Arup has designed a Net Zero Carbon in operation (NZCio) Welsh school campus using performance modelling technology from global climate tech firm, IES.

IES’s Virtual Environment (VE) dynamic modelling software played a central role in the design of the Mynydd Isa Campus, which provides nursery, primary, and secondary education for more than 1,300 pupils, helping to reduce carbon emissions by over 100 tonnes per year.

Designed in 2023 and completed in 2025, the two-storey, 10,500m² campus meets Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) ‘Excellent’ standards, reflecting strong performance across areas such as energy use, materials, water and occupant wellbeing.

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The IESVE software was used to assess and refine energy performance, taking into account overheating risks under various climate scenarios, including typical years, warm summers and prolonged heatwaves.

The solutions included installing more than 1,000 solar panels, which are expected to generate over 500,000 kWh of electricity each year. This enables the building to produce as much energy as it consumes. To manage comfort, a complex cross-ventilation chimney concept and a ‘traffic light system’ in classrooms is used to alert teachers to open/close windows. The project also made a 25-year performance commitment to ensure the building remains efficient and resilient to future climate conditions.

“This project exemplifies how performance modelling technology can deliver on multiple fronts – achieving Net Zero Carbon in operation, supporting BREEAM ‘Excellent’ certification, and closing the gap between design and real-world performance,” said Niall Gibson, Building Performance Specialist at IES.

“Rising heat is putting huge pressure on infrastructure that was never designed for these conditions. This isn’t about futureproofing; it’s about catching up with a crisis that’s already here. If we’re serious about tackling climate change, making existing infrastructure more resilient, efficient, and climate-ready must be a national priority. We’re proud to support Arup in delivering a school that sets the standard for future-proof public buildings.”

“I feel honoured to have worked on this project from the very beginning and take it through to completion,” said Steven Burrows, associate building physics engineer at Arup. “IESVE modelling played a significant role in the design of the scheme – from developing the complex cross ventilation chimney concept to achieving Net Zero Carbon in operation. It’s an incredible achievement that the building generates as much energy as it will consume over the course of a year.”

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The building envelope has always been one of architecture’s most demanding battlegrounds. A façade is expected to satisfy multiple, often conflicting requirements. It must express design intent, meet performance targets for energy efficiency, comfort and daylight, and comply with regulations.

Traditionally, assessments to ensure these requirements are met have been left until late on in projects, once a design is largely fixed and alterations become expensive.

Dublin-based FenestraPro was created to address this issue, giving architects direct access to façade performance tools inside of their existing BIM workflows and when their decisions can most optimally influence outcomes.

Established in 2012 by technologists Simon Whelan and Dave Palmer, FenestraPro emerged from a frustration with digital analysis tools that were either too specialist for day-to-day design work or too disconnected from the platforms that architects actually use.

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The goal was to bring performance data into the design process itself, enabling architects to weigh the consequences of their choices while still sketching and modelling.

Today, FenestraPro is used by international firms such as AECOM, Jacobs and HKS, where architects and engineers rely on it to help close the gap between aesthetic intent and energy performance.

Face value

FenestraPro’s technology centres on façade analysis and offers deep integration with Autodesk environments. Its best-known product, FenestraPro for Revit, runs as an add-on and allows users to test glazing proportions, shading devices and material selections without leaving their BIM model.

A partner application extends similar functionality into Autodesk’s emerging Forma conceptual design platform, enabling performance analysis from the massing stage onwards. In this way, designers can quickly evaluate how orientation, window-to-wall ratios or shading strategies will affect daylight levels and energy use.

Instead of waiting on external reports, the system provides immediate feedback, with colour-coded surfaces and dynamic charts that highlight potential problem areas such as glare or excessive solar gain.

The software deliberately avoids imposing the heavy computational demands associated with full building simulation tools. Instead, it delivers a lightweight, responsive engine designed for iteration.

This makes it possible for users to compare multiple façade options in quick succession, guiding design choices before geometry becomes too fixed. The package also incorporates a database of more than a thousand glazing products, complete with accurate thermal and solar properties. Recent integrations, such as a link with Vitro Architectural Glass, allow data from manufacturers’ specification platforms to flow directly into the FenestraPro environment, grounding analysis in real-world products rather than generic assumptions.

As projects evolve, the software continues to add value. It supports detailed façade modelling inside Revit, from panelisation through to mullion layouts, while maintaining live performance feedback.

One notable feature is its ability to identify errors or weaknesses in BIM energy models – issues that can compromise downstream analysis. By flagging these early, the tool ensures that data exported from Revit is both reliable and compliant. Reports and outputs can then be generated for a range of uses, from compliance submissions to client presentations.

Design teams can evaluate options in minutes, not days, which accelerates iteration and avoids costly late-stage changes. Building owners get the assurance that the building envelope has been optimised for operational energy consumption and improved occupant comfort. Meanwhile, architects can have greater confidence that their aesthetic choices will work in harmony with performance/ sustainability requirements.

Connecting the dots

FenestraPro does not aim to replace engineering-grade simulation packages. Instead, it focuses on providing architects with the early intelligence they need to make smart façade decisions. By connecting the dots between early-stage exploration in Forma and detailed design in Revit, the platform promotes a joined-up approach to performance.

With sustainability targets becoming stricter and clients demanding more accountability, tools that embed envelope analytics into mainstream BIM workflows are gaining in importance.

FenestraPro’s strategy is to complement existing design environments, rather than reinvent them, positioning itself as a pragmatic but powerful partner in the pursuit of sustainable architecture.

Prices start at $29 per month for Envelope Analysis in Forma and $149 per month for a Premium offering, which adds Revit integration, detailed thermal analysis, carbon benchmarking, model checking and export tools. Discounts are available for teams.

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Global built environment consultancy Arup and Autodesk have announced a collaboration aimed at transforming carbon management across the AECO industries.

The agreement marks the beginning of a broader initiative by Autodesk to partner more deeply with industry leading companies to develop actionable tools and frameworks for decarbonisation.

By collaborating to bring streamlined AECO technology solutions for carbon assessment, the companies are seeking to drive an industry-wide scale of built environment decarbonisation in alignment with the goals of the Paris Agreement. This work will particularly target asset owners and investors as ultimate decision-makers in the built environment and will look to include other companies and partners as the work expands.

Key initiatives include developing BIM guidelines for carbon assessment through the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD); exploring the whole life carbon data journey through industry standardisation efforts, leading to a co-authored, industry-verified whitepaper; enabling BIM-integrated automation of Whole Life Carbon Assessment methods for building projects; and collaborating on research and development to use AI to drive decarbonisation of buildings.

Arup brings technical expertise in industry practice and significant insights on whole life carbon data management from developing its global data schema, and this expertise will inform the ongoing development of Autodesk’s carbon management solutions.

“This work demonstrates our commitment to radical collaboration across the industry to tackle decarbonisation,” said Jo da Silva, Arup Fellow and Global Sustainable Development Leader at Arup. “By combining our technical expertise in whole life carbon assessment with Autodesk’s innovative technology platforms we’re creating data-driven solutions that will inform early design decisions focussed on reducing carbon and costs. Together we’re not just developing tools but driving towards a unified path for net zero buildings that aligns with the Buildings Breakthrough, coordinated by the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, and delivers value for our clients and the sector.”

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Arup has adopted the Pollination Revit-to-IESVE plug-in from IES, to streamline the creation of energy models for building performance simulation.

The plug in allows users of IES Virtual Environment (IESVE) software to import Revit or Rhino models directly. IES states that this has enabled Arup to reduce modelling time by up to 40%.

The plug-in brings the full BIM model into IESVE, including elements such as slanted roofs, complex shading, and ceiling or floor plenums. According to IES, this allows engineers to begin whole-building performance simulations immediately.

IES also explains that partial model export — allowing export of single floors or even individual rooms — has been particularly valuable for integrating updates from the latest BIM models throughout the design process.

Arup has already applied the technology to projects across the UK, mainland Europe and the Middle East, covering building types from high-rise offices to data centres.

“Pollination Revit to IESVE plug-in enables modelling teams to speed up and to encourage high performance building design from early stage through detailed design,” said Levent Kocalioglu, senior consultant at Arup.

“This workflow offers our team more valuable time to analyse alternatives that we invest in fine tuning the performance of our design considerations. From our recent projects, the workflow helps to reduce the modelling time significantly.”

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Signature architects sit at the cutting edge of design technology and typically use a vast array of digital tools and services to define their buildings. When they can’t find a commercially available software solution to meet their needs, they turn to their own teams of in-house developers to create custom code instead. The code built by these brightest minds might be intended for a specific project, or applied time and time again, on different work. Either way, in-house development teams incorporate a wealth of knowledge and expertise and the applications they build are a core component of a firm’s intellectual property.

In the commercial world, when developers at an independent software vendor create an application, they not only have to write the code, but must also ensure that the interface is easy to use, predictable to navigate and that its features and functions are well documented.

Typically, tools developed in-house don’t get that kind of love. In many cases, they would not meet the quality standards set for commercially available software.

But at Foster + Partners, it seems that the Covid pandemic provided an opportunity to apply some polish to regularly used in-house programmes. At the Shape to Fabrication 2024 conference, the firm’s Applied R&D (ARD) team demonstrated some of these, including Cyclops, an environmental analysis plug-in for Grasshopper; Hydra, an optimisation tool; and Hermes, which supports data exchange for CAD and BIM.

This demonstration gave attendees a new insight into the depth and breadth of in-house software development at Foster + Partners and the extent to which these tools are productised. In other words, these bespoke applications looked like ‘proper’, commercial-quality software.

In April 2025, Foster + Partners did the seemingly unthinkable, making one of these tools — Cyclops — freely available. What lies behind this unexpected move, it seems, is not just the firm’s deep-seated commitment to sustainability, but also its belief that making the tool more widely available could help the AEC industry achieve improved environmental performance for buildings.

Real-time analysis

Cyclops supports real-time environmental analysis during the conceptual design phase, with the aim of speeding up decision-making and freeing up time for critical thinking. Architects can use it to quickly understand how changes to their design will impact a building’s environmental performance. This builds their intuition for future projects and makes performance-driven design an integral part of the early design process, as well as supporting more frequent design iteration than traditional workflows.

Foster + Partners has been developing Cyclops for fifteen years now, refining it, boosting it with GPU power and actively using it on projects. It supports several essential environmental analyses for buildings and masterplans, including calculating metrics relating to radiation, daylight, shading mask, sky component, sunlight obstruction and sunlight hours.

The Cyclops website, meanwhile, includes informative guides to how each of these analysis capabilities work, providing essential reading for those looking to get the most out of each tool.

Since Cyclops works inside Rhino, designers don’t need to swap between applications. It addresses the challenge of time-consuming analytical cycles and interoperability issues. Its primary function is to accelerate ray tracing-based simulations by leveraging the power of GPU computing, specifically using Nvidia GPUs. This allows Cyclops to provide real-time environmental analysis, on a city-scale, faster than traditional tools.

Foster + Partners has stepped up, making it clear that wider environmental goals are more important to the firm than being the sole beneficiary of an in-house analysis tool, despite years of investment in it

According to Foster + Partners’ own benchmarking studies, when compared to other, non-accelerated analytical methods, Cyclops can be up to 10,000 times faster at analysing sunlight hours and up to 800 times faster at analysing radiation. Apparently, the use of GPUs means Cyclops can deal with some 10 billion rays per second. It will run on a decent workstation containing a Nvidia GPU and, for optimum performance, the significantly faster RTX cards are recommended.

GPUs are essential because the speeds achieved are derived directly from the massive parallelisation which they deliver, as compared to standard CPU-based processing.

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Licensing rules

As previously stated, Cyclops is free for anyone to use, in educational, personal and even commercial projects. However, according to the simple terms and conditions, users are not permitted to sublicence Cyclops or to resell it for profit.

AEC Magazine spoke with Martha Tsigkari, a senior partner and head of ARD at Foster + Partners, to hear more about the history behind the software. It began back in 2007, when the in-house ARD group started investigating ray tracing for view analysis. They quickly realised that ray tracing could be applied to other environmental conditions. Back then, Foster + Partners was a MicroStation customer and had hardware accelerated analysis tools running inside that environment.

Making Cyclops more widely available took considerable effort, according to Tsigkari. The application needed intensive quality checking and documenting. The legal issues around freely giving away IP needed to be resolved. But the motivation to gift Cyclops to the industry came right from the top, from Lord Norman Foster and the board of directors.

Tsigkari believes Cyclops will be a game-changer for a lot of firms that don’t have access to real-time tools. While there are commercial applications on the market, the sheer speed of Cyclops and its integration with Rhino/Grasshopper is the reason Foster + Partners relies on this tool. The ability to check a design against sustainability goals, and to do so as you are creating it, without breaking the flow, is where Cyclops wins big, she says.

Conclusion

This is great news for Rhino-based firms in the AEC industry. With this announcement, Foster + Partners has stepped up, making it clear that wider environmental goals are more important to the firm than being the sole beneficiary of an in-house analysis tool, despite years of investment in it.

There are many architectural firms developing in-house tools. These may not be as professionally finished as Cyclops, but it would be interesting if this philanthropic act by Foster + Partners acts as a catalyst to more toolsharing within the industry.

After all, plenty of firms are creating sustainability tools and building optimisations that could benefit everyone, even their direct competitors. If there were a free library of effective, commonly-used tools, the in-house software developers employed by AEC firms might be freed up to develop tools in more niche areas.

And while it might be easy for those at smaller firms to fume with jealousy over the software development resources open to their counterparts at much larger practices, we are now in a world where programming is becoming easier for everyone, thanks to the huge strides that AI makes each and every month.

By the end of 2025, AI will probably be the best coder on the planet – and open to anyone to use, for a small subscription. All you’ll need is a clear definition of input and output requirements. Custom tools and custom code will become the norm, but you won’t need to be a programmer to build it (although programming skills certainly won’t hurt).

The real value you bring will be your industry knowledge. The challenge will be to codify it.

At NXT BLD and NXT DEV in London on 11 and 12 June, Martha Tsigkari of Foster + Partners will present on the topic of AI and its impact on the industry.

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Bentley Systems wasn’t wasting time at its recent YII conference, hammering home its ‘open’ approach to data. The message from Bentley’s execs was clear: the company is putting its weight behind openness— the sub text being that some of its competitors are not.

The emphasis was hard to miss. In the first two keynote presentations alone, led by new CEO Nicolas Cumins and CTO Julien Moutte, the word ‘open’ was used a staggering 60 times.

While AI also got a strong showing with 47 mentions, it was obvious that Bentley was speaking to customers, and not trying to impress investors. The message? Openness isn’t just a token word; it’s a cornerstone of Bentley’s strategy. “Your data is your data always,” said Cumins.

Moutte outlined the three pillars of Bentley’s open approach: open standards where everybody that was granted access to the data can read and understand it; open source, where every developer can leverage that data; and open APIs, where users are free to take their data out whenever they want, instead of just being able to query it.

Cumins also touched on the complexity of infrastructure projects, which involve multiple organisations, teams, and disciplines “This complexity makes it impossible for you to rely on any single system or single vendor. Instead, you need an ecosystem that enables flexibility, integration and interoperability across different tools and platforms,” he said.

He also addressed a common concern among customers: “Don’t get locked in,” he said. “Make sure you retain control of your data.”

As AEC firms navigate the transition from files to a data-lake world, this message should resonate more than ever. With proprietary files (DWG / DGN / RVT) at least drawings and models could be accessed via Open Design Alliance (ODA) libraries. With proprietary databases, access is granted only via APIs, which are under the control of the vendor.

“We are not creating another silo,” said Cumins.

Looking ahead, Bentley is focused not just on the present, but on the long-term future. Infrastructure is built to last. “Our users must assure that this data, their data, remains accessible for decades to come, and we believe this is only possible with a truly open approach,” said Moutte.

At the heart of Bentley’s open strategy is the iTwin platform, a suite of APIs and services designed to help AECO firms develop digital twin applications for designing, building, and operating infrastructure assets. iTwin integrates data from various sources—specs, drawings, CAD and BIM models, reality captures, sensor data, inspection records, and more.

The platform is built on a schema specifically designed for infrastructure. While the majority of this schema is open-source, one component — the Parasolid geometry modelling kernel —is proprietary, as it is owned by Siemens.

As Cumins explained, “The schema goes beyond basic data exchange, ensuring that data isn’t just accessible, but its meaning can also be understood, whether you’re dealing with materials or structures or subsurface data.”

He emphasised that this schema helps engineers, constructors, and organisations maximise the value of their data. “We’re not keeping it to ourselves. We actively encourage others in the industry to adopt the schema. This is about moving the entire infrastructure sector forward together.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Cumins described AI as a “paradigm shift” for the infrastructure sector, highlighting the massive scale of data generated during the design, construction, and operational phases. “It makes infrastructure a prime area where AI can have the greatest impact,” he said.

Bentley’s investment in AI dates back several years. In 2018, the company acquired machine learning and IoT developer AIworx, which former CTO Keith Bentley described as an “acqui-hire,” meaning it was made primarily for the talent. Since then, that talent has driven several successful AI use cases, primarily in asset operations. These include automatic object classification in reality meshes and using computer vision, IoT sensors, and machine learning for predictive maintenance—detecting issues before they lead to failures.

Many of these technologies now fall under Bentley Asset Analytics, a new product line that uses AI to provide insights into the condition of infrastructure assets. “This approach is especially important for critical infrastructure like bridges and dams, where monitoring and maintenance are key to ensuring long-term safety and performance,” said Mike Campbell, Chief Product Officer, Bentley Systems.

The portfolio includes Blyncsy, which utilises crowd-sourced dashcam footage and machine learning models to automate roadway maintenance and asset inventory. “AI can help identify roadside assets and assess their conditions, everything from a broken stop sign to a faulty streetlight to a fresh pothole,” explained Mike Schellhase, VP of asset analytics at Bentley. “These insights feed directly into the infrastructure digital twin, the iTwin, and are presented in iTwin Experience to show the latest conditions and context.”

Another product, OpenTower iQ, uses drone imagery, data, and AI to manage telecom towers throughout their lifecycle, handling everything from data acquisition and visualisation to structural analysis, site design, and maintenance.

Bentley plans to expand these solutions to cover a broader range of asset types, offering owner-operators increasingly advanced AI-powered tools.

Now, the company is pushing AI further into the design phase, using generative AI to automate repetitive tasks.

The first of a new generation of AI-powered design tools is OpenSite+, which is used for civil site design (including roadways, parking lots, and buildings).

The software features a co-pilot experience that taps into knowledge stored in documentation, specifications, and 3D site models through natural language interactions. “We can ask questions like, ‘Can I build a hotel in this area?’ or ‘Do I have enough parking to meet my requirements?’” said Francois Valois, VP of civil infrastructure at Bentley.

“At this stage [in the design process], we don’t know if our layout is optimal, so we build a neural network that evaluates thousands of alternatives to find the best one, optimising costs while meeting engineering requirements,” Valois explained. The software also offers AI-powered earthwork optimisation, which Bentley has enhanced by wrapping its current engine in a neural network to make the process significantly faster.

Another key feature is automated drawing production, a hot topic in AEC as it can save so much time and money (read this AEC Magazine article). According to Bentley, drawing production can account for up to 50% of a site design project’s time, and Bentley’s AI-powered tools automate annotation, labelling, and sheeting, optimising the placement of labels and dimensions, and according to organisational standards.

Currently, drawing production isn’t built directly into OpenSite+, but rather, it’s routed through OpenSite Designer, an existing power-platform based product based on MicroStation. However, as Campbell explained by going down this route, the technology can then be made available in other power platform-based applications. Watch this space.

This process will take time, as the large language model (which Campbell playfully wants to call a “large drawing model”) has so far only been trained on tens of thousands of site plans and only from North America. “We’ve got to do that for the UK, for Australia, for all of the other places, because the standards are all different,” Campbell said. “Roadway plans have a different look and feel, right? So, we’ve got to build a model for that.”

As to where the training data has come from, Campbell explained that most of it is sourced from a licensed open-source library, though some customers have granted Bentley explicit permission to use their data. “We’re not just going and taking plans from random [customer] accounts,” he said, adding that Bentley keeps track of the provenance of every data set used. If a company decides to withdraw its data, Bentley will retrain the model accordingly.

In the future, customers will be able to train the AI model on their own data. “Say you’ve got 6,000 site plans—you can put them into your own local, retrained version of the model, and that will be yours and yours alone.”

As for the future of AI at Bentley, Campbell hinted at broader applications. “Instead of using AI to generate a site, could we use AI to generate other designs, a bridge design, for example, optimise a road for – not just the obvious ones like curvature and safety, but things like carbon impact and cost and time.”

“Civil engineers can imagine a certain section of the design space. AI can imagine a much broader design space,” Campbell added. “The good news is that in engineering, we’re governed by rules of physics and standards and safety factors and all those kinds of things, so that limits it, but still, it’s bigger than what a typical engineer can think about.”

Desktop deployment

Beyond AI, one of the most significant aspects of OpenSite+ is that it’s a completely new type of application. It’s iTwin-native, so it writes directly to an iModel without needing to go through intermediary formats like DGN. Unlike many modern applications, it’s also a desktop application, rather than running in a browser.

“We’re not yet convinced that all of these engineering workloads are going to be able to work on the cloud,” explained Campbell. “We also want to be able to take advantage of local compute. And we’ve also got our eye on these new AI processors that are coming out – NPUs – and we want to be able to take advantage of that.”

OpenSite+ works both online and offline, syncing changes (deltas) when connectivity is restored. Bentley is taking the same desktop/iTwin-native approach with its new visualisation tool, Advanced Visualization, which is built on Unreal Engine (more on this later).

Campbell acknowledges that more tools are in the pipeline, either going through validation or still in the research phase, and they will all follow this same framework.

With many new AEC software tools from startups running in the browser, we asked Campbell if this would influence Bentley’s acquisition strategy. “Not necessarily, but it would be a consideration,” he said. “We certainly look at architecture [of the software].”

He also admitted that technical integration has become a key focus for Bentley, which is one reason why acquisitions have slowed over the last couple of years. The priority now is ensuring that products work seamlessly together. “The idea of convergence and integration, ensuring that data flows smoothly across applications and the lifecycle, and informs the infrastructure digital twin—that’s the goal,” Campbell emphasised.

Back into BIM?

Bentley once held a strong position in architecture, especially in the early 2000s with MicroStation and GenerativeComponents, a pioneering computational design tool that preceded Grasshopper.

However, in recent years, the company has shifted its focus away from this market. Given the growing interest in next-generation BIM tools, the question arises: does Bentley have aspirations to get back into BIM?

“Our focus right now is absolutely on horizontal infrastructure, and there’s plenty there to keep us busy,” said Campbell.

“But I’m reluctant to say never, especially in light of the sentiment of the broader AEC ecosystem. In particular, I’m thinking about open letters, I’m thinking about the AEC spec [AEC Future Software Specification]. I’m thinking about what their vision is for the tools they’ll use in the future. And I’m thinking about the tools that we’re building. And when I read that spec and I look at our strategy, it’s not dissimilar. It’s not a slam dunk, but we’re in the ballpark.

“The data lake, the elements of openness, design in context and at scale. That’s in the AEC spec.”

Geospatial – giving assets context

Last month, out of the blue, Bentley Systems acquired Cesium, developer of an industry cherished 3D geospatial platform – Cesium ion – with an ecosystem of open standards, including Cesium.JS and 3D Tile technology. (To learn more about the acquisition read this AEC Magazine article).

“With the acquisition of Cesium, we are now able to provide a 3D geospatial view of infrastructure,” said Cumins. “We are effectively changing the vantage point of an infrastructure digital twin, from the engineering model of the infrastructure asset to the planet Earth, upon which we geolocate the engineering model and all the necessary data from the surrounding built and natural environments.”

However, as Cumins explained, perhaps the most significant aspect of the acquisition is that Cesium as a company, perfectly aligns with Bentley’s vision of open standards and interoperability.

“The combination of Cesium plus iTwin enables developers to seamlessly align 3D geospatial data with engineering, subsurface, IoT, reality, and enterprise data to create digital twins with astonishing user experiences that scale from vast infrastructure networks to the millimetre-accurate details of individual assets—viewed from land, sky, and sea, from outer space to deep below the Earth’s surface to support engineering workflows.”

Cesium’s 3D Tile technology makes light work of huge geospatial datasets by streaming only what the user needs for any given view.

It uses a concept called hierarchical level of detail (HLOD), where you basically have a tree of tiles – the root being the least detailed version, the branches adding more detail, and the leaves having the highest resolution.

3D Tiles can handle a whole smorgasbord of 3D geospatial data including point clouds, reality models (derived from photogrammetry), and 3D buildings. Through its recent AECO Tech Preview Program it can also handle BIM models (IFC and Autodesk Revit), complete with metadata which can be used for querying, filtering, styling, and analytics.

The long-term plan is to unite the iTwin and Cesium Ion platforms, but as Patrick Cozzi, CEO of Cesium and now chief platform officer at Bentley, explained nothing will be done without input from the community. The potential is limitless, he said. “We can add voxels for biometric visualisation, for subsurface, we can add Gaussian splats for higher visual quality for point clouds; we can do temporal tiles to help show the change in construction sites over time.”

Building on this geospatial focus, Bentley announced a new strategic partnership with Google which will integrate Google’s comprehensive repository of 3D geospatial data with Cesium and Bentley’s iTwin platform.

“Consider a large urban development project where multiple infrastructure systems are used – roads, bridges, energy and water networks – that must be coordinated across various stakeholders,” said Cumins. “By integrating Google’s vast 3D geospatial data with Bentley Cesium technology and iTwin platform stakeholders can visualise their assets, both existing and plan in full real-world context.”

Advanced Visualization

Cesium 3D Tiles and Google 3D Tiles play a key role in Advanced Visualization, a new product from Bentley powered by Unreal Engine, designed to overcome the challenges of creating immersive, interactive, and photorealistic infrastructure experiences.

This software integrates seamlessly with iTwin for live access to up-to-date project data, enabling users to navigate massive models in real time using Cesium 3D Tiles.

As Greg Demchak, VP, emerging technologies group at Bentley explained, users can enrich their scenes with additional context and content: “Context in the form of Google 3D tiles, and content in the form of easy to place trees, cars, scale, figures and equipment.”

Advanced Visualization functions either as an out-of-the-box solution or as a flexible platform for building custom applications and is currently in Early Access.

Up front carbon analysis

One of the key challenges in achieving sustainability on infrastructure projects is the time-consuming nature of carbon reporting, which is typically handled by specialists.

Kelvin Saldanha, associate director at WSP, elaborated: “Once you’re ready to measure carbon, it needs to go through a rigorous quantity take-off process, including design compilation and data cleansing, before that data can be used in third-party software.”

This process can cause significant delays. As Saldanha noted, “A lot of times that delay means that the design team doesn’t know what the carbon score is until the design is very mature, and you kind of miss the opportunity to reduce your carbon score.”

He emphasised that the best opportunity to make a meaningful impact on carbon reduction is in the early stages of a project’s design cycle.

WSP has been testing new carbon analysis capabilities in iTwin Experience through Bentley’s Early Access Program, which Saldanha said gives the design team much-needed transparency in the earlier phases of a project. “Continuous calculations during the design process allow for accurate carbon reports to be generated much earlier in the project lifecycle,” he added.

What truly sets Carbon Analysis apart, according to Saldanha, is the software’s visualisation capabilities. “Instead of sifting through spreadsheets and tables, designers can now exchange data directly with EC3, view heat maps, and interact with them to quickly identify where they’ve got carbon intensive features on their project, and then they can target those.”

Bentley’s new Carbon Analysis capabilities are available to iTwin Experience users at no additional cost, though a separate licence is required for carbon assessment calculators like EC3 or OneClickLCA.

Conclusion

While many AEC software companies talk openness, few demonstrate the same level of commitment as Bentley – though open standards, open source and open APIs.

At YII, Bentley’s executives made this abundantly clear with deliberate, impactful messaging: “Don’t get locked in,” “Your data is your data,” and “We’re not creating another silo.”,

This was a strong signal to customers that the keys to their data must remain in their hands, a crucial point as the AEC industry transitions from file-based systems to data lake environments.

Of course, Bentley’s approach isn’t purely altruistic; as a company with shareholders now, it stands to benefit from the industry moving towards storing data in its model wrapper.

And while third parties can choose to use the open specification to create an iModel / iTwin independently, Bentley has a suite of mature data management, authoring and analysis tools and services ready to go.

But with this open approach it’s clear that Bentley is playing the long game—a smart strategy considering the long lifecycle of infrastructure assets.

Cumins pointed out that the software and platform used to manage these assets will evolve considerably over time. “So, by ensuring that our systems remain open, we allow organisations to adopt new technologies and innovations while still being able to access and build on their historical data,” he said.

Of course, it’s possible that future platforms may not even be developed by Bentley, but the key takeaway for customers investing in the Bentley iTwin ecosystem is this: they will always have the freedom to choose.

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WZMH Architects has launched Giraffe, an independent software company aimed at enhancing efficiency, sustainability, and collaboration in building design and construction.

This launch builds on the foundation laid by sparkbird, the firm’s R&D lab established in 2017 to drive innovation in IoT (Internet of Things), design efficiency, modularity, and sustainability.

Giraffe takes this one step further by blending practical architectural and construction expertise with advanced AI and digital twin technology. It tackles critical challenges in the AEC industry, including fragmented design processes, inconsistent standards and documentation, workforce shortages, and the need for greater automation.

The company offers eight technology solutions.

doton – a digital construction measurement and inventory tracking solution that utilises standard camera technology and unique markers to enhance measurement accuracy, locate and determine the final placement of materials and construction site safety.

ska-ana – a tool for autonomous site navigation, real-time data collection, and remote construction monitoring, designed to reduce operational time and increase efficiency.

AiM (Ai Massing) – an AI-driven planning tool for rapid generation and adjustment of real estate development massing models, integrating creative vision with technical specifications.

PARRiT – a centralised platform for managing design and furniture information, facilitating real-time updates and collaboration across project stakeholders.

SOVAi – a site surveying tool that leverages advanced environmental analysis to provide ‘rapid, comprehensive’ BIM models and reports, enhancing project planning efficiency.

PLAiNNED – an AI-powered app that simplifies architectural design by quickly generating building code-compliant layouts for complex building components, epitomizing efficient ‘design by spreadsheet’.

mySUN – an ‘eco-conscious gaming app’ that tracks and suggests improvements to users’ environmental footprint, encouraging sustainable daily choices through automated activity.

VOLPAi – an AI-powered application that addresses RFI management in the construction industry by expediting responses to improve project flow and serving as an educational resource on design and construction practices.

Giraffe has undertaken pilot tests and collaborations with firms such as Infrastructure Ontario, RBC, Microsoft Cloud Infrastructure and Operations and major general contractors and subcontractors.

It is currently carrying out ongoing beta testing and plans for commercialization by 2025.

Find this article plus many more in the Sept / Oct 2024 Edition of AEC Magazine

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Sterling, a specialist in cost and carbon estimating solutions for the engineering and construction industry, has formed a strategic integration with Building Transparency’s Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3).

The integration enables Sterling DCS users who have access to EC3 to gather and assign A1-A5 carbon data to their construction estimate resources, while Sterling’s platform manages the entire carbon life cycle, including B1-B6 and C1-C4 (see below for definitions).

According to the company, this integration allows estimators and construction companies to accurately estimate both costs and carbon emissions across the full project life cycle.

“Our partnership with Building Transparency marks a significant step forward in our commitment to enhancing efficiency and sustainability within the construction industry,” said Steve Brunning, CEO of Sterling.

“By integrating our comprehensive estimating platform with EC3, we are providing our users with the tools they need to make informed decisions that balance cost and carbon impact.”

 The integration with EC3 allows Sterling users to search, import, and assign carbon data for construction materials within the A Categories. Additionally, Sterling’s platform helps ensure users can also access and manage the B and C category data, providing what the company describes as a comprehensive solution for estimating carbon across the entire project life cycle.

According to Sterling, this holistic approach eliminates any gaps, enabling accurate and detailed cost and carbon assessments for all project phases.

Capital (A1-A5)

• Raw Material Supply (A1)
• Transport (A2)
• Manufacturing (A3)
• Transport to Site (A4)
• Site Energy (A5)

Through Life (B1-B6): 

• Use (B1)
• Maintenance (B2)
• Repair (B3)
• Replacement (B4)
• Refurbishment (B5)
• Operational Energy Use (B6)  

End of Life (C1-C4): 

• Decommission/Decontamination (C1)
• Transport to Disposal Facility (C2)
• Waste Processing for Reuse,
• Recovery, or Recycling (C3)
• Disposal (C4)

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Chaos has introduced Enscape Impact (beta), a real-time energy modelling add-on for Enscape 4.1, the latest release of its BIM-focused visualisation software. Developed in partnership with IES, Enscape Impact is designed to make building performance analysis more accessible for architects and designers, by simplifying the analysis process.

With Enscape Impact, architects and designers can quickly view the energy performance of their building and optimise it within their usual design workflow. The software is integrated with Archicad, Revit, Vectorworks, SketchUp and Rhino, but only on Microsoft Windows, not on Mac.

Enscape Impact is not intended to provide building performance certification directly. Instead, it aims to offer real-time feedback that brings architects ‘close to certification-level accuracy’. According to Chaos, what used to take several hours or even days can now be done in minutes.

The software allows users to calculate and benchmark key performance metrics, such as peak loads and total carbon emission. The data is presented within Enscape’s real-time visualisation environment, making it easier to comprehend and communicate the impact of design decisions.

There’s also a dials panel with ‘easy-to-read’ charts and diagrams that display how geometry adjustments impact building performance

According to Chaos, the unified energy analysis and visualisation workflow is not only important for architects, but also for engineers working on a project, significantly cutting down the cost and time required to bring a poorly performing project back into meeting sustainability goals.

“Previously, the design process was separated into architects using BIM for design, while engineers conducted performance analysis separately in software like IES offers”, explains Ruth Kerrigan, chief operating officer, IES. “This led to duplicated visualisation efforts and frequent misalignment between design intent and analytical models. Thus, the loop of recreating and aligning took long and engineers’ reports were often too technical for clients and architects.”

The free trial version of Enscape Impact will be available for anyone who upgrades to Enscape 4.1 until October 2024.

To learn more about the aims of Enscape Impact, read this AEC Magazine article.

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IES has signed a strategic partnership with French software company Octopus Lab to bring better indoor air quality simulation to a wider international audience. Octopus Lab’s Indalo software uses Inca-Indoor, which is claimed to be the world’s only validated indoor air chemistry calculation engine.

IES’ Virtual Environment (VE) software, which is used for building performance analysis, currently simulates the ventilation and impact in terms of internal CO2 concentration, allowing VE users to set external concentration levels, test ventilation strategies and simulate occupants CO2 release to calculate indoor CO2 levels. However, CO2 is not the only chemical that impacts human health and comfort, and occupants are not the only source of chemicals.

The integration of Indalo into IESVE will allow VE users to simulate the concentration of over a thousand pollutants, taking into account various parameters such as emissions from materials and furniture, ventilation strategy, outdoor pollution, occupancy and planned activities.

Indoor Air Quality has become a major global health concern. New or recently renovated buildings are becoming increasingly airtight in response to today’s need for energy efficiency. While better insulation helps to reduce heat loss, it is often forgotten that it also prevents the proper renewal of indoor air.

Poor air quality can be the cause of many health problems, ranging from simple temporary tiredness to serious respiratory diseases.

Indalo is designed to enable building designers to make the best possible ventilation and material choices in order to meet indoor air quality objectives (regulatory or certification) in future new or renovated buildings. The solution also makes it possible to predict the risks of mould and viral infections and identify the most appropriate ways to limit them.

The Indalo plugin exports all relevant information from the VE model to Indalo, with all necessary data provided in the VE via IES’s Navigator technology. Geometry, ventilation flow rates, and occupancy is already simulated by the VE and the results can then be exported. Additional information such as materials’ emissions, filtration and external pollutants’ concentration, can be input via the VE Navigator to complete the required data for the Indalo calculation.

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