Big Innovyze for Small Town in Brazil

FERNANDO FIGUEIREDO: Hello, everyone. I would like to start thanking Autodesk for this opportunity. And the people who are participating in this project, thank you very much. I will talk about the challenges that we face and how Autodesk Innovyze and the Unity tools have helped us solve these difficulties. So I have to mention because we have Autodesk employed, that we are notice that we have safe harbor statement. And we applied to it.

So let's talk about our team before we begin. So my name is Fernando Figueiredo. I'm a Civil engineer. And I work primarily with urban infrastructure. And I'm a specialist in BIM for infrastructure.

So we have Ryan in our team. He is our Innovyze specialist. He has biological agriculture engineering. And he has a lot of experience with River Rhine floodplain, and analyst like stormwater master planning and drainage designs.

We have Newton Caxeta, that he is a civil engineering. And he is a specialist at PARS industry. PARS is a company here in Brazil. And he's worked there. So he has experience in the sanitation industry. And is in providing solution for Autodesk customers.

Raírio, he is a student in civil engineering and he is a Autodesk Sea View 3D instructor. He has a lot of experience in urban and transportation infrastructure designs.

And last but not least, we have Matheus Barros. Matheus is too a civil engineer. And he has a master's degree at the University of Brasilia in geotechnical engineering. He has a lot of experience with urban land development and transportation infrastructure design. And he's too a content creator at the Building Lab Academy.

So let's talk about the context of our project and the challenges that we faced in this project. We are going to talk about Caarapó. It's a city in the middle of the interior of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. It's a state here in Brazil.

So we have the Ayrton Senna Park built in 1977. It's the only tourist attraction in this small town. In this park, there is a impoundment of Diego Cue stream, and it's dammed lake was used as a space for recreation and socialization. This dam even playing an important role in local culture suffered from a lack of maintenance.

And in 2015, in the rainy season, there were our overtopping failure causing the dam to rupture leading to social and environment problems in this region. In 2017, [INAUDIBLE] that's the company that I work for, was hired to elaborate the designs, but due to the economic and political crisis here in Brazil, we didn't have the financial resources to construct this new dam.

So when we talk about small towns, we have a lot of challenges, especially here in Brazil. So we have some sparse public resources, and you have to make conscious decision how to apply these resources. This city has less than 30,000 inhabitants, and they face a lot of problems. One of them was how a small town can innovate in public management, and how she can obtain new technologies and methodologies to make things more precise and better for their population.

So talking about our specialists, we are going to talk about the urban infrastructure requirements that this city needs. That is urban drainage networks, water-supply networks, basic sanitation networks and management with their underground assets.

So talking about the solution that we propose, we get together almost all Autodesk ecosystem software, and we make them work together for this purpose. So we will present individuals use for the software, but we like to talk about the interoperability of these solutions.

So we use Autodesk Docs, Autodesk InfoWorks, Autodesk Recap, and Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Sea View 3D, Autodesk Navisworks, Innovyze InfoWorks ICM, and the Unity Reflect. We cannot forget to mention that we use, for this purpose, the BIM methodology. And we use Bizagi for the process, and we use Plannerly to document our projects. I cannot failure to comment that the Brazilian version of the ISO 9650 was recently published. And we are adapting the project to meet the standard.

MATHEUS BARROS: Well, about the BIM management now internally. Well, we use Plannerly for the BIM management. It's a user-friendly platform. It's a web solution, so no installation is needed. With Plannerly, we can manage BIM projects, BIM documentation, so it's very useful for us.

We use the Plan and Scope modules from the platform. And an interesting aspect of Plannerly is the possibility of using pre-designed templates. So for the definition of the BIM execution plan, we use the template in accordance to ISO 9650. And the template was complemented with the project information, the start date, end date, scope, appointing party requirements, and the available data.

So in the project management, we focused on many aspects of them. So when people would define the BIM uses for the project, and then the team members define the BIM roles in order to fulfill the BIM uses. A responsibility matrix was developed to contribute to this. Well, in the process, workflows were defined and the project milestones defined also for the delivery control.

The frequency and format of the project meetings were defined also, along with the standards, engineering standards and other standards like file naming and file formats. The quality-control processes for the modules were also defined all according to the uses expected. Besides those the deliverables, planning for the project were included too.

In the technology aspect, the versions of each software were defined. The Common Data Environment, CDE, were defined too, in addition to the file formats to contribute to the interoperability and the hardware specifications for the team members.

The BIM uses were defined according to Succar from BIM Initiative. So the table on the right contains some of the BIM uses, with the descriptions by Succar, as well a priority for each and the phase of the life cycle in the project. So in this project, the focus was on the design phase.

So the BIM uses were defined as they are listed here going from conceptualization, surveying, laser scanning to the clash detection, risk and hazard assessment, the documentation, and with the augmented-reality simulations. Well, the BIM roles were defined also with Fernando as the BIM coordinator. Raírio as the BIM modeler, Newton and Ryan as the BIM analysts, and me as the BIM manager.

For the software management, we're defining each software from Autodesk, from Innovyze, and Unity the discipline, the use in the project, and the version. That's shown in the table on the right. Many tests were done to ensure the interoperability of the required information, especially the workflow that we noticed the biggest challenge between Autodesk and Innovyze and between Autodesk and Unity, so we made a lot of tests as will be detailed in the following workflow by Newton.

NEWTON CAXETA: Hello, everyone. Like [INAUDIBLE] said, my name is Newton Caxeta. And now let's move on to details of the workflow. OK, so this was the workflow used during the design, where at first, it was necessary to gather the existing data, which were ecological data, geotechnical data, and conventional topography survey.

After getting all the data, it was necessary to create some things like the map, BIM execution plan, and drone flight. After that, I heard it was created in Autodesk Docs so that all the information needed to execute the design was stored in a single CDE.

So the phase of using the solutions itself begins where the conceptual was started in InfoWorks doing the macro analysis of the location and exporting shp files for the simulation in InfoWorks ICM. Then the first modeling began in Revit and Sea View 3D solutions. Simple 3D data was exported for simulation in InfoWorks ICM in two formats shp and LandXML.

In the Revit case, the first model was necessary to import in Sea View 3D to convert the [INAUDIBLE] files into shp. The idea was that after the simulation performed, if by any chance the models had not been corrected in [INAUDIBLE], they would return to the primary models. In the case after the verification it was proved that the dam was safe. Therefore, we proceeded to detail the components belonging to the dam.

Navisworks was the tool used to [INAUDIBLE] all the components belonging to the design making the 3D coordination and the interference check. To finish our workflow, the idea was to present the dam in augmented reality showing the interoperability between the Autodesk and Unity Solutions and showing the value of the design.

Now, let's move on to details of the preliminary tasks and CDE. As Fernando said, this design was initially calculated in Excel and we used external data for this. In terms of hydrology, the geological data were collected from meteorological stations belonging to the Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia. In the United States, you can say National Meteorologist's Institute.

For this study, we adopted the pluviometric station number 2254000 located in the city of Dourados, in state Mato Grosso do Sul. The name is Brazilian state. The period we analyzed was from 1974 to 2009, with an annual composed series of 25 samples. It's important to say, December, January, and February were the wettest and June, July, and August were the driest.

So keep going the information. And now, I'm going to be talking about the conventional topographic survey. The 2D design was based on the conventional topography. The same topography served to put real data into the design that represents to you here, like design and simulation, for example.

Launching several coast transverse along the terrain, in each demarcation, a topography survey was carried out using GPS RTK. The coordinate system we used SIRGAS UTM 21S. The work developing is classified as [INAUDIBLE] geometric survey class 1, according to NBR. Brazilian stem, the number is 13.133/94. NBR is set of Brazilian standards of the Brazilian Association of the Technical Standards.

So now I'm going to talk about the geotechnical data, yeah. Due to size of the design, it was necessary to carry it out of two types of drilling for the geotechnical studies, which served as the basis for the design. First, the [INAUDIBLE] was carried out, whose main goal is to bring the types of materials in each [INAUDIBLE] region. The second was the percussion sound with the goal of bringing more details and greater depths, load support in each region, among other data.

The last one preliminary task is the drone flight. The drone flight was the only preliminary data collected after the completion of 2D design. Precisely to kickstart the BIM design with the Autodesk solutions that we are presenting here. The idea is to mix topography data the points collected by the topography in the field, plus the drone flight. For example, we can go on to implement the point clouds in the workflow. So the idea to use this drone flight.

So this is like some images from Autodesk Docs. We use Docs as our CDE and take advantage of the main features it can provide virtual control, of course, and fast internet viewing. The main benefit we enjoyed was not exchange emails for up-to-date versions as our routine in different regions of the world, like Brazil, India, Brazil, and the United States. So this was very necessary for this design.

MATHEUS BARROS: Well, now a little bit about the modeling and design process using Civil 3D and Revit. So it is important to emphasize that our modeling was based on the existing 2D designs. So we made a connection to external references, XREF. We use the topographical data collected, such as the information was imported into Civil 3D, and the surface that represents the existing ground was created.

The country Kit Brazil was used to prepare the designs, especially the templates then DNIT and SANEAMENTO. The templates were modified according to the companies standards and the needs of each of the [INAUDIBLE] developed in the project.

Well, for the geotechnical data, we used a Geotechnical Modeler from Civil 3D 23. So first the data was prepared. The geotechnical data, especially in Brazil, lack standards. So each company delivers the results in a specific pattern. So this initial preparation is needed.

As Newton mentioned, there were two types of investigation on the existing grounds. So we use the results from these samples of the geotechnical data, and we use the Autodesk sample files as our start to maintain all the data in the same pattern in a single CSV file. The CSV file was imported into Geotechnical Modeler.

So it was possible to create 2D profiles with the geological description. They are called sticklogs in Geotechnical Modeler, as shown in this image on the right. So there is an SPT point with the elevation and 2D profile with the geological descriptions. Also, GM, the Geotechnical Modeler enables 3D visualizations of the boreholes. So this image here shows the 3D boreholes from the field investigations. And they are on top of the existing surface that was obtained by this survey.

PRESENTER 1: About the information flow between Civil 3D and Revit, the design was organized into four disciplines geometry, earth moving, drainage, and architecture. Between the disciplines, data shortcuts were used for some elements, as can be seen in the flowchart below.

For the earth-moving discipline, geometry data shortcuts were used with the surface that represents the existing ground, the alignments and grades of cofferdams, dam, overflow channel, emergency spillway, and access roads. In the drainage discipline, are data shortcuts of final design surface from earthmoving discipline was used to draw in the pipes in [INAUDIBLE].

The first discipline developed was geometry, called GAO. In this discipline, initially, where around the alignments and longitudinal profiles of the axis of the cofferdams 1 and 2. The dam, overflow channel, emergency spillway, and access roads.

The second disciplines was earth moving TER, in which the cross-section assemblies are defined. The cofferdams, dam, overflow channel, emergency spillway, and access roads corridors were created. And then the design surfaces were generated. Embankments between the cofferdams and the dam, also were modelized.

We tried to follow the construction sequence when creating the design surfaces modeling the two cofferdams and the overflow channel, the dam and the embankments, the emergency spillway, and the access roads in that order. A final top surface was generated with gradings and the top links of the corridors to be used in other moments of the modeling and simulations.

Subsequently, the drainage discipline, DRA was prepared in which the pipes were drawn. A new structure was used it to make the connection between pipes. The [? architecture ?] discipline, ARQ was developed in Revit, where the spillway structure was modeled.

To properly coordinate the Revit and Civil 3D models, they share reference points to a Desktop Connector were used, as demonstrated by Michael Hurtado at Autodesk University, 2019. After inserting the architecture model into the drainage model, misalignment between the initial pipe and the inlet opening of the spillway structure was noticed.

Such a check allowed for the correction in the position of the pipe and in relation to the spillway structure by moving the node structure that makes the connection between pipes. You can see the inconsistencies between the pipes and the structure in the image on the right.

Once the modeling and adjustment described above were completed, the interference checks between the disciplines were performed using Navisworks. From Civil 3D, was inserted a SWG file, and from Revit the RVT file. Next, the final top surface the pipes and the spillway structure was exported to perform the simulations in InfoWorks, ICM.

To this, the spillway structure was inserted in Civil 3D as a DWG external reference. After that, the topography from Civil 3D was exported as LandXML. And pipes and spillway structure was exported as shapefile formats.

After performing the initial simulations and verifying the results in InfoWorks, we proceed to effective designs. Regarding the two design inconsistencies were verified and in the extension of some slopes, cofferdams and channels mainly, in the position of the beginning of the overflow pipe and in the position of the connection between pipes. Search verification ensure fewer errors and reworks in the construction phase generating financial and time saving for the execution of the project.

RYAN BROWN: Next, we'll talk about some of the dam simulations that we ran within InfoWorks ICM just a little more detail on that. So like we've been talking about this whole time some of the source data for this was surfaces via LandXML exports from really both Civil 3D and InfoWorks, and I'll get into that a little bit in more detail, then also shapefile exports from Civil 3D.

These both gave us context, but also allowed us to put the dam and where it was actually represented in the spatial environment within InfoWorks ICM. And then Fernando supplied me with a hydrological inflow data of just a typical storm. I'm trying to evaluate what's going to happen during a typical design event to be able to-- is the dam going to be able to hold up things, is it going to be overtopped during any part of it, whatever else.

The model build was relatively simple. There's not a whole lot of components that go into this type of analysis, where an existing surface was combined with the InfoWorks surface. This was done at a later step just because, typically, the methodology here, and this was a fully 2D model, or nearly fully 2D model, where there were some ponding in the downstream areas.

And just to get a better picture of what the total impacts of a dam failure would be, I did end up combining the existing surface that came out of Civil 3D with an InfoWorks surface, or one that I got out of InfoWorks, and was able to combine those two and get them to have a wider area for our analysis.

The dam can be represented in a handful of ways in InfoWorks ICM. I chose a base linear structure to represent the dam. And I am going to swap over to the software at some point and can get into a little more detail about what exactly that is and what exactly it looks like, but it does allow for partial and full dam failure, essentially.

And then the outlet structure, just based on the drawings that I got from the Brazil team putting together a sluice gate because that's essentially what it looked like in the dimensions associated with that, like we saw in some of those previous videos of how that was exactly represented. On the right side there, it's just a kind of a visual of that, and like I said, once we swap into the software, can get into a little more detail about what exactly all the different things are.

But then the main spillway, which is the main method of conveyance out of the outlet structure and then the overflow spillway were represented in the mesh. Actually, I should have updated this, they were amended with the actual surfaces that were put into Civil 3D for those, so they were actually represented within the surface itself.

So a typical, just base flow, just a normal operating kind of procedure. If you want to play the video, just show what that looks like. You can see some background images there along with the [INAUDIBLE] simulation. So just on a normal typical day, you can see, like in this example, that you would expect there to be any problems.

That's certainly not going to overtop and achieve, essentially, a steady state type of analysis. We've got some backflow here just from where the existing dam was, and that natural channel that has now been created out into the main spillway, did have some backing up into the existing area.

So as far as the dam break goes, over on the left there, it does play through one of those simulations, but we'll get into the maximum looks in the next couple of slides here. Basically, the good news is, for the storm event that Fernando sent over for me, for design purposes, did not overtop. So that's good from a perspective that our design is safe, and it's meeting the requirements that we have.

But I did end up doing four different kinds of dam simulations, and two of those were where the dam would fail geotechnically, so essentially, I just chose an elevation of once the water gets up to a certain elevation, then the dam will either partially fail or it will fully fail. And then another simulation where I had to augment the flow file that Fernando provided for me to, pretty significantly, to be able to simulate the overtopping. So once the water surface elevation got to the top of the dam, did similarly, a partial dam failure, as well as a full dam failure.

The good news with all of this, bringing in that background layer, the imagery, I was able to see, with all of these simulations, what areas would be inundated, and if any buildings or any adverse effects would take place due to any number of these different kinds of simulations. And again, the good news is none of these simulations really showed any kind of catastrophic downstream effect of affecting any kind of structures or anything that looked important based on that visual feedback.

So this is a look at what the simulation showed failing geotechnically. As you would expect with the partial failure, the inundation boundary-- and this is the maximum of the simulation --the inundation boundary isn't as great for the partial failure as it is for the full dam failure.

And then if we go to the next slide, similarly, for the overtopping, it's more than it was for the geotechnical because of course, there's more water behind it for these simulations, but likewise, the partial failure showed to be less area being inundated. And it's a little hard to tell just because it's hard to get down into the image there, but for the most part, you could probably tell that there was nothing really downstream being affected.

So this is where I'll switch to the live demo, and just give kind of a framework for what it looks like and what it takes to set up these types of models. Like I mentioned, it is relatively simple just creating a new network and then opening that up.

It is important to set the coordinate system, I think Newton mentioned earlier, the coordinate system that we're using is one of the SIRGAS methods, so SIRGAS 21, the Southern hemisphere. If I hit OK, then it sets my projection in my network here.

This GIS layer control, so I can add in, let's say, some different shape files just to give us some more context. I can also swap this out for a raster image, so I have a georeference raster image there. If I hit Open there, I'm actually going to move it to the bottom because these do display in the order that they are here. If I hit OK, and then View Entire GIS layer. I can zoom right to it.

So now, great, we've got some nice context in here. I can change some of the settings here to modify what the visibility-- I thought it was in there. I guess it's in-- anyway. I won't spend a ton of time trying to dig through that, but you can see some of the representation of some of those shapefiles that I exported out.

If I do export out some individual features, I can also bring in data via the Open Data Import center, where I can create some of those different pieces and parts to the model. We did mention that we brought in some surface data, as well. So LandXMLs can directly be imported into these files.

If I swap over to my surfaces here, I've got one with the existing surface, as well as one with the dam, just the dam alone. It gives me a little dialog telling me what's being brought in exactly, and then it shows up right there. I'm going to do the same thing for that existing file that I had in here, existing terrain, And. Open that up, same dialog, hit OK.

If I drag these on, that's when it starts to populate that information. So I can see this is the final topo. This is everything that's been incorporated into things. I can also put the existing, where it removes that dam, essentially.

Like I mentioned, I do have to do this outside of InfoWorks ICM, but I was able to merge everything together with that InfoWorks surface. So this requires a little bit more work, but I'm just going to say this is the final. These are in meters. This is a floating point raster. And if I hit OK, it's going to bring that in. And then as I direct that over, you can see much more of that stuff incorporated incorporating that existing surface, incorporating some of the spillway channels and the exterior channels there, as well as that larger downstream area, just to get a better idea of what exactly is going on.

From there, I was just going to open up what the completed model ended up looking like, and just showing a few different things in here of what exactly the base linear structure is. What this is, is essentially, you can set this up to be any type of different kind of structure type, whether it's a wall or a weir. And then the crest level being regular, there are some take-off information, where you can say I want to sample the ground to be able to develop this profile.

So we can see that we have a nice looking dam here, where we have the elevation set to, I think, it's 446.25 meters but hopefully, the idea there. And basically, what I did was, I'm able to import from those shapefiles for the exports. The outlet structure, represented right here, is this just a simple conduit. And then some of the more restriction types of things, would be this sluice gate where I'm defining, basically, the opening of that square structure that was shown earlier.

These base linear structures can be set up to either fail partially or fully or never, but like I said, I had some different scenarios set up here to be able to show that the partial overtopping or the partial geotechnical failure, where I can say that the wall is triggered by a certain elevation, and where then I can set the elevation threshold, I guess, that the top of the dam is, 446.925.

But anyway, this will allow us to either set it based on that 446 elevation, or if I look at the geotechnical one, I can see that's been changed down to 446. So that's where at that point, will fail. The difference between the partial and the full failure, is that the partial failure, in the 2D mesh, how this is represented here, will pond up against that base linear structure. And as the elevation in certain cells that are adjacent to the wall, as those get up to that certain elevation, that's when it'll fail, which is why it's only a portion, a small portion of the dam rather than the entire thing.

Of course, the full simulation, once one of those cells gets up to that elevation that's been defined, the entire thing just falls down. So yeah, that's a quick summary of just the model build and bringing in some of those Civil 3D. And I guess with that, I'll let Fernando take the screen back over.

PRESENTER 2: Thanks, Ryan. Going over our representation. Now, let's move on to details of the Navisworks and the Unity solution. OK, so Navisworks was used in our workflow for three reasons. The first one was due each one of the main features that Navisworks provides, the clash detection. It was possible to find, for example, in the structure based off the spillway, an interference with the spillway. How you said, this in less slides sent to us.

The second was the union of solutions. With the base in the workflow presented before, objects were modeled both in Civil 3D and Revit. To coordinate the model, it was necessary to use Navisworks. The third reason was because of the interoperability with Unity Solutions, where Reflect review works very well with RBD and any DWG file extensions. As the DWG files were used in our workflow, the convert to any DWG was necessary to export for Unity Solutions.

OK, the choice to use [INAUDIBLE] to review, was the icing on the cake of our project of our design to have a union between stakeholders and technical people. The idea of [INAUDIBLE] in augmented reality, is that more than one person has access and visualization of the whole. It is to bring all the innovation and gamification to an engineering approach, engineering design.

The choice between Autodesk and Unity was no accident. Companies are implementing the methodology in their designs following the evolution of Civil Engineering. Unity has Solutions so that can be part of the BIM process. And in the final part of the design in the building, operation, and maintenance phase.

The benefits from using Unity Solutions are it delivers a 3D model, where the customer sees it from all angles giving an experience that computer visualization alone cannot provide. Accessible, with a smartphone or any other device, it's possible to have an amazing experience. In other words, it's not necessary big investments for having an advanced technology experience.

In our minds, sometimes, when we're thinking about augmented reality, virtual reality, or we need a lot of money. No, this case, we show for you that we don't need a lot of money to see infrastructure building in augmented reality, for example.

We know that BIM design had much more than [INAUDIBLE] but objects with information. With Unity solutions, the meta data was object model and not resolution remains in these interoperability. When there is a visualization of modeled objects in the place where it will be built, it brings more security and confidence.

This happens because, in addition to checking for interference between objects, we feel augmented reality, it's possible to see the real size of the object and how it will behave in this space which will be built. And finally, the benefits of the existing additive value different for any other way already exists in engineering.

FERNANDO FIGUEIREDO So I would like to talk about the results that we accomplished with these things. We have some people here in Brazil and [INAUDIBLE] in the US. And that was an incredible experience because none of us live close. So everyone lives in another state.

And we have to use the CDE to make everyone look at the same files. We have to use the BIM process and the documentation to make the project more consistent. And in the modeling process, it was possible to locate inconsistence in the 2D design, the old one, and correct them before the construction.

So the interoperability between Revit and Sea View was a surprise to us to work that well. And the interoperability between Sea View and the Civil 3D and InfoWorks ICM was awesome because everything that we designed inside Sea View, could be imported in InfoWorks and vice versa. We could use the inundation flood result and use it inside InfoWorks and Civil 3D. And even we could use the shapefile in Revit.

Another great experience that we had was between Navisworks and Unity Reflects because we can make a presentation, and we can make people that don't understand software to use the model and make the appointment necessary to make a better product.

We'd like to use our space to [? pretend ?] for the next year we have next actions in this city. And we'd like to present to-- we talk a lot about the dam simulation, about the dam modeling, and the interoperability of the software. So we'd like to let you know that we have the same plan to get information about the drainage and the sewers and the water, including the assets that this city has.

So we'd like to use the Autodesk ecosystem, so we can make every city possible to make a smart city, to have better BIM solutions, to have more data that can be used in public management. And the most important part of this new proposal is, that we are going to use Info360 assets to manage the dimensions assets, the underground assets, including monitoring the dam.

That's one part of our next presentation for the next year. We hope that we can be invited again to make a lot of news to you. Thank you. I would like to be end here.