Where is your next project?

NICK CHANAKOULAS: Hello. And I welcome you to this presentation. First of all, I would like to thank you for joining. It is a great honor to participate in this year's Autodesk University.

As you can see the title for this session, I will have to ask you to consider where your next project is. This is not a matter of curiosity but please try to think what do you know about the area of your new project, not only where it is located but the general view.

For example, do you know what kind of challenges you will face? Can you predict possible obstacles? Is the terrain morphology challenging? Is your design aligned with its surroundings? Imagine all the advantages you will gain by instantly having answers to all these and many more questions that prevent you from having a complete view of your area even before you draw the first lines in the drawing at the very beginning of the preliminary design. Together we will see how we can avoid design errors and bad decisions by applying the principles of remote surveying and by using our software, Plex-Earth.

Before we begin, a few words about me. My name is Nick Chanakoulas. And I studied civil engineering in the UK and then Greece where I also did my PhD. My work in design and construction of both small and large scale projects made me realize the main issues and problems that arise in each area and get a good grasp of the challenges faced by engineers around the world.

Now back to our topic. Let's suppose that this is the location of our next project. What do we know about this area that would be helpful to our design? If we don't have adequate information and data, wouldn't that lead to design mistakes? We do know that design mistakes lead to redesign costs, budget overruns, delivery delays, and more.

And if you are wondering how important or uncommon this is, let's look at the statistics. Two very common causes of cost overruns in construction projects are inaccurate estimates and serious design errors. Actually, the third most important mistake an engineer should avoid is not having a holistic view of a project because this leads to ignoring key components, which results to redesign and reworks.

The design cost on average amount to 8.5% of the construction change cost while the direct cost of reworks has been found to range between 10% to 15% of the construction value. In addition, the sixth most important delay goes for the completion of a project is the underestimation of costs due to insufficient feasibility studies and surveys. Therefore we can see that the decisions made during the early stages of design have a direct effect on the cost, the time frame, and the budget of a project. So you can imagine the impact real world data would have in the preliminary design phase of each new project.

Unfortunately, getting project data from the early stages of the design is not always possible. As you know, in order to collect spatial information and identify local anomalies or special features of terrain, surveyors need to visit the project area, carrying with them a wide range of tools such as Total Station, GPS, or now also drones. Although these data are highly accurate and useful, acquiring them is a time consuming and expensive process.

And while this is necessary in the final or detailed design, during the conceptual and preliminary phase, designers do not have the time or money to get to their hands on site measurements. Plus they often have to submit proposals with very strict deadlines. As such, today we learn of an alternative solution and I will introduce to you the concept of the remote surveying.

And what do we define as remote surveying? It's a term we use in order to describe the process of obtaining real data during the various phases of the design and construction without having to physically visit the project site. More simply, to be able to get the actual measurements for our project from the comfort of our office literally in minutes, thus making the design and construction process much easier, profitable, and efficient.

The medium for applying this concept is Plex-Earth, the first software for remote surveying which was created and based on exactly this principle to obtain real data very quickly and easily for a better understanding of our project area needs and challenges.

The main features of Plex-Earth are five. First is the ability to import high resolution satellite imagery into AutoCAD designs from the largest providers in the field to use them as background to our designs. Second is the access to historical elements. The second is the access. Sorry. Can we start that from scratch?

The main features of Plex-Earth are five. First is the ability to import high resolution satellite and aerial imagery into AutoCAD designs from the largest providers in the field to use them as background to our designs. Second is the access to historical images data sets to track projects in areas over various time periods. Third is important terrain data, creating contour lines and performing advanced terrain analysis for understanding the morphology of the field. The fourth feature is the communication of AutoCAD with Google Earth by creating TML and TMZ5 and by importing or exporting 2D or 3D drawings for visualization purposes. Finally, it allows the engineers to arrange drone flights for anywhere in the world and to order drone data.

So let's turn to our AutoCAD screen and get to know each feature much better. We will start our presentation with the import of satellite and aerial imagery as it is a very useful tool for any engineer with various applications. This will allow us to use the images as a background on which to base our design; to identify potential location for our construction site; choose the best route to transport our materials; measure distances for our projects' budget, plan, or mapping network; identify potential obstacles for our project; or to even to spot damages and major cracks on railways.

The first thing we should consider before using any command in Plex-Earth is the georeference of the drawing. The software will place all its imports in their respective coordinates. And therefore we need to apply the correct coordinate system. If our drawing is already georeferenced in AutoCAD, Plex-Earth will use this directly, or we can choose a specific coordinate system from the thousands of options that the software offers. We can even start with a blank drawing without needing to set up anything if we just know the location of our project in Google Earth.

Let's see how to do this. We switch to Google Earth. We create a place mark. We copy this place mark. We return to AutoCAD and click on Plex-Earth Quick View Command. We use this area. And Plex-Earth will automatically identify the location and bring in the image shown in Google Earth. Here it is. On this side panel, we see more information about this image. But most importantly in this list, Plex-Earth shows all the available image providers for this location.

Let's preview what our premium providers offer. For example, Hexagon. Hexagon offers six inches and 12 inches imagery across the entire US. Their advantage is that their data set covers whole states at uniform quality and resolution in both urban and rural areas. Taking into consideration that they also update their data sets regularly, Hexagon allows us to design our projects over and up to date in similar background.

Nearmap, on the other hand, offers ultra high resolution of three inches in urban areas, which is always very recent as they update their content three to four times per year. You can see the level of quality available as we zoom in. This is especially useful for projects where detail matters, like urban planning or rooftop solar installations. Plex-Earth also for access to all providers such as Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap, or other custom maps by connecting to any available WMS or the Oracle server.

Let's now switch to a larger scale roadway design project and see how to import high resolution image background from Google Maps for the area we are interested in. First of all, note that this drawing is already georeferenced. As we mentioned, Plex-Earth supports thousands of coordinate systems worldwide for the area that we are interested grouped by region.

Let's go back to our drawing. As we showed, with Plex-Earth Quick View, you can easily determine the image quality that best fits the project needs. Now we have a Google Maps image in place. And as we zoom in, we can see that the image becomes pixelated as we need something better. We click on the Update Viewport button to adjust the image to the extent of our viewport.

And you can see that the quality has improved. Now we are OK. Click the Create Mosaic button. Specify the area in order to cover the whole area with the same quality imagery. And now Plex-Earth imagery mosaic editor allows us to select exactly the image tiles that we need for our project. Let's select our tiles. Now let's bring the selected images.

One characteristic that makes Plex-Earth unique is that with its mosaic functionality, it brings each tile individual reference to achieve the best accuracy possible. We wait until the operation is completed. Here it is. We can hide the grid lines. And we can set the image to back.

Plex-Earth also offers additional image customization options. For example, we can create clippings or cutouts, also to rotate or move the image. But we can even adjust parameters like the brightness or the transparency. Click OK. And of course, we can revert to the original state of the image.

Finally, because these images have Plex-Earth elements, they will load it into our design every time we open our drawing from the program server. However, if we want, we can save these images locally as simple image files and have them inside AutoCAD as XRF files as we have done with any image added to a drawing and export them to other software as well. All I have to do is to press Create Trusted Images from the Site Imagery from the Insert button.

We saw that Plex-Earth enables us to import georeference, high quality, and readily available image backgrounds for immediate use in our designs. It is also very important that we have the ability to make the best choice for each case both in terms of image quality and of image provided. Through these images, we can very quickly obtain information about the conditions prevailing in our area and get its general view, which will help us in our decision making. In the field of imagery, however, Plex-Earth has one more unique feature, that of extending historical imagery.

In the example we saw before, we're getting the most recent images available from the providers but how recent is this? What if we want an image which is just a few days old? What if we also want to see how a construction site, a coastline, or a quarry changed over time, or what are the effects of a fire, or flood, or another natural disaster on an ongoing project of yours? This is where the concept of historical imagery comes in.

When we talk about historical imageries, we are referring to the vast data sets of our premium partners, MOSAIC and Airbus, that contain satellite images spanning from just a few days ago to even 15 years back. Here in Google Earth, we can see the Alliance Football Stadium in Sydney, Australia if we go over here. And we can see that the imagery is from 2017, five years old. In reality, this stadium has been torn down and been replaced with a new Sydney football stadium.

Let's see what it looks like today. We return to AutoCAD and click on Create Timeline. We specify the area and wait for pictures to fetch the available data sets. We can see that the most recent imagery is just from 23rd of August, only three days ago. So let's select it.

We can see that things have changed a lot. Our image-- can see that here. Our image shows the new stadium construction has just been completed. Now let's see what has happened in between by going over here and adding more dates. We bring up the list again. And you can see all the available dates here that go back to 2015. And apart from the capture date date, additional information such as cloud coverage and whether the image is colored or gray scale is provided to us over here.

Let's add an image from the 1st of January 2022. Here it is. We can very easily see the various stages of the stadium's construction. Let's add one more date from the 23rd of September 2021. Here it is. Now that we've added the exact dates, we've created our timeline. And we can click through the images and view our project's progress over time. I have already done that over here. And you can see the construction various phases.

Of course, this is not the only application of this exciting feature. For example, let's see two different projects types. For the first one, we can observe how a quarry has evolved over time. In the second one over here, we can see the fall of the water level in a hydraulic dam due to the operation of the power generation facility during an extended heat wave period.

We just saw all the amazing things Plex-Earth can do with top down satellite and aerial imaging. Now let's expand to three dimensions with our next two features. And we'll proceed with the terrain feature. Terrain plays an important role in all civil engineering application such as infrastructure design, hydraulic studies, earthwork, and flood control. Through terrain models, engineers have a more accurate understanding of the morphology of the area of interest.

In order to obtain elevation data in situ measurements-- in order to obtain elevation data, in situ measurements are usually required. But although surveying data offers greater accuracy, during the conceptual and preliminary design phases, as we already mentioned, it is not always necessary or we do not have the time or the budget flexibility to acquire them. Plex-Earth, however, offers the ability to easily create 3D terrain models, literally in seconds, by taking data from providers with global coverage, namely Google Earth, [? SESU, ?] and Amazon's AWS.

Let's see this in practice. This time, we'll use the Import Terrain command and once again selecting our area of interest. Plex-Earth will fetch elevations and automatically generate the contour lines for this area. All you have to do is to wait a little bit. We can also add labels and see the contours' altitudes. Here they are.

Now that we've created contours, these contours can dynamically be parameterized. For example, we can change the color or the intervals between the major and the minor contour lines. And these changes will take place instantly. There they are.

Now that we've created contours, we can choose to perform a terrain analysis based on either of the following three parameters-- elevation, slope, or direction. We select elevation and define the number of ranges, the corresponding colors, and click Create. Here is our analysis.

We know that many of you will use the models created with Plex-Earth with other software and tools. For such cases, you can use the Insert command. Here we see all the supported formats. We can import the terrain as a mass object, contour line as AutoCAD polylines, as well as elevation points.

Let's choose the terrain mesh, for example. And here it is. However, our capabilities do not end here. For example, we can combine imaging mosaics with terrain, thus creating a 3D imagery. This can be done with the Drape Image to Surface command. Additionally, we can place AutoCAD objects with the terrain by snapping them on the surface. Snap Objects command, a feature that can expedite the design process will help us achieve precise 3D representation of our proposals.

But bridging the design with its real environment does not stop here because now we can move on to the next feature of Plex-Earth, which is visualization in Google Earth. Let's go back to our first drawing. Deactivate the images. Here it is.

We all know what a powerful tool Google is. And with Plex-Earth, you take full advantage of its capabilities in order to examine how a design interacts with its real environment and showcase your ideas in all their glory. Going to the KML tool command, we click on Export KML KMZ. We select the objects we want to export to Google Earth. We define how we want them to be placed in Google Earth. And then Plex-Earth creates the corresponding TML file. I should emphasize that TML is a file that opens Google Earth and, in this case, contains our drawing's information.

After creating it, we are automatically taken to our area in Google Earth. Thus within a very short period of time, we have a complete picture of our project in its real environment. We can also activate the 3D views here where we can see our project. At the same time, as the original information from the drawing have been retained, if we want we can disable or disable the layers that we want. For example, here.

Finally, if we have a 3D model like this one with texture and materials, we can use the Export 3D KMZ command. I have an example here. Over here. By following the same process, I can view my project in Google Earth. And actually, I have created various views that I can switch between them in order to create short presentation videos and share them with our clients, colleagues, or partners. Note that we can also go the opposite route and import already created KML files directly into your AutoCAD drawing with a single click.

Now let's move to the final feature of Plex-Earth, the drones. As we mentioned at the beginning, topographical measurements are now often done via drones. In later design phases and for projects demanding higher precision and detail, this can be very important.

The main disadvantage of this technology is that it comes with significant difficulties and costs that make it hard to either adapt in the first place or make use of it in all cases, even if the companies have the [INAUDIBLE]. If you do not yet own a drone, it requires extensive search to find a reliable professional. And this might need to be done from scratch in your next project. And if you already have a drone team in place, it is often needed to travel quite far and deal with the permits and insurances required for professional use, which can take up to weeks to arrange.

Plex-Earth comes to fill this gap through its partnership with a global network of Inflights. Engineers are now able to order drone flights for almost any point on Earth and receive high quality data while significantly reducing the overall time and money expense and effort involved. Everything starts by clicking the Create Flight button and then selecting the area of interest. The handy wizard helps you choose the appropriate real data and place your order directly from within AutoCAD. It can't get easier than this.

Now that we are getting close to the end of our presentation, let's go back to our PowerPoint and let me sum up. The remote survey approach allows engineers to get real data for their projects without even having to leave their desks. Plex-Earth is the software that introduced this concept in civil engineering design workflows directly inside AutoCAD.

With Plex-Earth, you can, one, input high quality updated or historical satellite or aerial imagery; import terrain data; and three, visualize your designs in Google Earth. By adopting Plex-Earth from the very beginning of your next project, you can significantly reduce the risks associated with design mistakes and bad decision making. Moreover, by accelerating the whole process, time and budget savings are achieved, thus allowing you to examine more scenarios and ultimately delivering more comprehensive designs.

So thank you all for your attention. Those who wish to learn more are welcome to reach us at support@plexscape.com or visit our website at www.plexearth.com. We offer a seven day fully functional free trial so as to try first hand the unique features of our software. And we will be glad to help you with anything you might need in the process.

Again, our gratitude to Autodesk for organizing this great event. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and looking forward to next year's AU.