In my 30 years working in transportation engineering, I’ve seen many advances in technology and changes in how we do things. One element that has remained constant is that accurate data collection sets the stage for a successful project. Through innovations in reality capture technology, the digital twin is enhancing the way we view our project from the initial site visit, through construction.
What we did before.
Engineers would typically take a trip to the site, do field reconnaissance, and take our own photos. Our survey team would develop mapping, and also take photos in the field to document existing conditions. We would bring everything back to the office. If we had to look at something or if something was in question, we would examine these photos. Sometimes, we wouldn’t find what we were looking for. Then, we would ask our survey department to acquire additional information, or we would head back out into the field for another site visit.
What we do now.
We still visit the project site, and feel it is important to be there in person. Now, our survey group will document the site using the latest, 360-degree, reality capture technology. They use whatever makes sense for the site, whether it’s mobile mapping via truck, walking the site with our wearable scanner, using aerial LiDAR, or a combination. Field crews will gather point cloud data of the entire project site and often supplement the data with UAV Imagery.
The resulting digital twin.
The point cloud data along with high-res imagery and a georeferenced plan view is included in a digital twin. Now, when we are back at the office, we can view pretty much anywhere we need to go within the project site, right from our desktop. If I want to jump right to a certain location, I can. Then, I can measure it right there on the screen. During design, we used to ask our surveyors to measure slopes and various horizontal and vertical distances. Now we can go right to the exact location we want and take the measurements ourselves. At this point, the transportation group at MJ uses MJ4D on nearly all our design projects.
MJ4D
MJ’s digital twin viewer, MJ4D is a web-based product and there's no hardware or software that is needed to be physically loaded or installed on your computer. This is a major advantage because point clouds often contain millions of data points and require massive storage capacity. MJ4D has allowed me the ability show clients and subconsultants exactly certain asset management features, existing features and design elements directly from a web portal. With the digital twin, our entire design team can look at the site together, right from the start of the project.
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