Technically Speaking

Download the eBook here! If you’re one of the millions of people who’ve been lucky enough to hear Lynn Allen present, you’ll know her as the queen of AutoCAD tips and tricks and all-round Autodesk technical evangelist, but she also knows quite a bit about the latest disruptive technology – BIM.

There are many opportunities in the public sector for data science and data analytics, yet, almost as many challenges. When we kicked off Big Data Month at DLT, we asked our Chief Data Scientist, Sherry Bennett, for her insights. What became clear is that the obstacles to big data success are universal to both the public and private sector: “…everybody…is grappling with the same thing.

The use of facial recognition software to support law enforcement efforts is nothing new – in the movies that is. In 1997, the sci-fi classic The Fifth Element equipped its futuristic airborne police vehicles with tools that let officers compare facial scans of the movie’s mysterious alien heroine to a central criminal database in the hope of making an identification. Twenty years on, scenarios like this are fast becoming normalized.

Building information modeling (BIM) is poised for greater adoption by federal, state, and local government agencies. In Wisconsin, for example, publicly-funded projects over $5 million are required to incorporate BIM and 3D software from initial planning concepts to bidding documents and project closeout. Many DoTs, including MassDOT, FDOT, and CALTRANS are also embracing BIM for infrastructure projects.

Each year, the cyber security community puts out new statistics on data breaches. While certain sectors face a different mix of threats, many of them evolving year-after-year, once constant remains – the deficit between the time a system is compromised and the time that breach is discovered.

It’s hard to imagine a world without digital. But as you look around you, much of the physical world was designed and constructed using traditional 2D blueprints and is yet to be captured in a digital format. This creates a challenge for AEC professionals to incorporate these as-built designs into re-build or renovation projects. Traditional imaging techniques like photogrammetry aided in this process by allowing engineers to piece together photographs of as-built conditions and weave in GPS coordinates to create interactive 3D models, see below: