can of worms here because you can turn this into a 3D model if you want to, but there are quicker ways of doing it. The other one I wanted to talk about as a growing thing called geotagged photos. And that is taking your photograph, but then telling you where in the world you are taking it from. And now we\re getting to a resolution.
The beauty of geotagged photos is you can say I’m taking a photograph of this hole in the ground, or this pothole, or this lamppost, or this traffic sign, or this back alley, or this footpath and show the condition of it. Because it is geotagged you’ve got a latitude and a longitude to it, you can locate where that is in space. And this is becoming a really popular way of doing things. The pros of it is that it provides precise location data. If I’m taking a photograph I need to know three things about that photograph: where on the planet is it, what is it a photograph of and how can I find it. Geotagging provides us with something that I’m going to talk about on the final slide which is critical to everything that we do.
So, it provides automatic location recording. The downside of it is it’s using satellite navigation, so it doesn’t really work in doors. But watch this space because you’ve now got systems which will allow you to make it work in doors. I’ll give you an example, there’s now a big process for people who have visual impairment in railway stations and airports to be able to take a photograph of where they are and then locate themselves in the model. So, internal geolocation, although it’s not for this conversation, trust me later on this year we’ll be able to locate inside buildings as well. We already can do it with AR and VR. It integrates with geospatial tools if you’re into GIS you can just plug these in and drop them down.
And it’s also accessible with any GPS enabled device as well, that’s your total stations, your Lidar, all sorts of things. That is a very big subject, but it fits in really well with 360s because what I can do is I can take a 360 image, but I can also geotag where a close-up photograph of that inspection panel is. So, I can take a 360 and then open the inspection panel and take a photograph inside the inspection panel and then attach that to my 360 image. The last one I want to talk about is paper-based or manual because although that, we’re talking about automated ways, one of the key things is to be able to take one of the products like George’s or other products is that it allows you to take the 3D model, that visual knowledge map, into the field with you.
Because it’s web-based I can put it on a tablet and I can walk around. And then using forms I can use that to populate and add asset information in the field if I need to. So, you’ve got the choice of it. I call it manual…this is another level of data input that you can put when you’re in the field. The thing about it is these digital capture methods, you can mix and match them. So, if I want precision geometry because I’m redesigning the facades or reconfiguring or I’m looking at things like fire walls and compartmentalisation, I may want to use Lidar to give me an accurate as-built model. But then that’s just giving me a snapshot, what this is is a seed, it’s like a basic framework.
For asset information to work you’ve got to be able to take photographs over a period of time so you can revisit it and see what’s changed. Because asset information is about one thing, how long is this asset going to last before I’ve got to fix it or replace it. And the only way I can do that is by going back and revisiting it, so you have to have a quick simple way of doing that. And for me, 360 imagery is a great way of doing it, but (in this case, in this slide) you may well combine it. You may use the Lidar to provide the initial framework, or the BIM model if you have it. You may use photogrammetry to get that data, or add data for the roof space or something.
You may use 360. You could do geotagging for outside where you don’t have to worry about 360s. And then you’re going to add and adjust these and edit it using your manual techniques. But the key slide I wanted to talk about is this one because you’re trying to sell this concept to your asset owners. And for me, all of this data is really, really lovely, but the metaphor I use…the models that we produce are like an atlas that you put on the coffee table. They can look really pretty, but they’re completely useless unless you’ve got a compass and you’ve got the index at the back so that you can find what you’re looking for. So, the term I use is findability.
So, what you need to have is a simple system that allows us to collate information, data asset capture, but then also how do we find all of this information? If anybody has got any questions you can track me down on LinkedIn, BARRY BASSNETT-360 which gives you a clue as to what I’m passionate about. There are different horses for courses, if I want accurate geometry then I’m going to use people like Metron and other people. Or, if I want to do simple devices I can use something like this little baby that I’ve been playing with which is a combined Lidar and 360 camera, A handheld device. It’s brilliant, you just need biceps of iron to keep holding it up, or on a pole.
This sort of device now means we can get into all sorts of different, easy to deploy data capture systems. Which is not to say we don’t need our surveying friends, but we’re looking at a way we can actually make it accessible and make the data more collectible in a simpler way.
GEORGE STEVENSON Just to clarify that, Barry, Paul Sheedy, who is one of our community, Paul and I were together on a trade mission in Hong Kong and we came across this company that is manufacturing those units. So, Barry is at the moment going through testing it for us with an expert view, but we think thats’s going to be a useful component.
PAUL SHEEDY I think we’re both impressed, we’re approaching the science part with the CEOs, let me show you the new technology. I think it’s really advanced, it’s got a 360 camera and the Lidar, it looks a lot easier to use. And the reason I got Barry to take it and see exactly how good it is, we’re taking the distribution licence to the UK, so it’s something which I hope will make it way more accessible. Because it’s a little more affordable than what’s out there in the market so far and so far from what we’ve done we’re hugely impressed with it. And as I say, I took Barry on because there is no one better than Barry to really work out is it the full nine yards. So, I look forward to your feedback, Barry, and thank you and George for all of your help.
GEORGE STEVENSON The critical thing here is we’re a community. So, what we want to do is to get people’s experiences and feedback as to where they are with things. So, can I throw it out to the audience a little bit to see are you already doing 360? For example, on construction projects we’re also working with OpenSpace, they’re quite strong in the construction side of things, and a lot of construction companies are using their platform to record what’s being installed progressively during the life of the job and we can take those 360 photos and tag them.
BARRY The interesting thing is that this is becoming, there are many different platforms out there, so you’ve got lots of different things. I think it’s really interesting that two years ago these platforms really didn’t exist and suddenly you go to a conference now and it’s streaming with people who have suddenly clicked to the fact that 360 imagery is a really simple way of doing it. And there’s lots of things out, especially now you’ve got applications like Recon 3D and PolyCam which allows us to do 3D models of local assets as well. The interesting thing is going to be finding a common platform where all of this data can be loaded and viewed. But it comes back to, you can have all of the pretty models that you want, but unless you can find the data for you it’s just pretty useless. That’s what I’ve found.
GEORGE STEVENSON Hannah, if you just explain what you’re doing and give it some examples.
HANNAH KERIN (shares screen). Today we’re on site at Fortescue Zero, we’ve done one building for them and we’re then going to carry on and do a second building because they loved what we did. They had no asset information at all and it’s a site where Sodexo don’t do the hard FM because these guys make batteries and do a lot of engineering of their own. So, they don’t need us to do their hard FM, we do their soft, so this is kind of an enhancement to the contract that we’ve offered them. We then used Active Plan to improve their drawings and everything because a lot of these were inaccurate, so we worked with Active Plan with our back of the packet scribbles over their drawings to show where everything had changed.
And each of these spaces then ends up being a data container. And this is from the 360 images, this is their asset survey that we’ve done for them. This is our Sodexo taxonomy which we’ve then mapped to SFG-20 in the background which can give them their maintenance. And then Active Plan has essentially enabled us to load all of our data in these elements here. So, when you click on these you can see that that’s a grill…television light, I can show you some more pretty plant areas if that’s useful for you as well. They don’t have any sort of major plant at that site, but a good one is probably Irish schools.
What we were able to do for this school, they really didn’t have the money to send surveyors round, so actually our surveyors surveyed this school from the 360 images which is pretty cool. So they didn’t even have to have anyone go in there.
GEORGE STEVENSON Or travel to Ireland.
HANNAH KERIN Yeah, exactly, that too, we’ve got a lot of sites in Ireland, but most of us are in the UK so it’s just not fair on them that they have to pay every single time that they need a major survey. Here’s a good plant room for us. All of this is pinned from our surveyors looking at the images and then Facetiming the local team just to double check some elements there. So, it can be done with plant, obviously you’re going to miss out on that base plate and serial number and things because we can’t see that in the image, but if you’ve got good local resource then it can work really, really well.
GEORGE STEVENSON That’s really helpful. So, Sodexo over the last three years, they’ve done 10,000 spaces in this way. We’ve got a record of 100,000 assets that have been captured and one of the things that we’re doing in the background is we’re using this to train AI to be able to recognise that actuator. That’s not easy, but it’s progressing and what this also is doing, it’s providing Sodexo with the means to train up less experienced people in how to recognise a pressure vessel, for example. So, it’s very much a practical environment. I think, Hannah, you were saying in terms of the productivity of surveyors going to site, it’s massively more cost effective.
HANNAH KERIN Oh my goodness, yes, that and speed wise. Myself and Gary, we collected for Kerry Foods, we’d already done the 360s so that was a weekend of myself and Gary pinning because we had an absolutely horrendous deadline that was suddenly sprang upon us. But that, 2,000 or 1,000 assets a day per person, we usually average our surveying teams would be happy with 150 assets a day.
GEORGE STEVENSON So, it’s 7 or 8 times faster than doing it traditionally which is significant.
HANNAH KERIN I would never use the plant rooms for it, you always need surveyors to do the plant rooms, but the boring office areas, it’s just sort of light PIRs, emergency lights, where it’s a count more than anything, it’s incredible and it’s saved our neck many times.
GEORGE STEVENSON And I think the other thing is that by having it for the plant rooms, for example, and I agree with you that you still need to do a site visit for the plant room, but it means that you’re preparing far more for what you’re going to look at. So, I think there is big productivity gains there and you’ve got a record of what the person was looking at when they made the selection. Because I’ve spoken to other surveyors and they say well, if you’ve got a mechanical bias you may miss some of the things that are electrical, or vice versa.
HANNAH KERIN It’s a good auditing tool as well, it lets us pop back in and rationalise decisions. Especially, some people might call it a heat, frequently we see expansion vessels and calorifiers confused by surveyors, so it just lets us pop back in if people aren’t sure, Or even in different countries like the colour systems and things change as well that you’ve expect, so it’s worked so well in every way. As everyone says a picture says a thousand words, a thousand assets if you want to say that as well.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think Gary wanted to say something. Just to explain, what we’ve got here is a combination of technologies. We’ve got the 360 photos, but we’ve got an asset database. And what we’re actually doing, although those tags look as though they’re on the 360 photo they’re actually connected to the database for that space. So, that’s the USP that we’re actually providing, that’s what Active Plan is doing.
BARRT Hannah, are you using this as a tablet onsite? If you’ve got an internet connection to do field adjustments and field documentation.
HANNAH KERIN We don’t use it in tablet form. We always use it in desktop which just tends to present much better in that way. So, I wouldn’t take this around with me, but we would do the 360. So today we’re going to do the 360s around the site that I’m in and then I’m going to load them and then I’ll sit at the laptop. I can take my laptop around the spaces and look around them. I’ve never really used the tablet app version of it, but we don’t use it as a sort of live data capture tool, it’s always done retrospectively or remotely.
BARRY Yeah, absolutely, if that’s your workflow, I’m just interested in exploring that potential ion some of the jobs that I’ve got and just see if it is feasible to do. If it’s specific like doing fire system audits and things like that where you need fire engineers to identify things and populate subject matter expert, it’s just a simple way. Because it’s an Internet web-based thing you can put it on a tablet and take it out with you. I was just curious to know whether you did it.
HANNAH KERIN You definitely could, but usually, like today, quite often the sites that we’re at are far flung or when we’ve done a lot of banks and things the firewalls and things that they have on their wifi doesn’t actually let you get on which is a shame.
BARRY OK, fair enough, it doesn’t work in the nuclear industry either, for the same reason. It would be great for nuclear power stations, but it doesn’t work.
JOE STOTT This is probably a question for you, George, but could you just talk me through the process of updating the underlying photography and what does that process look like? So, we go back in 6 months’ time, we re-photograph the same room, does the asset information carry over? Or do you re-verify that room?
GEORGE STEVENSON The asset information isn’t connected to the photo per se, it’s actually in the database. So, therefore you can look at that and see whether the new photograph, if the photograph has been taken from the same position exactly then you can copy the tags over. To be frank, it may well be that you just want to reposition them.
JOE STOTT Yeah, you can do that as a kind of drag and drop, I’m assuming.
GEORGE STEVENSON Yeah, you can move them around.
HANNAH KERIN If you delete the photograph your asset list down the side here will remain at all times. So, even if I deleted this photograph right now, the only difference is that if I take out one of these things. If I remove that tag which it would if that photo goes, you can see now that there is a BMS communication and it says 0 out of 1 that it’s expecting in that room. So, if I was to delete this photo everything in this photo, all of those options would stay but your shopping list down the side would say you’ve found none of them, but they’re still aligned to that room. And you can then add them into any image that’s there, this list is eternal and stays at all times unless you go back into your component data and delete it. So, you’d have to go in at this level to the site or the space and delete in at that level/
GEORGE STEVENSON To a great extent, that’s what we’re looking for, Joe, to see how people are going to use it on the ground because Sodexo have been using it for several years now. I think it’s extremely well proven that they’re following a certain workflow that suits them and also we’ve even got the software companies who are interested in using this as part of their workflow. We’re not trying to do mobile inspections, that’s one of the things that we’re trying to, Will Borthen from Asseticom, they’re very good at doing mobile inspections and things. And we want to try and collaborate and work with them rather than try and spread that. If we can focus on the asset data and relating it back to…to be honest, the AI image recognition is going to be huge because it’s going to enable people to work far more productively.
JOE STOTT My take on that, I’m interested in this as an architect because we have a lot of projects that are either refurbishment, or remodelling, there’s lots of that kind of work for MoJ, university estates, all of these kind of clients who are all now on board with their own BIM journeys. So, projects typically over a certain value have a BIM requirement, but that type of work doesn’t really lend itself to the production, the generation of asset data through the model, through the geometry and through that process. So, I’m always kind of looking at this kind fo thing to say well, could this just free the design team up to crack on with the design and get the thing built. And the asset data is much more efficient to capture that post-completion because thats’ what’s actually built because we all know what’s designed is not always what’s built.
BARRY Just to follow on from that Joe, I did a presentation, I used to do a lot of laser scanning for architects, typically using point clouds and stuff, and I remember going to a very large architectural practice only a year or two ago. And i said what do you do with the point clouds? And they said we don’t, we just use the 360s because we want to see the material, we want to see the light, we want to see the context. So, it’s interesting, architects like the 360 at the beginning of the feasibility of the project, but also at the end so that they can see this is what we did. I just think it’s interesting that architects have a slightly different view of where you can use 350 imagery as well, it’s not just about handover and asset management, it can be right at the beginning of the project.
And in many cases, commissioning a 360 imagery at the beginning can be the seed for all of this, it produces a framework that architects needs and they understand and they can converse with the clients to look at the light, the fabric condition, the context, the landscape architecture around it. And then it’s like the beginning, once they’re into 360 the it goes right the way through and then it comes over to Active Plan and asset management and FM, 360 lends itself to everything, I’m a fan.
GEORGE STEVENSON One of the key things, I think what Joe is saying there is very interesting because what we’re often finding now, because people are recognising this as an important thing to be able to do. And for the reasons that Barry was saying earlier, you get a point cloud and it’s actually quite difficult to do much with it. And if you’re going to then tag it with asset data the traditional way of doing that, or what people think is the way, is to then go and create a 3D model or a Revit model from that. Now, that’s a lot of work and actually do you really need it? Because the 360 photography gives you the means to tag the information, you can create intelligent information just in the way that we’ve just been through.
PIERRE VENTER Both Joe and Barry, one of the biggest issues that I have is it’s like the digital twin as the digital twin only happens at the end. And part of this is from an architectural point of view is that you’re starting with a set of products going into a building. They’re not products at that point, they are the objects. And what we’re doing is we should be looking at performance specification as an example, so in other words this is the new value of the wall. But as we go through it’s the development and ownership of that data that is really, really important. So, at times point clouds are much more finite and much more appropriate in certain circumstances. The one rider I put in all of these is if it’s not immediately useful then people are just going to just park it, they will not use it.
They’ll pay for it, they won’t use it and everything that we’ve seen there has an incredibly powerful capability of opening up toolbox and giving us an opportunity to do things in a shared environment. But there must always be, and it’s really critical from a high end point of view, an owner who is the responsible party. And the more that we share that, the term I use is debits and credits. I’m getting paid to do something and I hold it and I share it and there’s all of those credits come in and that’s when we start measuring performance. However, from a simple point of view, we’ve got a line of data that goes through various parts and eventually ends up with a contractor who puts in a product.
But what we really need is this ability to measure what’s changed and change management is really, really important from every piece of experience I have in this. And so I like the idea that the photogrammetry gives us that kind of thing. With my iPhone I can go and do those things and it gives me access immediately to something which is within tolerances. And I think that’s part of the education process is making sure that clients and everybody understand what are the tolerances that we work to. You can’t get the Rolls Royce if you’re only paying for the Mini Cooper.
GEORGE STEVENSON That’s absolutely critical, I agree with you Pierre. The thing is we’ve got a project at the moment where the client is wanting a point cloud, we’re going to capture 360 photos, but he’s also said that he wants a BIM model, a Revit model creating. We then get to the question as to what level of detail does he want and he doesn’t know. And therefore we could end up creating a lot of detail in a BIM model which actually he’s never going to be able to use. Whereas the 360 photo, once it’s captured you can then revisit it, you can start by saying well, what we want to do is use the 360s for maybe fire critical assets or something like that, but then it can be revisited many times be different stakeholders.
PIERRE VENTER One last thing, if you were doing a bespoke building where there are complicated details, I’m sure Barry has done enough cathedrals and various different parts where the two little mice are fighting over the cheese. But the important part about that is the photogrammetry actually captures the state at that time. The biggest failing that we’ve got right now is just the volume of data that’s required where if we’re capturing it like Google Maps, is that for that to be available to show the development over time, so urban development, what were the changes? Because if you get caught for planning application this would give you a timeline, the more data that we’ve got.
BARRY Pierre, you raised probably a vital point, all of the points that you made are absolutely valid, but I just want to revisit one of them. If you get ownership, if you can get your asset owners to take ownership of this then the whole digitalisation change management process is a lot simpler. It’s the stories that you tell, people are not worried about Excel spreadsheets, it’s the stories that are told that will help them do that. And this process means that anyone can document, but you’re right, it’s all about the accuracies and what is appropriate to that job. But at the same time…
GEORGE STEVENSON We obviously want to see whether people are engaged with this and I have to say that I think it’s been positive. I’d like you to put your name in the chat if you would like to come to the next session. We want to run some pilots in some way, so if you’re interested in participating either actively or passively in a pilot could you put ‘pilot’ into the chat.
KEVIN BAYLISS I think two things from me, first of all the photographic gives not just from the point of an asset capture, you’re looking at a start of design process and maybe working on process building or something like that as an architect and you can understand how equipment is used within current sites and so on and how that can filter into your own design process, it’s quite useful for that. The point I was going to make about the point cloud which is pretty much what you were saying, George, the fact that I worked on situations where we’ve had a £40 million building that has been converted to a university building, completely ripped out. And it’s then what level of detail do you want your point cloud?
So then it was a case of actually at RIBA Stage 2 or 3 do I then do another one to the next level of detail afterwards which is so on. So actually having this other data that can support that, otherwise you end up going to do them all of the time and it’s a lot of money and you have to go to the client and say do this all of the time which they don’t necessarily want to pay for and they won’t see the benefit, they’ll say we’ve already done that and they never use it afterwards. So, it’s about how you get that in to an asset management system in terms of what information you give out the end in terms of AIR and all of that.
GEORGE STEVENSON Has anybody in the group, have you got 360 cameras already? Are you actually using 360 cameras yourselves? Joe and Karen indicate that they are using 360 cameras.
JOE STOTT We have an architecture team and a surveying team, so our 360 and point cloud collection is done by our surveying team. We always have this kind of head to head about accuracy because, and apologies for any surveyors on the call, but the idea of good enough just kind of freaks our surveyors out. And the idea of me procuring a super accurate model that’s going to take 6 weeks or whatever to develop is nonsense, from my point of view, so it’s interesting, I’m stuck in the middle.
KEVIN BAYLISS One more question was obviously from the photographic stuff that we were looking at earlier that was just the fact that we were just seeing and tagging information. But in terms of would you then get geometry information from that? Or could you? Or is it literally someone has to do a proper survey to get that information?
BARRY No, you can get from 360s, if you do it right you can actually produce 3D models of remarkable accuracy, if you put survey control in. So, the point of it is you can use it in two ways, you have to get more overlap, but it’s relatively straightforward to get 3D models from 360 imagery if you want to. You’ve just got to know that that’s what you want to do at the end because if you don’t take enough photographs you don’t get enough overlap and it doesn’t work. But yes, you absolutely can.
GEORGE STEVENSON I know that Barry is talking to people within Jacobs, so that could be interesting, Kevin.
KEVIN BAYLISS Yeah, similar to Joe we obviously have quite a big surveying team that are doing all of this various stuff, but because they tend to work, not that they’re not integrated but the fact that oh, we’re working on this project and we have to go to them and say it’s the case. And so very much actually what do we need, what do we want because they can give us lots, they can say we can do this, do that and the other. So it’s really understanding that and then understanding what level we think it’s going to be and then giving them a brief to say this is what we expect in terms of what we need to give because that’s what’s going to facilitate the design and the handover and the information at the end of it.
BARRY And you have a slightly different requirement than, say, the asset people would and there’s a certain level of tolerance and accuracy that you would be prescribing as a surveyor. Myself, I know what I would really like is architects to tell me what they need and then we can sort out the appropriate method to do it. But I think what we’re talking about here is digital asset collection and quite often that’s an ongoing process, probably a little bit after what the architects would need. But there is nothing to say that you can’t mix and match this technology, as appropriate.
KEVIN BAYLISS That’s an interesting thing because obviously, George, we’ve got that relationship with Wolverhampton Homes and we’re doing all of their sites, the ongoing maintenance and improvements in designs and bits in there. But as part of that obviously we’re also looking at golden thread, we’re fairly informed on the BSA and I’ve been forming a bit of a policy for Wolverhampton around that. And I was very much talking to them about how do they capture their information because they literally have people onsite that are every few days basically looking at what people are installing. Does it comply? Does it not comply? Has it got the right information? That kind fo stuff. And then specifically signing it off.
Then they manually put it on to a CDE storage and the asset system at the moment doesn’t really, there is not that connection, so I think a digital aspect with iPads ands things like that would be far better.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think that’s a really good point and the key thing, the message that I want to get over from this is that what we’ve got at the back of this, the way in which we’re using the 360s is that its being connected to an asset database. But the asset database is also connected to manufacturer’s product information, it can be tied back to the specification, it can be tied back to risk and also then populate the CAFM systems. So, I think it’s that interconnectivity that I wanted to really get the message over. The 360s are great, but unless you’ve got them connected to where they were taken and what those things are in the building then you lose a lot of the value. So, that’s the sort of thing that we want to try and use on this pilot.
KEVIN BAYLISS I think also part of the problem with the refurb buildings is the fact that obviously…they’ve already got people in buildings, they’ve already got assets there. And then they don’t always have good information about that asset, so then trying to really understand what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and that whole design process will be formed around decisions. So, I know this element about actually we’re going to have an asset, but it’s understanding that information when you’re designing, otherwise actually you can make lots of decisions which is very inefficient and end up doing lots of changes and things because you don’t have the right information.
GEORGE STEVENSON That’s a really good point. One of the things I think that what we’re doing with this, because a number of people can look at that same 360 photo and take their interpretation of what they see there then it means the information can be gathered incrementally over a period. So it means that what you’re able then to do is to have one group of subject matter experts looking at it and then another group would then look at it and say ah, well I’ve just noticed this, or I would interpret it this way. And because you are really using the 360 photo as a way of people sharing that experience that you’re recording the information in something that is sustainable going forward. I’m not sure there is another way of doing this, you know.
BARRY I think you’ve raised an interesting point, for me 360 is the ultimate collaboration tool. If anybody wants to drop me a line, let me know, you’ve got my details or just find me on LinkedIn, thank you for your time.
PIERRE VENTER I think once again, as much as the 360 is helping it’s actually dependent entirely on the CDE or equivalent, whatever that is going to be. Because all of a sudden you’ve got an image, you’ve got documents, you’ve got data, they’re all effectively geolocated. And because they are all together, if I want to raise an issue and send it to Joe or to Kevin, it’s a case of flagging it and saying Kevin, I’ve got something I need by a certain. The real benefit is that it’s immediate, and I did an exercise like this with somebody in San Francisco and I said I’m sending you something on WhatsApp and I sent it via Speckle. And I said I’ve’ sent it to you and he said I’ve got it.
Now, that was the real time difference and I think that the important part is that it’s giving you the capability of having the information on demand. And that really changes the whole perspective of how we do design, engineering, coordination, procurement, you name it, every single facet of putting a building up is actually where infrastructure is covered in the same thing which is brilliant.
GEORGE STEVENSON I think what Pierre said there is very important. Obviously, this point about common data environments is an interesting one and that is that I think it’s environments with an s rather than environment. Because there is a perspective that the common data environment is there really to manage documents and drawings and version control and check in and check out and all of that sort of stuff, whereas actually the data side of things is probably being managed in several different environments. And therefore we need to recognise that and certainly, as far as Active Plan is concerned, we’re definitely a common data environment. But we’re not a common data environment explicitly in the way that it’s described in the BIM standards and we don’t want to be because we don’t want to be stepping on the toes of people like Asite and 4Projects and people like that because what they’re doing is a slightly different thing. So, it’s a matter of collaborative working between platforms as well.
PIERRE VENTER I think one of the important parts, when we talk about the CDE it is an environment, like the single source, it’s not one single source, it’s multiple sources, but when you go looking for it it’s in one place, consistent, correct and complete etc. And that joins all of the dots together because we know we can take a map to the particular point. And I just think we’re actually opening up a bowl of things and it’s like a sweetie jar, you pull out the ones that you want, only because I’m looking for some sweets.
KEVIN BAYLISS The other thing I was going to say because I’ve been doing some stuff on golden thread over the last 6 months associated with BSA ands so on, it’s also making the right information. So, it’s very easy for example, it could be easily accessible so that people make the right decisions at the right time. So if you were going to do that you can’t just put everything in there, so it has to be understanding and it needs management and it needs constant looking at to make sure that actually this is still up-to-date, this is still the right information to be able to have that discussion. And the whole compliance thing on the BSA and making sure that that is all evidenced, it has to be clear and easy to that.
And then people, from a buildings point of view, really need to get on to that whole road of they start because if you’re not doing that people are going to really struggle to be able to demonstrate that. In most elements it’s OK, but when you start getting into HRBs you’re going to have to do that if you are working on an HRB or a residential building you have to demonstrate all of that. So, for me making an understanding of actually what is relevant, what is up-to-date because what I’ve found is sometimes if you go onsite on some asset information and I can find lots of stuff form years and years ago, sis it relevant? Has it been updated? It’s been changed a number of times. So then, if people are spending hours looking through that it’s not easily accessible in that way, then people just won’t use it.
CHAT
Matt Wilkie (External) Yesterday 11:07 am
What is ISC?
Tim Aikin (External) Yesterday 11:09 am
Infrastructure Steering Committee (ISC) A governance body responsible for overseeing infrastructure and asset management strategies within an organization. It ensures that asset investments align with business goals.
Bayliss, Kevin (Unverified) Yesterday 11:09 am
Can you add me to the Digital Handover session please
Chris Bicknell (External) Yesterday 11:09 am
The key Point is that the initial model will be set for construction and not necessarily focused on Asset and FM needs - this needs to be addressed at the outset to be a ‘while life’ dataset - which may actually be a series or interrelated data sets - as George states.
William Borthen (External) Yesterday 11:20 am
One of the key challenges I see is that the CAFM used for operational management is not configured (or does not have the capability) to accept the level of detail recorded in the BIM model. Plus many (most) of the buildings on typical portfolios are legacy, not new build, resulting in two tier approach.
Carey, David (External) Yesterday 11:19 am
Q: what naming protocol do you recommend deploying for tagging assets, pls?
William Borthen (External) Yesterday 11:23 am
David, if you are talking about he taxonomy used for naming asset types, there are a few approaches. Central Govt are required to align to FMS002 (Uniclass), NRM3 is a common approach, but as Hannah says, many FM companies and owner/operators use their own (non-standard) taxonomy.
Kerin, Hannah (S&L) (External) Yesterday 11:20 am
Currently Sodexo use their own taxonomy
Adey Badmos (External) Yesterday 11:20 am
I am interested in the sessions listed at the beginning. Can I put down my name, please?
Kerin, Hannah (S&L) (External) Yesterday 11:21 am
But we are now exploring at tagging in uniclass. Also we have tagged in the handover taxonomy from the contractors to align with the O&MMs and warranty data
Dumitru Minciu(External) Yesterday 11:25 am
Bayliss, Kevin (Unverified) 11:28 am
A Client specific AIR and EIR is critical and provided to the projects teams and understood at start of projects to ensure the handover, asset information and golden thread is stored and given in the right way.
The challenge is to get a universal approach for the industry.
Phull, Pav Singh (External) Yesterday 11:37 am
Do we have industry guidance to integrate effective colour within Lidar using photogrammetry. I would be grateful if the slides could be shared.
Phull, Pav Singh (External) Yesterday 11:40 am
Is the accuracy of information integrated into as-built information within H&S files for new construction? We need to ensure that assets have a common language particularly if unique asset references are not used.
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:40 am
Barry. The need for accuracy, needs the tolerance to be defined. I've seen too often the "user" expects the accuracy. Unrealistic expectations
Phull, Pav Singh (External) Yesterday 11:41 am
Does the EIR determine the accuracy and tolerance?
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:41 am
Yes, it should define the expectation, and whats delivered
Holloway, Nathan (External) Yesterday 11:43 am
Fusion Map is the Tetra Tech platform, combining satellite data updated every 6 hours with 16cm resolution, combined with LiDAR and point cloud capability. This enables google maps type capability (with additional filters) and building asset tagging.
Kerin, Hannah (S&L) (External) Yesterday 11:46 am
Apologies George of you need sodexo teams to present anything. Signal on the site we are on today is horrendous
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:46 am
George Stevenson. An initiative is to get content, hosted in a shared platform, to open access with Caveats/Tolerances and can be updated on-going. A larger Management requirement.. Pseudo Google earth/maps
Philip Hannabuss (External) Yesterday 11:49 am
If any of the housing associations borrow a camera, would it be possible to attend to see how this is used? Would be a good opportunity for knowledge sharing George Stevenson
Phull, Pav Singh (External) Yesterday 11:49 am
How can clients be supported to create a data repository that is accessible by the supply chain and kept live? This is an important resource for CDM2015 Preconstruction information.
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:50 am
The benefit of the Location is the PART-L benefits in future reference
Chris Bicknell (External) Yesterday 11:51 am
Also to get alignment in the coding used by the various members of the team. Not just to CoBie but across the use needs in operation and disposal / soft and Hard FM as well as Asset planning and maintenance.
Philip Hannabuss (External) Yesterday 11:51 am
I would happy to have a discussion with you about this and share some thoughts if this would be helpful ?
Eyden, Paul (External) Yesterday 11:52 am
We have just begun a refurb project on campus where the contractor has agreed to capture regular 360 photos. On handover we will have access to the imagery online for us to then maintain.
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:53 am
Barry, thanks that was excellent!
Tim Aikin (External) Yesterday 11:55 am
the Ricoh Theta can record in the meta data of the photo the geo tag.
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:57 am
Lidar, 360, iPhone, BLK360, RECAP, whenever I can, with tolerances and it gets the effort going immediately.
Dumitru Minciu (External) Yesterday 11:57 am
I used as a test some time ago, Polycam
Bailey David (R0A) Manchester University
NHS FT (External) Yesterday 11:57 am
we're utilising ArcGIS for what you are describing
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 11:59 am
OSM, ArcGIS and then the integration of Giraffe, Testfit, Planning tools all benefit the requirements
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 12:05 pm
Kerin, Hannah (S&L), the field notes being verified by the user/owner means the Ownership is required by them. Really important for engagement. The number of items collected is significant, I feel the full lifecycle of collection from design to operation is the best practice, in projects. Post-handover capture is the alternate, that lacks the update of the model, sadly. Thanks
Joe Stott (External) Yesterday 12:21 pm
being able to maintain and update all this is critical - to be that means its unlikely to be Revit/IFC/Model based. We can spend huge amounts of time and money building models that become useless pretty quickly... I dont call this BIM i call it BUM (Building Useless Models)
Joe Stott (External) Yesterday 12:22 pm
who has the storage and network to use pointclouds?
Matt Wilkie (External) Yesterday 12:22 pm
As a thought we could look at what software people have tested and its value. Yes, Theta
Adolfo Martinez (External) Yesterday 12:23 pm
At SISK - We used Drone Deploy - For 360 Walks as well.
Pierre Venter (External) Yesterday 12:24 pm
Joe, its the balance thats required
Insane process for collection of data, typo, errors and language of the terms not consistent... etc.
Phil Lisher (External) Yesterday 12:32 pm
We are combining some of these in one survey (LiDAR+photos) using our NavVis scanner, I would be interested to see discuss how this can tie into the group's requirements
Chris Jeffers (External) Yesterday 12:32 pm
Fascinating discussions and really interested to understand more about how the technology shown will inform future FM workflows (definitely when not if). This underpins the golden thread - essential. Have to leave now, but thank you and look forward to next session