November 30, 2020 • 21 mins
In the second part of a two-part episode, we continue our look at how drones are being used in the architecture, engineering and construction industry. From surveying the wreckage of a train derailment to monitoring whale migration to creating a digital twin of a 160-foot-high dam, drones are bringing new perspectives to projects of all kinds. Explore how cutting-edge data collection methods are leading to an evolution of new services within the design and construction lifecycle.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
I'm John Torek. And I'm Danny Sullivan. And
you're listening to Speaking of Design, bringing you
the stories of the engineers and architects who
are transforming
the world one project at a time. Today,
we continue with part two of our look
at how drones are being used in the
AEC industry.
From surveying the wreckage of a train derailment,
(00:23):
to monitoring whale migration,
to creating a digital twin of a 160
foot high dam,
drones are bringing new perspectives to projects of
all kinds.
Just being able to get that bird's eye
view, I guess, it's almost like you are
flying. It's almost like you are a pilot
yourself. So I really think that's what I
enjoy most about it, getting perspectives that not
(00:46):
everybody else can get. That's Jeremy Zemek, a
senior environmental technician in HDR's Calgary office. Jeremy
got his degree in environmental sciences from Lethbridge
College.
His interest in drones came later. It's just
kind of a personal hobby of mine when
they first started.
I would just buy those little micro drones
and fly them around my house. When they
(01:07):
first started coming out, I always thought they
would be such a great tool to have
on the job. Much like in The US,
where commercial pilots take a written test to
get an FAA part one zero seven license,
Canadian pilots get a pilot certificate. It's all
regulated by Transport Canada.
We have two different pilot certificates
in Canada. One is called the basic certificate.
(01:30):
So you're able to fly it in all
non classified airspace.
You're limited to how close you can fly
to people, over top people not included in
your project. So that would be the basic
pilot certificate. And then that advanced pilot certificate,
you're able to fly within controlled airspace closer
to people.
Transport Canada also requires a flight exam with
a flight reviewer before you can fly. The
(01:53):
airspace in Canada has similar restrictions to The
US.
So if you're within three nautical miles of
an aerodrome,
they classify an aerodrome as your hospital airports.
The little tiny room municipal airports are just
aerodomes.
It's just literally a phone call to the
aerodome to let them know you're flying. They'll
let you know if there's any restrictions.
(02:15):
And then airports are a lot different. You
actually need a permit from Transport Canada to
be able to fly in a restricted airspace.
Jeremy immediately recognized how much a drone could
improve his team's reports and environmental
assessments,
covering kilometers upon kilometers of terrain
for commercial and industrial clients. So our figure
(02:36):
used to always be these
old Google
blurry images
of who knows what you're even looking at.
And just getting a drone in the air,
taking a picture and, you know, editing it
by hand by just throwing on some
circles and some words explaining things, I thought
was such a great value added. Shortly after
getting his certification
(02:57):
and becoming his firm's first drone pilot in
Canada,
Jeremy had a client call on him with
a pressing need. After applying an emergency break,
31 cars from a train traveling 70 kilometers
per hour derailed,
including 26 cars carrying crude oil. As a
precaution,
six homes in the area were evacuated.
Thankfully, there were no injuries
(03:18):
and no fire. The railroad spring into action
to assess the damage. I was called at
09:00 at night in the middle of winter,
February, minus 30 degrees Celsius, and they had
a derailment that they wanted me to respond
to. The drone's perspective could offer a faster,
more holistic picture of the accident site. Taking
pictures with your phone, texting it to your
(03:39):
client doesn't really give them great perspective
on the actual incident.
So getting a bird's eye view in the
air for for the client, to me, was
always such a value added thing. So I'd
be there on a consultant dealing with soil,
groundwater,
hazardous materials on the ground, as well as
supervising contractors
(04:00):
and
teaming on coming up with a plan on
how to clean everything up. To make it
happen, Jeremy got on the phone with his
project manager,
completed a job hazard analysis,
submitted a flight plan for review, and hit
the road. They wanted me there first thing
in the morning, and it was a six
hour drive. I responded at 09:00 at night,
had all my paperwork in order, and we
(04:22):
were off the ground in the air at
07:30 in the morning, first light. Watching that
drone
take off from the ground
through the bit of ice fog
and seeing that those first images of the
derailment itself and add pictures to back to
the client before 08:00 in the morning,
and they were able to make some decisions
(04:42):
on what they wanted to do. Every job
may not have the intensity of an emergency
response to a train derailment,
but Jeremy has been involved in other projects
looking at interesting ways to use the drone.
For, like, a lot of construction projects, pipeline
projects,
you know, anywhere where there's right away occurring
or anything, destruction activity during or nest times.
(05:04):
So we have to do it for next
week. Well, usually, typically, that was biologists going
to the field on their feet, trying to
find these nets, doing transects, trying not to
step on these nest that are or it's
nesting on the ground, trying to find these
nest 15 meters up in deciduous trees. A
location much easier spotted from the air. So
the idea of using these drones with thermal
(05:26):
cameras are you're able to get a hundred
feet up in the air by overhead and
block these nests. And rather than having these
biologists trample all over the place and trample
everything down, they're able to get in and
out, do their ground truthing on these nests
and with minimal damage. A solution that's safer
and more efficient for the biologists
(05:48):
and less intrusive on the habitat. Keeping personnel
out of the field out of harm's way
rather than having somebody trudge through kilometers of
bush to take a picture, you can just
send a drone in a matter of minutes.
It would have taken biologists
a lot, lot longer to find these bird
nests if they could even find them at
all. Birds aren't the only species being monitored
by drones.
In fact, they're helping track a much larger
(06:11):
animal.
So we've been using drones on the Navy
project for the Atlantic Fleet Of The Navy
for a little over two years. Last year,
we've added drone capability to the Pacific fleet
of the navy as well. So we're leveraging
drones to, capture various marine mammals from humpback
(06:32):
wells to
endangered beaked wells. That's Carlos Femmer, HDR's director
of data acquisition, who we met in our
previous episode. I recall getting a call from
the team when they returned from a deployment,
and they had video footage of a school
of endangered beaked wells.
They seemed pretty pumped since this particular species
spooks pretty easily,
(06:53):
and we have not captured, via traditional methods
to date. By understanding whale migration patterns, the
work is helping to reduce the number of
ships striking whales in Chesapeake Bay. So, typically,
you come in close with a boat. And
if you're on the deck, you're gonna try
to video and take pictures.
So
us being able to hover overhead, they captured
(07:13):
a ton of footage and had to return,
not because the the wells went away, but
because the battery capacity.
So that's when you know you're using the
right tool for the job is, pretty exciting.
On land, surveying is another area where drones
vastly improve the speed and precision of data
collection. Specific to earthwork measurements, it's a great
(07:34):
tool. Surveying a site via manual traditional methods
is one way to get earthworks,
and that method's gonna generate hundreds of points
or thousands of points. With the drone, you're
capturing hundreds of thousands of points to millions
of points.
In addition, you can scan the site in
minutes versus days. It's such an important thing
(07:54):
to know how much material is entering and
leaving the site. And then specific to
construction monitoring,
you can create daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly
site visit reports,
and you can obtain high resolution photography and
video or survey measurements to QC
existing work that's taking place. They also expand
(08:15):
what can be done with the topographic ground
survey. There are two primary ways of surveying
with drones,
one from photogrammetry
and one from lidar tied to survey control.
Which one you choose depends on the site
and vegetation. For example,
if you have, mostly hard surfaces,
then, photogrammetry tied to ground control points is
(08:35):
a great option. If you have a lot
of vegetation and you need bare earth, you
will need a lidar system to penetrate the
canopy to get good survey data. There are
also limitations
where you cannot get subsurface elements like subsurface
utilities or boundary, but it's a tremendous tool
to complement the survey toolkit.
Cameron Schafer, a colleague of CARLIS, is a
(08:55):
data acquisition liaison to HDR's transportation group.
Photography for data acquisition
was actually a project down here in Southern
California. It was a roadway interchange pursuit that
(09:16):
we were going after.
We rented a helicopter.
And we had Mike Cameron, one of our
corporate photographers,
who was coming out anyways to take a
few vantage points of this proposal.
Mike is the photographer we met in the
last episode,
and this was before he'd become a drone
pilot. And we had this crazy idea to
(09:37):
work with Mike and say, hey, instead of
taking
four pictures, why don't we take 400 pictures?
And let's try to capture this project site
from multiple different angles. Because if we can
get a 60% overlap with each of these
different photos, we think we can tie all
of these photos to ground survey and create
a photorealistic
(09:58):
three d survey grade model. And that's exactly
what we did. So they run at a
helicopter, and Mike took pictures
as the pilot circled the site over and
over and over again. You know, maybe
twenty, thirty different circles over the project site.
So Mike is up there in the helicopter
taking pictures as it's spinning around. I was
(10:20):
down on the ground watching him fly
up above the project site in multiple circles,
capturing
as as many pictures as he possibly could.
And we took that data and only spending
another fifteen minutes or so up in the
air. And he didn't tell me this until
after it was all done, but, it it
was apparently a little bit too much spinning.
Though it left Mike feeling like he'd just
(10:41):
come from an amusement park, he captured an
incredible catalog of high resolution photography.
Cameron's team had new data to get creative
with. We were able to to tie all
of these photos together and get a a
three d model that we could create any
vantage point or any view from rather than
just having a singular photo. So from that
(11:04):
first project, that kinda kick started this whole
idea of utilizing drones,
reality mesh models. Cameron further defined the term
reality mesh. So a reality mesh, the simplest
way to put it, it's a photo realistic
survey grade accurate three d model. So if
(11:26):
you've ever used or seen Google Earth and
you've seen that kind of realistic context,
that's what a reality mesh is. Only difference
is you have the capability to get a
much higher accuracy within that mesh. And the
the way that we're able to do that
is taking extremely high resolution photos with proprietary
and upgraded camera systems. And then taking those
(11:47):
photos and tying them to ground control survey
through a process called aerotriangulation.
And what that effectively delivers
is this photo realistic context that can be
brought into a variety of different native design
applications.
The aerial photography of the interchange project made
it clear to Cameron
that a drone could expand those type of
(12:09):
services.
It was really kind of a pivotal moment
when we took that mesh that we only
wanted for visualization,
tied it to survey, and saw how close
and how accurate that mesh was to actual
ground control survey and surfaces and topo that
we had captured. It really kinda opened up
the door to really investigating this more for
(12:30):
utilizing drones, utilizing reality mesh for actual survey
to getting into a few centimeters worth of
accuracy. And that's really to me what that
project kinda spearheaded.
Applications for this technology
have increased exponentially from there. And it can
also be converted into
variety of different file types. So point clouds,
(12:51):
for example,
you can take that same reality mesh and
generate a point cloud dataset from it that's
nice and colorized
and can be utilized in conjunction with whatever
programs you're using that may use point clouds
more efficiently than a reality mesh file type.
So it's just another tool. It's a better
way to understand the built world, and it
(13:12):
just puts more information
at your fingertips
where you need it and when you need
it. Clients have increasingly requested the use of
drones
to offer new perspectives
of their projects and inspect hard to reach
infrastructure.
Carlos Femmer notes that HDR's drone program made
history when they completed the first ever drone
bridge inspection for the Michigan Department of Transportation
(13:35):
in 02/2018.
And the Utah Department of Transportation
first requested drone bridge inspections
last year. With any of these new technologies,
I think there's always a barrier to entry.
Right? And understanding
how it can be used, how it can
be integrated into the client's kinda standard operating
procedures.
And I think, you know, Utah DOT is
(13:57):
probably a great example.
We help them with their bridge inspection program.
And the first time we went out, we
flew 22 bridges
and used drones and reality meshes to do
the actual bridge inspection. As is often the
case, the Utah Department of Transportation
loved what they saw through the eyes or
the lens of a drone. And then what
(14:19):
that
kind of ultimately led into, and I think
this is a natural progression that we see
with many of our clients is they get
used to the data, they get comfortable with
utilizing the data, and you see the opportunity
to expand on it and do more with
it and the time saved and the efficiency.
And that's exactly what happened with Utah DOT.
Because the next year, they came back and
said, we wanna expand the drones for bridge
(14:41):
inspection to well over 750
of our bridges. And I think that's just
something that's gonna continue to grow. Cameron said
one of their more noteworthy inspection projects
took place at the Diablo Dam in North
Cascades National Park between Seattle and Vancouver.
It was the first time Seattle City Light
used a drone for a dam survey. Our
(15:02):
client had come and asked to create this
digital twin or reality mesh of the the
dam, and I think it was first really
looked at for inspection purposes. Essentially,
taking the very adventurous endeavor
of inspecting a 60
foot high dam and making it digital. How
can we limit the amount
(15:22):
of time
spent scaling down the wall of this dam?
And that's where the idea of the reality
mesh came in to deliver this digital twin
of the face of the dam, various different
aspects connecting to it, and being able to
use that mesh to come in and analyze
from your office chair rather than in person
cracks
(15:42):
and monitoring those cracks over time, being able
to take precise measurements of that. We're able
to take that mesh that was produced, learn
from it, train upon it, and use artificial
intelligence and machine learning to automatically point out
where these cracks may be happening and help
to trend them over time. Cameron's team continues
(16:03):
to look for more creative
ways to take the wealth of data collected
by drones and make it even more useful
for clients. You can have all this great
data. You can have terabytes of incredibly rich
data. But if you're turning that over to
the client without the instruction manual on how
to use it and best practices and understanding
the client's needs, how are you gonna use
(16:23):
this data? Which programs are you gonna use
this data for? What's the accuracy that you're
shooting for? Because in a lot of cases,
it's something very easy that we can redeliver
in or change to custom suit their needs.
One of the next logical extensions is to
basically take that dam or bridge and allow
someone to walk around like they're in a
video game
(16:44):
or to allow a client to experience a
proposed facility
in that lifelike virtual world before the design
is complete and construction has begun. In our
industry,
traditionally, we spend so much time building these
incredibly rich models of a three d environment
to replicate the look and the feel and
the surroundings that we're designing into. So when
(17:06):
we hand over the VR or the AR
model to the client, they're able to step
into the world virtually and see that existing
context.
And it immediately relates. Right? Because it looks
and it feels exactly like what is truly
out there. And it really adds a lot
of context and understanding
because it is survey grade accurate
as to how these proposed concepts
(17:28):
truly will identify
and work with the built environment. Which has
become an even more valuable service during a
time with fewer in person meetings and more
clients working remotely. And being able to generate
these highly, highly accurate, very detailed meshes that
can be explored
from anybody's house, whether they've got a VR
headset or we set up a viewer for
(17:50):
them online. Being able to navigate that from
home is it just provides a lot more
detail and kind of that on demand access
of what's
needed. All the rapid technological
advances
make this moment an exciting time in the
industry. I think
similar to what we saw back in the
day when we transitioned from two d plans
(18:12):
to to two d CAD and then transitioning
from two d CAD to three d BIM.
We're constantly in this evolution of how products
are changing, of how we can do more
work, of how we can do better work,
of how we can do more accurate work.
And I think we're kind of in that
next revolution right now of technology, of going
not just from a three d model, but
to an intelligent digital twin.
(18:33):
Right? To a model that is going to
morph and change and live on with the
life cycle of our projects. And I think
the reality mesh is a key component to
that. So I think we're just at that
tipping point right now.
As the end uses of vast amounts of
data evolve,
Carlos Fema said so too will drone technology.
Sensors are truly getting smaller,
(18:55):
less weight, and with increased quality. Prices are
coming down, and that's gonna also help with
new ways of capturing data in the future.
Another aspect is I've been impressed with fixed
wing drones as well. There are some drones
like the Wingtra that take off,
vertical take off and landing,
and I think we're gonna have more automated
(19:16):
flights to enable safer capture of assets.
Yes. Automated.
The future may hold automated drones. With the
actual drone itself in programming
flights, the ability where you have clash detection
and automate flights to keep them safe and
that has the intelligence to try to keep
you away from failing or from crashing, you
(19:38):
have all of those items where those technologies
continue to improve. It's gonna open the door
for more drone pilots,
safer operations,
and, more value for, clients. But as Carlos
adds,
present day is the moment people will look
back on when it comes to the presence
of drone technology
in our lives. I believe people will look
(19:59):
back at this era as the beginning of
the drone era. Drones have been around for
ten years, but it's currently moving rapidly, and
I think it's similar to other technologies. For
example, thinking back to to Bill Gates, he
had a a clear mission,
you know, a computer on every desk and
in every home.
Steve Jobs says something to the effect of
the Internet in your pocket when referring to
(20:21):
the iPhone. So although I do not believe
everyone in the future will own a drone,
I do believe everyone will be impacted by
them.
And if I think
of Amazon package deliveries or lifesaving
medical deliveries,
some of those things will be around that
you don't see today. I believe people are
gonna look back at this era with amazement.
(20:42):
We're still at the infancy stage, and it's
really exciting currently to think about where drones
will be in one year, five years, and
ten years down the road.
For more information on this podcast, visit hdrinc.com/speakingofdesign.
You'll find links to pictures, articles, and more
(21:03):
information about this project.
If you like what you heard, be sure
to rate us or leave feedback on iTunes,
Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm John Torek. And I'm Danny Sullivan. And
you're listening to Speaking of Design, bringing you
the stories of the engineers and architects who
are transforming
the world one project at a time. Today,
we continue with part two of our look
at how drones are being used in the
AEC industry.
From surveying the wreckage of a train derailment,
(00:23):
to monitoring whale migration,
to creating a digital twin of a 160
foot high dam,
drones are bringing new perspectives to projects of
all kinds.
Just being able to get that bird's eye
view, I guess, it's almost like you are
flying. It's almost like you are a pilot
yourself. So I really think that's what I
enjoy most about it, getting perspectives that not
(00:46):
everybody else can get. That's Jeremy Zemek, a
senior environmental technician in HDR's Calgary office. Jeremy
got his degree in environmental sciences from Lethbridge
College.
His interest in drones came later. It's just
kind of a personal hobby of mine when
they first started.
I would just buy those little micro drones
and fly them around my house. When they
(01:07):
first started coming out, I always thought they
would be such a great tool to have
on the job. Much like in The US,
where commercial pilots take a written test to
get an FAA part one zero seven license,
Canadian pilots get a pilot certificate. It's all
regulated by Transport Canada.
We have two different pilot certificates
in Canada. One is called the basic certificate.
(01:30):
So you're able to fly it in all
non classified airspace.
You're limited to how close you can fly
to people, over top people not included in
your project. So that would be the basic
pilot certificate. And then that advanced pilot certificate,
you're able to fly within controlled airspace closer
to people.
Transport Canada also requires a flight exam with
a flight reviewer before you can fly. The
(01:53):
airspace in Canada has similar restrictions to The
US.
So if you're within three nautical miles of
an aerodrome,
they classify an aerodrome as your hospital airports.
The little tiny room municipal airports are just
aerodomes.
It's just literally a phone call to the
aerodome to let them know you're flying. They'll
let you know if there's any restrictions.
(02:15):
And then airports are a lot different. You
actually need a permit from Transport Canada to
be able to fly in a restricted airspace.
Jeremy immediately recognized how much a drone could
improve his team's reports and environmental
assessments,
covering kilometers upon kilometers of terrain
for commercial and industrial clients. So our figure
(02:36):
used to always be these
old Google
blurry images
of who knows what you're even looking at.
And just getting a drone in the air,
taking a picture and, you know, editing it
by hand by just throwing on some
circles and some words explaining things, I thought
was such a great value added. Shortly after
getting his certification
(02:57):
and becoming his firm's first drone pilot in
Canada,
Jeremy had a client call on him with
a pressing need. After applying an emergency break,
31 cars from a train traveling 70 kilometers
per hour derailed,
including 26 cars carrying crude oil. As a
precaution,
six homes in the area were evacuated.
Thankfully, there were no injuries
(03:18):
and no fire. The railroad spring into action
to assess the damage. I was called at
09:00 at night in the middle of winter,
February, minus 30 degrees Celsius, and they had
a derailment that they wanted me to respond
to. The drone's perspective could offer a faster,
more holistic picture of the accident site. Taking
pictures with your phone, texting it to your
(03:39):
client doesn't really give them great perspective
on the actual incident.
So getting a bird's eye view in the
air for for the client, to me, was
always such a value added thing. So I'd
be there on a consultant dealing with soil,
groundwater,
hazardous materials on the ground, as well as
supervising contractors
(04:00):
and
teaming on coming up with a plan on
how to clean everything up. To make it
happen, Jeremy got on the phone with his
project manager,
completed a job hazard analysis,
submitted a flight plan for review, and hit
the road. They wanted me there first thing
in the morning, and it was a six
hour drive. I responded at 09:00 at night,
had all my paperwork in order, and we
(04:22):
were off the ground in the air at
07:30 in the morning, first light. Watching that
drone
take off from the ground
through the bit of ice fog
and seeing that those first images of the
derailment itself and add pictures to back to
the client before 08:00 in the morning,
and they were able to make some decisions
(04:42):
on what they wanted to do. Every job
may not have the intensity of an emergency
response to a train derailment,
but Jeremy has been involved in other projects
looking at interesting ways to use the drone.
For, like, a lot of construction projects, pipeline
projects,
you know, anywhere where there's right away occurring
or anything, destruction activity during or nest times.
(05:04):
So we have to do it for next
week. Well, usually, typically, that was biologists going
to the field on their feet, trying to
find these nets, doing transects, trying not to
step on these nest that are or it's
nesting on the ground, trying to find these
nest 15 meters up in deciduous trees. A
location much easier spotted from the air. So
the idea of using these drones with thermal
(05:26):
cameras are you're able to get a hundred
feet up in the air by overhead and
block these nests. And rather than having these
biologists trample all over the place and trample
everything down, they're able to get in and
out, do their ground truthing on these nests
and with minimal damage. A solution that's safer
and more efficient for the biologists
(05:48):
and less intrusive on the habitat. Keeping personnel
out of the field out of harm's way
rather than having somebody trudge through kilometers of
bush to take a picture, you can just
send a drone in a matter of minutes.
It would have taken biologists
a lot, lot longer to find these bird
nests if they could even find them at
all. Birds aren't the only species being monitored
by drones.
In fact, they're helping track a much larger
(06:11):
animal.
So we've been using drones on the Navy
project for the Atlantic Fleet Of The Navy
for a little over two years. Last year,
we've added drone capability to the Pacific fleet
of the navy as well. So we're leveraging
drones to, capture various marine mammals from humpback
(06:32):
wells to
endangered beaked wells. That's Carlos Femmer, HDR's director
of data acquisition, who we met in our
previous episode. I recall getting a call from
the team when they returned from a deployment,
and they had video footage of a school
of endangered beaked wells.
They seemed pretty pumped since this particular species
spooks pretty easily,
(06:53):
and we have not captured, via traditional methods
to date. By understanding whale migration patterns, the
work is helping to reduce the number of
ships striking whales in Chesapeake Bay. So, typically,
you come in close with a boat. And
if you're on the deck, you're gonna try
to video and take pictures.
So
us being able to hover overhead, they captured
(07:13):
a ton of footage and had to return,
not because the the wells went away, but
because the battery capacity.
So that's when you know you're using the
right tool for the job is, pretty exciting.
On land, surveying is another area where drones
vastly improve the speed and precision of data
collection. Specific to earthwork measurements, it's a great
(07:34):
tool. Surveying a site via manual traditional methods
is one way to get earthworks,
and that method's gonna generate hundreds of points
or thousands of points. With the drone, you're
capturing hundreds of thousands of points to millions
of points.
In addition, you can scan the site in
minutes versus days. It's such an important thing
(07:54):
to know how much material is entering and
leaving the site. And then specific to
construction monitoring,
you can create daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly
site visit reports,
and you can obtain high resolution photography and
video or survey measurements to QC
existing work that's taking place. They also expand
(08:15):
what can be done with the topographic ground
survey. There are two primary ways of surveying
with drones,
one from photogrammetry
and one from lidar tied to survey control.
Which one you choose depends on the site
and vegetation. For example,
if you have, mostly hard surfaces,
then, photogrammetry tied to ground control points is
(08:35):
a great option. If you have a lot
of vegetation and you need bare earth, you
will need a lidar system to penetrate the
canopy to get good survey data. There are
also limitations
where you cannot get subsurface elements like subsurface
utilities or boundary, but it's a tremendous tool
to complement the survey toolkit.
Cameron Schafer, a colleague of CARLIS, is a
(08:55):
data acquisition liaison to HDR's transportation group.
Photography for data acquisition
was actually a project down here in Southern
California. It was a roadway interchange pursuit that
(09:16):
we were going after.
We rented a helicopter.
And we had Mike Cameron, one of our
corporate photographers,
who was coming out anyways to take a
few vantage points of this proposal.
Mike is the photographer we met in the
last episode,
and this was before he'd become a drone
pilot. And we had this crazy idea to
(09:37):
work with Mike and say, hey, instead of
taking
four pictures, why don't we take 400 pictures?
And let's try to capture this project site
from multiple different angles. Because if we can
get a 60% overlap with each of these
different photos, we think we can tie all
of these photos to ground survey and create
a photorealistic
(09:58):
three d survey grade model. And that's exactly
what we did. So they run at a
helicopter, and Mike took pictures
as the pilot circled the site over and
over and over again. You know, maybe
twenty, thirty different circles over the project site.
So Mike is up there in the helicopter
taking pictures as it's spinning around. I was
(10:20):
down on the ground watching him fly
up above the project site in multiple circles,
capturing
as as many pictures as he possibly could.
And we took that data and only spending
another fifteen minutes or so up in the
air. And he didn't tell me this until
after it was all done, but, it it
was apparently a little bit too much spinning.
Though it left Mike feeling like he'd just
(10:41):
come from an amusement park, he captured an
incredible catalog of high resolution photography.
Cameron's team had new data to get creative
with. We were able to to tie all
of these photos together and get a a
three d model that we could create any
vantage point or any view from rather than
just having a singular photo. So from that
(11:04):
first project, that kinda kick started this whole
idea of utilizing drones,
reality mesh models. Cameron further defined the term
reality mesh. So a reality mesh, the simplest
way to put it, it's a photo realistic
survey grade accurate three d model. So if
(11:26):
you've ever used or seen Google Earth and
you've seen that kind of realistic context,
that's what a reality mesh is. Only difference
is you have the capability to get a
much higher accuracy within that mesh. And the
the way that we're able to do that
is taking extremely high resolution photos with proprietary
and upgraded camera systems. And then taking those
(11:47):
photos and tying them to ground control survey
through a process called aerotriangulation.
And what that effectively delivers
is this photo realistic context that can be
brought into a variety of different native design
applications.
The aerial photography of the interchange project made
it clear to Cameron
that a drone could expand those type of
(12:09):
services.
It was really kind of a pivotal moment
when we took that mesh that we only
wanted for visualization,
tied it to survey, and saw how close
and how accurate that mesh was to actual
ground control survey and surfaces and topo that
we had captured. It really kinda opened up
the door to really investigating this more for
(12:30):
utilizing drones, utilizing reality mesh for actual survey
to getting into a few centimeters worth of
accuracy. And that's really to me what that
project kinda spearheaded.
Applications for this technology
have increased exponentially from there. And it can
also be converted into
variety of different file types. So point clouds,
(12:51):
for example,
you can take that same reality mesh and
generate a point cloud dataset from it that's
nice and colorized
and can be utilized in conjunction with whatever
programs you're using that may use point clouds
more efficiently than a reality mesh file type.
So it's just another tool. It's a better
way to understand the built world, and it
(13:12):
just puts more information
at your fingertips
where you need it and when you need
it. Clients have increasingly requested the use of
drones
to offer new perspectives
of their projects and inspect hard to reach
infrastructure.
Carlos Femmer notes that HDR's drone program made
history when they completed the first ever drone
bridge inspection for the Michigan Department of Transportation
(13:35):
in 02/2018.
And the Utah Department of Transportation
first requested drone bridge inspections
last year. With any of these new technologies,
I think there's always a barrier to entry.
Right? And understanding
how it can be used, how it can
be integrated into the client's kinda standard operating
procedures.
And I think, you know, Utah DOT is
(13:57):
probably a great example.
We help them with their bridge inspection program.
And the first time we went out, we
flew 22 bridges
and used drones and reality meshes to do
the actual bridge inspection. As is often the
case, the Utah Department of Transportation
loved what they saw through the eyes or
the lens of a drone. And then what
(14:19):
that
kind of ultimately led into, and I think
this is a natural progression that we see
with many of our clients is they get
used to the data, they get comfortable with
utilizing the data, and you see the opportunity
to expand on it and do more with
it and the time saved and the efficiency.
And that's exactly what happened with Utah DOT.
Because the next year, they came back and
said, we wanna expand the drones for bridge
(14:41):
inspection to well over 750
of our bridges. And I think that's just
something that's gonna continue to grow. Cameron said
one of their more noteworthy inspection projects
took place at the Diablo Dam in North
Cascades National Park between Seattle and Vancouver.
It was the first time Seattle City Light
used a drone for a dam survey. Our
(15:02):
client had come and asked to create this
digital twin or reality mesh of the the
dam, and I think it was first really
looked at for inspection purposes. Essentially,
taking the very adventurous endeavor
of inspecting a 60
foot high dam and making it digital. How
can we limit the amount
(15:22):
of time
spent scaling down the wall of this dam?
And that's where the idea of the reality
mesh came in to deliver this digital twin
of the face of the dam, various different
aspects connecting to it, and being able to
use that mesh to come in and analyze
from your office chair rather than in person
cracks
(15:42):
and monitoring those cracks over time, being able
to take precise measurements of that. We're able
to take that mesh that was produced, learn
from it, train upon it, and use artificial
intelligence and machine learning to automatically point out
where these cracks may be happening and help
to trend them over time. Cameron's team continues
(16:03):
to look for more creative
ways to take the wealth of data collected
by drones and make it even more useful
for clients. You can have all this great
data. You can have terabytes of incredibly rich
data. But if you're turning that over to
the client without the instruction manual on how
to use it and best practices and understanding
the client's needs, how are you gonna use
(16:23):
this data? Which programs are you gonna use
this data for? What's the accuracy that you're
shooting for? Because in a lot of cases,
it's something very easy that we can redeliver
in or change to custom suit their needs.
One of the next logical extensions is to
basically take that dam or bridge and allow
someone to walk around like they're in a
video game
(16:44):
or to allow a client to experience a
proposed facility
in that lifelike virtual world before the design
is complete and construction has begun. In our
industry,
traditionally, we spend so much time building these
incredibly rich models of a three d environment
to replicate the look and the feel and
the surroundings that we're designing into. So when
(17:06):
we hand over the VR or the AR
model to the client, they're able to step
into the world virtually and see that existing
context.
And it immediately relates. Right? Because it looks
and it feels exactly like what is truly
out there. And it really adds a lot
of context and understanding
because it is survey grade accurate
as to how these proposed concepts
(17:28):
truly will identify
and work with the built environment. Which has
become an even more valuable service during a
time with fewer in person meetings and more
clients working remotely. And being able to generate
these highly, highly accurate, very detailed meshes that
can be explored
from anybody's house, whether they've got a VR
headset or we set up a viewer for
(17:50):
them online. Being able to navigate that from
home is it just provides a lot more
detail and kind of that on demand access
of what's
needed. All the rapid technological
advances
make this moment an exciting time in the
industry. I think
similar to what we saw back in the
day when we transitioned from two d plans
(18:12):
to to two d CAD and then transitioning
from two d CAD to three d BIM.
We're constantly in this evolution of how products
are changing, of how we can do more
work, of how we can do better work,
of how we can do more accurate work.
And I think we're kind of in that
next revolution right now of technology, of going
not just from a three d model, but
to an intelligent digital twin.
(18:33):
Right? To a model that is going to
morph and change and live on with the
life cycle of our projects. And I think
the reality mesh is a key component to
that. So I think we're just at that
tipping point right now.
As the end uses of vast amounts of
data evolve,
Carlos Fema said so too will drone technology.
Sensors are truly getting smaller,
(18:55):
less weight, and with increased quality. Prices are
coming down, and that's gonna also help with
new ways of capturing data in the future.
Another aspect is I've been impressed with fixed
wing drones as well. There are some drones
like the Wingtra that take off,
vertical take off and landing,
and I think we're gonna have more automated
(19:16):
flights to enable safer capture of assets.
Yes. Automated.
The future may hold automated drones. With the
actual drone itself in programming
flights, the ability where you have clash detection
and automate flights to keep them safe and
that has the intelligence to try to keep
you away from failing or from crashing, you
(19:38):
have all of those items where those technologies
continue to improve. It's gonna open the door
for more drone pilots,
safer operations,
and, more value for, clients. But as Carlos
adds,
present day is the moment people will look
back on when it comes to the presence
of drone technology
in our lives. I believe people will look
(19:59):
back at this era as the beginning of
the drone era. Drones have been around for
ten years, but it's currently moving rapidly, and
I think it's similar to other technologies. For
example, thinking back to to Bill Gates, he
had a a clear mission,
you know, a computer on every desk and
in every home.
Steve Jobs says something to the effect of
the Internet in your pocket when referring to
(20:21):
the iPhone. So although I do not believe
everyone in the future will own a drone,
I do believe everyone will be impacted by
them.
And if I think
of Amazon package deliveries or lifesaving
medical deliveries,
some of those things will be around that
you don't see today. I believe people are
gonna look back at this era with amazement.
(20:42):
We're still at the infancy stage, and it's
really exciting currently to think about where drones
will be in one year, five years, and
ten years down the road.
For more information on this podcast, visit hdrinc.com/speakingofdesign.
You'll find links to pictures, articles, and more
(21:03):
information about this project.
If you like what you heard, be sure
to rate us or leave feedback on iTunes,
Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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