Digital twins – also know as digital representations of physical objects – can provide added value in many processes in building and plant management. Starting with the fact that important specialists do not have to waste their valuable time on complicated local visits, as they have the possibility to quickly get an impression of the location, including the audit-proof documentation of critical facilities or conditions.
In most cases, however, such digital twins of buildings, installations or technical systems are relatively static today. The environment has been digitally recorded at a certain point in time using a “reality capture method” after the twin was generated.
For a profitable, sustainable use in processes, however, a digital twin must be “alive”. This means that the twin must be constantly updated and constantly fed with data. At FRAMENCE, we therefore use a variety of methods to ensure this absolutely required actualisation of the twins being simply and cost-effectively as possible.
This starts with the fact that FRAMENCE builds exclusively on simple photos as a data basis for the twins. In the event of changes in reality, such as the replacement of a system or a conversion, it can be easily documented with new photos and the twin can be automatically updated. This approach keeps both the effort and the costs low.
At least as important as the photo-realistic representation of reality are the master and process data associated with the included systems and buildings, as well as the measurement or sensor values. In most companies, this data is already available in many different process or control systems. The trick is to make all this important data available in the right place within the twins, in such manner that it is available together with the visual information.
In FRAMENCE, we use our so-called Points of Information (PoI) for this purpose. These points of information can be generated directly from the images and have precise 3D coordinates. Once created, they are independent of the images themselves, so they remain available and actual even when the images are updated.
Facilitated by modern IT interfaces, any third-party systems can be connected, and its data or information displayed. From measurement and sensor data, maintenance information and work orders to documents or even live videos – everything can be made visible directly in the image models. Even control commands can be triggered if desired or required and, in this way, interventions can be done directly in the real environment.
It is important to know that the data from external systems are only displayed in FRAMENCE itself and are not stored. This avoids unnecessary data duplication and the associated problems. Also, the data control always lies within the original source systems.
The user only has to click on the corresponding system or the corresponding PoI and gets all the desired information displayed. An elaborate search for information in different systems is therefore a thing of the past.
With the help of these technologies, we ensure that your digital twins are always up to date and offer real and sustainable added value to your processes – because nothing is worse than an outdated model.
