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Integrate GIS and BIM for Infrastructure Construction

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1/9/2018

The world will add 2.5 billion people in the next 30 years, and changing economic factors will increase the total percentage of people who live in cities to nearly 70 percent. Population growth and increasing rates of urbanization are projected to create demand for 1,000 new buildings per day and global infrastructure worth $3.3 trillion per year.

Embracing GIS and BIM

Governments and construction companies around the world are embracing building information modeling (BIM) processes, standards, and technologies that have been shown to deliver tremendous cost and time savings while delivering assets that meet long-term project goals. As project sizes grow larger and buildings and civic infrastructure become smarter and more connected, architects and engineers require access to information about the built and natural environment, typically stored in geographic information systems (GIS) that forms the constraints within which projects are built.

GIS integration with the BIM process offers the opportunity to embed spatial context throughout the design and construction process by connecting projects right from the start in the planning phase to source of record data maintained by customers.

With the emergence of reality capture technologies, embedded sensors in infrastructure and buildings, and systems that process millions of signals of data per second, governments and companies are realizing the ability to monitor and measure projects throughout construction and after assets enter their operational lifespan. GIS enables customers to aggregate data about the natural environment, historical change, and real-time asset conditions to support monitoring, maintenance and planning activities that keep infrastructure and buildings operational and meeting performance goals.

A Surge in Efficiency and Innovation

Meeting the demands of tremendous change around the globe requires unprecedented levels of efficiency during the creation of new infrastructure assets and throughout their operational lifespan. Levels of innovation that will allow us to successfully spend trillions of dollars to accomplish long-term development goals will require collaboration between service providers, product vendors, and customers to build new workflows and capitalize on new technologies.

On November 15, Autodesk, maker of BIM software, and Esri, provider of GIS technology, announced that the two companies are partnering to build better workflows for users who need to create and operate smarter, more resilient infrastructure.

Through a tighter partnership, Autodesk and Esri intend to bring together their respective strengths and to work with other leaders in the industry to help customers plan, design and build a more resilient and sustainable world.

By Chris Andrews, 3D product manager, Esri

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