{"id":2293,"date":"2018-10-17T05:45:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T05:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madhousereport.com\/?p=2293"},"modified":"2018-10-17T05:45:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T05:45:36","slug":"going-digital-twins-bentley-inaugurates-itwin-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=2293","title":{"rendered":"Going Digital\u00a0(Twins):\u00a0Bentley Inaugurates\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Confluence of technologies enables project digital twins and performance digital twins for infrastructure engineering<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE<\/span><\/a><\/span>\/AETOSWire<\/span><\/a><\/span>)–\u00a0The\u00a0Year in Infrastructure 2018\u00a0<\/i>Conference\u00a0<\/b>\u2013 Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software solutions for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the forthcoming availability of\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>, digital twin cloud services for infrastructure projects (project digital twins) and assets (performance digital twins).\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>\u00a0can be transparently provisioned within Bentley\u2019s Connected Data Environment (CDE) for\u00a0ProjectWise<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0AssetWise<\/i>\u00a0users.<\/span><\/p>\n

Requirements for Realizing the Potential of Infrastructure Digital Twins<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Infrastructure asset owners and their teams have recognized the potential for leveraging digital twins in many ambitious use cases including the application of analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in simulations and decision support throughout the lifecycle of design, construction, and operations. To realize this potential, representations of assets need obviously to be\u00a0digital<\/i>\u2014but to be safely relied upon as a\u00a0twin<\/i>\u00a0there must be practical solutions for their synchronization to changing actual conditions in the real world. Moreover, merely capturing and representing physical conditions, including IoT inputs, can never be sufficient to understand, analyze, or model intended improvements, without also comprehending the \u201cdigital DNA\u201d captured in the project or asset\u2019s engineering specifications.<\/span><\/p>\n

To actually be worthwhile, therefore, would-be digital twins for existing infrastructure must reliably synchronize reflections of\u00a0both<\/i>\u00a0an asset\u2019s physical reality, and its \u201cvirtuality\u201d (engineering data). A digital twin can meet this requirement by geospatially converging the\u00a0digital context<\/i>\u00a0(representing the physical) and\u00a0digital components\u00a0<\/i>(representing the virtual), naturally resulting in an immersive environment for both visualization and analytics visibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

To date, however, the evolving 3D physical reality of an as-operated asset has been too formidably difficult to capture digitally, let alone to keep up-to-date. Meanwhile, corresponding, as-operated engineering information tends to be unavailable or at best, dated, as typically an assortment of effectively inaccessible \u201cdark data\u201d in either opaque engineering files or unintelligent document formats. Bentley has now surmounted\u00a0both<\/i>\u00a0of these challenges, with the confluence of its reality modeling, iModelHub, CDE, and web-visibility technologies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reality Modeling<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

A representation of any infrastructure asset\u2019s physical reality can now be reliably captured and maintained through increasingly continuous surveys and Bentley\u2019s reality modeling software, providing digital context in the form of \u201creality meshes\u201d. Overlapping photographs and (as needed) supplemental laser scans, largely from drones and ground-level imagery, are processed to generate spatially-classified and engineering-ready reality meshes at any desired level of accuracy\u2014within which each digital component can be automatically recognized and\/or geospatially referenced. The reality mesh can provide an efficient and immersive visual \u201ctwin\u201d to intuitively navigate for finding, viewing, and querying the associated information within, or related to, the asset\u2019s digital engineering models.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adding\u00a0iModelHub<\/i>\u00a0within CDE<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The challenge in comparably capturing and maintaining these engineering counterparts of the physical asset\u2014 its digital components\u2014is the opacity of their existing representations, compounded by continuous changes. Bentley\u2019s iModelHub, introduced in 2017, overcomes these hurdles through automated digital alignment (to achieve semantic consistency from otherwise dark data in known formats), and synchronization, based on change ledgers, corresponding to the CDE\u2019s project workflows (ProjectWise) or configuration management (AssetWise).<\/span><\/p>\n

Web Visibility<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Once populated and synchronized by way of digital context and digital components,\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>\u00a0deliver their benefits through Bentley\u2019s new (separately announced) open-source\u00a0iModel.js<\/i>\u00a0library (iModeljs.org<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span>\u00a0for web-based immersive visualization. Infrastructure teams can easily develop custom applications that connect their digital twin for specific use cases by leveraging a vast open source ecosystem. In addition, a geospatially immersive environment for city-scale digital twins is now available through Bentley\u2019s new\u00a0OpenCities Planner\u00a0<\/i>services.<\/span><\/p>\n

Introducing Project Digital Twins<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

ProjectWise\u00a0<\/i>CONNECT Edition users of Bentley\u2019s CDE can instantiate cloud-provisioned\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>\u00a0for any project without disruption to their existing ProjectWise workflows. iModelHub will then transparently create and maintain the project\u2019s comprehensive iModel: a distributed database, with its intrinsic change ledger updated at each deliverable-in-progress check-in state. For each such update to engineering information, application-specific \u201cinformation bridge\u201d processing effectuates digital alignment of the iModel\u2019s digital components.<\/span><\/p>\n

To the extent of available reality modeling for the physical site, the CDE\u2019s corresponding ContextShare service maintains updated digital context. The iModel\u2019s digital components and ContextShare digital context are immersively merged through\u00a0Navigator Web<\/i>\u00a0and iModel.js visualization, as authorized and secured by iModelHub.<\/span><\/p>\n

Accordingly,\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>\u00a0enable comprehensive project status reviews to be continuously available, synchronized to any requested project state on the iModel change ledger timeline, and\/or for visualization and analytics visibility into changes between any project timeline states.\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>\u00a0will also integrate Bentley\u2019s\u00a0SYNCHRO<\/i>\u00a04D construction modeling.<\/span><\/p>\n

iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>\u00a0for project digital twins will be available early in 2019, with quarterly base subscription charges for each\u00a0iTwin\u2122<\/i>\u00a0based upon its scale, in terms of digital components and digital context, and inclusive of cloud provisioning and web accessibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adding Performance Digital Twins<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The iModel.js library supports functionality to create and curate iTwins fit for particular asset performance purposes, including \u201cagent\u201d updating of \u201cdata lakes\u201d for analytics visibility. This enables emerging AI and mixed reality technologies to be advantageously applied throughout an asset\u2019s lifecycle, and across assets\u2014relying, for assured fidelity spanning physical reality and engineering data, upon the necessary digital alignment, change synchronization, and immersive visualization uniquely provided by\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Also at the conference, Siemens and Bentley unveiled\u00a0PlantSight\u2122<\/i>, a new range of cloud services to be jointly offered for as-operated digital twins of any process plants. PlantSight will provide increasingly comprehensive as-operated digital twin services, to incorporate Bentley\u2019s\u00a0AssetWise APM<\/i>\u00a0with Siemens\u2019 operational technologies, MindSphere, and Teamcenter, for industrial plants\u2019 asset performance modeling. And to accelerate owners going digital, Atos and Bentley announced a new strategic partnership to create and curate performance digital twins.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keith Bentley, Bentley Systems founder and CTO, said \u201cOur work with early adopters of iModelHub over the past year has confirmed to me that its unique strengths for alignment, accountability, and accessibility find their highest and best use, in conjunction with our reality modeling technologies, for enabling project digital twins and performance digital twins. I look forward to actively working with users and external developers to create an open ecosystem of innovation for\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services<\/i>, leveraging the iModel.js library. I expect Bentley Systems to lead the infrastructure engineering community, as the \u2018infrastructure digital twin\u2019 company!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

About Bentley Systems<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Bentley Systems is the leading global provider of software solutions to engineers, architects, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators for the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure. Bentley\u2019s\u00a0MicroStation<\/i>-based engineering and BIM applications, and its digital twin cloud services, advance the project delivery (ProjectWise<\/i>) and the asset performance (AssetWise<\/i>) of transportation and other public works, utilities, industrial and resources plants, and commercial and institutional facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bentley Systems employs more than 3,500 colleagues, generates annual revenues of $700 million in 170 countries, and has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions since 2012. From inception in 1984, the company has remained majority-owned by its five founding Bentley brothers. Bentley shares transact by invitation on the NASDAQ Private Market; strategic partner Siemens AG has accumulated a non-voting minority stake.\u00a0www.bentley.com<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Bentley, the Bentley logo, AssetWise, Connected Data Environment, ContextCapture, iModel, iModelHub, iTwin, MicroStation, Navigator Web, OpenCities Planner, ProjectWise, and SYNCHRO are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. PlantSight is a trademark of Siemens AG and Siemens PLMS Inc. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.<\/span><\/p>\n

View source version on businesswire.com:\u00a0https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20181016005056\/en\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

*Source: <\/b>AETOSWire<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Confluence of technologies enables project digital twins and performance digital twins for infrastructure engineering LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE\/AETOSWire)–\u00a0The\u00a0Year in Infrastructure 2018\u00a0Conference\u00a0\u2013 Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading global provider of comprehensive software solutions for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, today announced the forthcoming availability of\u00a0iTwin\u2122 Services, digital twin cloud services for infrastructure projects (project digital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1685,1686],"class_list":["post-2293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro","tag-bentley","tag-itwin-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2295,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293\/revisions\/2295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}