This series will provide attendees with a comprehensive understanding of the transformative potential of Reality Capture and Digital Twin technology across industries. Participants will learn how integrating Visual Twins with Digital Twins enables precise, data-driven management through AI-enhanced analytics, supporting predictive maintenance, space optimization, and resource allocation. Additionally, insights into successful adoption strategies and change management underscore the importance of user engagement and gradual implementation to maximize benefits. With case studies spanning the USAF, Asia-Pacific, and various industries, this series offers a global perspective on the practical applications, challenges, and future potential of Digital Twins, equipping attendees to leverage these technologies for smarter, more efficient operations.
2:00-2:30 PM: Leveraging Visual Twins into Digital Twins: A Promising Integration
In recent years, the convergence of visual twins (Point Clouds) into digital twin technologies have presented unprecedented opportunities for detailed optimization for building owners. This abstract delves into the symbiotic relationship between Visual and Digital Twins and its transformative potential in the realm of operations and simulations.
Digital Twins, encompasses technologies such as laser scanning, photogrammetry, 360 cameras, that facilitate the creation of accurate digital representations of physical objects. These technologies empower owners to capture intricate details of facilities, ranging from architectural nuances to spatial configurations, with unparalleled precision and efficiency. Digital Twins, encompasses technologies such as Building Information Modeling, asset data, plans and diagrams for owners that create less than accurate digital representation of the built environment. These technologies empower FM professionals to capture facilities, ranging from architectural features to spatial configurations.
However, the true value of Digital Twins emerges when coupled with Point Clouds, IoT, and advanced AI-driven analytics with decision-making algorithms. AI algorithms can process vast amounts of captured data to derive actionable insights for FM tasks, including predictive maintenance, space utilization optimization, energy efficiency enhancements, and asset management.
This integration offers several benefits to FM practitioners. Firstly, it enables proactive maintenance strategies by predicting equipment failures before they occur, thereby minimizing downtime and operational disruptions. Secondly, AI-powered analytics facilitate data-driven decision-making, allowing FM teams and their owners to allocate resources effectively and prioritize tasks based on real-time insights.
Nevertheless, the adoption of Digital Twins in FM is not without challenges. Data privacy concerns, interoperability issues, and the need for specialized skill sets pose hurdles that must be addressed to unlock the full potential of this integration. In conclusion, the integration of Digital Twins technology holds immense promise for revolutionizing Facilities Management practices. By harnessing the power of AI-driven analytics and the accuracy of Visual Twins into the digital twin so FM professionals can streamline operations, enhance asset performance, and create smarter, more resilient built environments. Embracing this integration is essential for staying ahead in the rapidly evolving landscape of operations.
John Niles, Gafcon Digital
2:30 -3:00 PM: Transitioning to Digital Twin — Lessons from Source3D, a USAF Reality Capture Project
For over 5 years, the United States Air Force (USAF) has investigated using reality capture technologies for facilities design, engineering, management, maintenance, and operations. This presentation explores the change management insights gained from that effort.It boils down to this: though the adage “if you build it, they will come” makes for a compelling narrative, the idea too often falls short when put into practice. There is instead a benefit in first gathering the workforce around a single representation of their asset(s) prior to adopting the Digital Twin approach. This appears to be the most effective and least disruptive way to deliver on the promises it makes. The presentation will introduce the audience to the USAF’s Source3D pilot study, showing evidence that rapid scanning technology, 3D visualizations, and virtual tour principles enable a centralizing call to end users.  While efficiently and reliably giving them what they need, it also provides a platform that generates quantitative insights for guiding the system’s maturation into a formal digital twin.  The talk will show how this occured organically in the public’s evolution from Map Quest® to Google Maps® as a case-study, and how the Source3D project suggests that those lessons can be applied to 3D facilities management and beyond.  It will then provide an overview of that Source3D project (and approach), and finish with conclusions about the socioeconomics of change management (participatory design, supply and demand, and the deliberate engineering of tipping points).This presentation builds on a previous presentation given (by the speaker) at the 2024 Society of American Engineers (SAME) Joint Engineer Training Conference (JETC), and incorporates concepts from the Digital Twin Consortium’s (DTC) “Reality Capture as a Digital Twin Foundation” white paper, and the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) “Digital Twin for the Built Environment” position paper (both of which the speaker co-authored).
Scott McClure, Image Matters LLC
3:00-3:30PM: Digital Twins in the Southern Hemisphere
Digital Twins have emerged as a backbone of the geospatial industry. Advances in data capture technology and processing capabilities have further accelerated adoption of Digital Twins. In Asia Pacific, Woolpert work with many clients on all stages of Digital Twins, from data capture and mapping of the built environment, to developlment of 3D models and through to analysis and visualization to complete the Digital Twin lifecycle. This presentation will explore Digital Twin case studies that Woolpert has worked on across three countries including Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
Daniel Kruimel, Woolpert
