1Spatial Group Limited
1Spatial’s Data Management Programme in Denmark’s Digital Twin
1Spatial’s Data Management Programme in Denmark’s Digital Twin
Details:
- Company: 1Spatial Group Limited
- Client: Agency for Climate Data
- Year: 2020
- Region: Europe
- Product: 1Integrate
Service areas:
- Visualisation, 3D modelling and animations
- Plan-making, planning application and data management systems
- Digital twins
Introduction
Denmark’s Agency for Climate Data (KDS) aspire to build a Digital Twin to model predictions for different climate change scenarios. These models enable policy makers and urban planners to ensure both people’s safety and reduce the risk of infrastructure damage. The impact of these decisions could potentially affect risk to life and therefore the quality of the data underpinning the Digital Twin needs to be good.
1Spatial has worked closely with the agency to build a data management process for their digital twin 3D City Model, with the data being used primarily for both urban planning and climate protection.
1Spatial has worked closely with the agency to build a data management process for their digital twin 3D City Model, with the data being used primarily for both urban planning and climate protection.
Challenges
The 3D City Model was digesting data from over 95 municipalities in Denmark, with varying size and quality. For evidence-based decisions to be derived from digital twins, it’s fundamental that the data which forms the foundations of a digital twin model is current, authoritative and of good quality.
Another key challenge was managing updates to the data as it is not economically scalable to frequently re-scan the entire country to identify change. Urban environments are frequently changing with buildings being removed, built or modified. A process for managing change updates is required that can be scaled across the entire country.
Another key challenge was managing updates to the data as it is not economically scalable to frequently re-scan the entire country to identify change. Urban environments are frequently changing with buildings being removed, built or modified. A process for managing change updates is required that can be scaled across the entire country.
Solutions
1Integrate sits seamlessly in the 3D management system before data enters the 3D database. As data is fed in, there are checks against the schema, geometry and topology derived from the 3D specification set by the KDS.
Should data fail at any of the checks, an error report is generated and returned to the importer.
After successfully passing all the checks, data enters the 3D database. By allowing the system to process change-only updates, there’s no need to re-write the whole country to the database, making it more cost effective to maintain.
The solution has been tested to be scaled up and outperformed other well-known ETL tools.
Another advantage is the ability to manage IDs in updating the 3D model where individual facades change but are linked to a building ID. By retaining the building ID with a link to the facade ID, you can easily record change over time.
Should data fail at any of the checks, an error report is generated and returned to the importer.
After successfully passing all the checks, data enters the 3D database. By allowing the system to process change-only updates, there’s no need to re-write the whole country to the database, making it more cost effective to maintain.
The solution has been tested to be scaled up and outperformed other well-known ETL tools.
Another advantage is the ability to manage IDs in updating the 3D model where individual facades change but are linked to a building ID. By retaining the building ID with a link to the facade ID, you can easily record change over time.
Results
1Spatial started collaborating with the agency in 2020 to look at solutions to reporting and fixing data quality problems in 3D data. Since this initial workshop the collaboration has grown, most recently resulting in a successful multi-year trial at the municipality of Aarhus.
Agency for Climate Data is now able to produce a 3D Digital Twin with flooding and weather analysis for anywhere within that municipality with a framework to scale to the whole country.
Agency for Climate Data is now able to produce a 3D Digital Twin with flooding and weather analysis for anywhere within that municipality with a framework to scale to the whole country.
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