As digital twin technology becomes more accessible, and stakeholders throughout building operation lifecycles are realizing the immense value that can be gleaned through 3D visualization, more solutions are being introduced to address specific issues. That’s one of the main selling points of a digital twin, or a 3D model in general; as technology improves, collecting more and more information becomes realistic, and solutions around these use cases hit the market. One such company who is among the newer names in the space is SmartViz, who uses their platform – which is powered by Bentley’s iTwin Platform – to help building owners and managers “build a more productive and energy-efficient building.”
Of course, there is generally only so much that one company can do, especially a relatively young and small one like SmartViz. Among the big roadblocks to technological development in the world of AEC is the fragmentation, a trend that is most logically solved by both consolidation and partnerships. SmartViz is going with the latter route, recently announcing a new partnership between themselves and Asite, a cloud-based collaboration system which promotes the crucial collaboration between different stakeholders and varying disciplines.
With this partnership, per the announcement from both companies, asset owners will be opened up to “new and expanded capabilities.” More specifically, users of these platforms will now have the opportunity to lean on what both do best, with insights captured by SmartViz’ real-time digital twins being easily shared over the cloud via Asite’s platform. Having as much information as possible is a big difference-maker for AEC firms, and platforms like SmartViz are making that much easier, and the same can be said about cross-discipline collaboration, something that has long held the industry back but is becoming more commonplace.
SmartViz, as mentioned above, focuses on productivity and sustainability for a building, and leverages Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to achieve this. The company, which was only officially founded as its own independent company this year, allows building owners to not only track a variety of information, ranging from emission data to noise levels as well as tracking where and how people use the building, but also to run simulations based on that information, Whether aiming for better efficiency through a building – say, a school looking to schedule their lunch periods in the most efficient way possible – or trying to achieve net zero goals, owners and managers can make hypotheses based on the data coming in then simulate different ideas before implementation.
That idea of real-time insights being incorporated into an interactive 3D visualization model, and the further insights that can be gained by simulations, can be crucial for a number of different stakeholders through a building’s lifecycle, from the design crew before construction, to the actual construction process, and for managers and owners during the operation phases. Asite specializes in making sure that information flows across users. With their cloud-based platform, they also add an extra level of security as cloud security has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years. And as this digital twin is constantly being updated with real-time information, it is no longer incumbent on the end user to find a way to store all of this data. The platform allows for this crucial information to be seamlessly handed off from one party to another during different stages of the project, and Asite’s work order management tool ensures the flow of work to be much smoother thanks to the centralized information.
It can be intimidating to work with these kinds of digital twin platforms for the first time, especially for a project that includes a lot of different stakeholders and will be holding huge amounts of data. By partnering with a company like Asite, SmartViz ensures their users will have an established platform with which it can both store and share its data.
On the partnership, Asite CEO Nathan Doughty said, “We are incredibly excited about this new partnership with SmartViz and the world of opportunity it opens for us and the built environment as a whole. Digital twins are transforming the AECO industry and the world as we know it, ushering in a new and exciting digital era. We are proud to be at the forefront of this technological advancement and reinforce our reputation as one of the industry’s most forward-thinking and innovative service providers.” SmartViz founder and CEO added, “This is an exciting moment for SmartViz and our industry. SmartViz’s innovative digital twin application together with Asite Platform can truly empower our clients to boost building performance and user experience.”
