20 Benefits of Big Integrated 3D Models - for Big Projects and even Bigger Places.

Integrated 3D Models by Urban Circus are different to most BIM and CAD models. Urban Circus integrates all the parts, in their spatial and natural environment at the 'precinct' scale. Some call this PIM or NIM (Precinct or Neighbourhood i-models).

If you have not heard of BIM, PIM, NIM, CIM etc - don't worry - the below still clicks for any busy client running big busy projects and big places, like precincts and campuses. You just need to know the term 3D - that means three dimensional, as in X-Y-Z space (up, down and sideways lets say). There is 4D and 5D and .... but it is best to walk before you can run, and there is a lot of walking to do.

3D has been around for a while, and there are lots of 3D chairs, rooms, houses, buildings and civil projects these days. And there is even some 3D on Apple/Google Maps and various digital globes including GIS-backed spaces. The trouble is this 3D is disaggregated, small scale, lacks accuracy or detail, is real hard to use or get to. 3D has been largely expensive, useless or promo iCandy.

But remember the convergent technologies that created the iPhone in 2007? You didn't know you needed an iPhone until you played with the iPhone. Right? Same.

There's been 1000 barriers to make 3D really fly, but over a decade Urban Circus has built 100 bridges. And now there's this online service that delivers you to any connected screen a 'Falcon Big' (as Elon Musk says) integrated 3D model of 'everything that matters' live to your eyes with apps and plugins to give you the power.

While we don't have Circus Tents (Apple Stores) everywhere, we do have the internet and you can contact Urban Circus for a (free, 15min) live demo right from your desktop, laptop or phablet - wherever you be. Firewalls or computer power are no problem. You just do this to play with the iModel:

1. Connect to >20Mbps internet (4G/wifi/cabled - like a phone as hotspot). Remember your phone/tablet is already connected to 4G - so its a good start.
2. Click a link we send you (via email, text). Opens in any browser in 15s. You now see the show. Include anyone else from anywhere else in the same virtual session.
3. Have voice connection for instructing and conversation (eg phone on speaker/headphones, conference calls good).

We have a person on the other end doing the driving as you instruct. We respond and build etc in real time 3D right in front of you.

Here is the list. I can't illustrate it because the formatting on this platform loses the numbering - but there's plenty of pictures and videos as evidence on my other posts and this article on When 3D Is Not (Useful) 3D.

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20 Benefits for Integrated 3D Models and Systems

1. Win Investment, Projects & Funding with 3D: You are competing for attention and money. You need to explain your business case, demonstrate your competence or face losing. Losing opportunity, losing money, losing face and losing to that other mob! With 3D and visual you content our clients gain support, influence policy and people to their advantage every day. They attract funding and investment. One recent example was a government client winning a $200m investment from the minister when before they just could not explain why that other, cheaper $20m project, would not fix the problem (Today, the minister just says - "thank goodness (sic) someone is explaining to me now what is going on"). Educate and inspire funders, investors and adjudicators on the workings of the project with technology so clear it doesn't seem like tech. No helmets, facemasks or cables required - just click in and be immersively informed. When confidence increases, money flows as you demonstrate the integration and depth of your thinking.
2. Engage Stakeholders inside 3D: Most clients and their organisations spend well over 20% of their time in this 'stakeholder management' space. Explaining and re-explaining what's going on here. Often to a skeptical audience. And often using two different languages. Now, everyone gets it, instantly. No matter their culture, experience or background. It is universally intuitive. Save >80% in 'comprehension time' for all audiences.
3. Personally Instantly Respond in 3D: "But how is it from that/my house" - is a typical question that conventionally may take months to generate. This creates inertia and anxiety, which makes the phone ring to the CEO or minister's office. Which makes your life hell. Now, personalised, customised, interactive presentations to investors, clients, stakeholders, communities, neighbours and operative staff to show them exactly what they want/need to know - is instantly available from the one mega 3D interactive model. Win the sweet sound of silence and progress.
4. Emergency and Crisis Response in 3D: When the proverbial hits the fan - how long does it take to respond. To plan and test a scenario, and rescue the innocent? The military are into Urban Circus 3D models because they can measure height, check sniper angles into and from every door and window, and be giving the 'kickers and shooters' the exact info they need in split seconds, in full 3D. This saves lives. A recent military use, for example, is highlighting the inbound stealth chopper shadow to the time of day so the bad guys can't see us coming from our footprint. Simulate emergency scenarios simply and instantly. Respond when a scenario happens in full 3D in seconds and minutes. Whether in a tunnel, on a mountain side, in a shop in the city or a synagogue in the suburbs, or a major sporting event. Urban Circus 3D Models get you planning and communicating in real-space faster than a speeding bullet. To not be using this tech may now actually be negligent.
5. Complex Construction and Logistics 3D Planning: Errors found via virtual construction reduce real construction costs on-site. Many now know this. Save clashes/misses and logistical oversights not only within elements, but across interfaces where most of the risk is with 'fuzzy' or overlapping responsibilities. Uncover process inefficiencies and innovations by testing the logic real early. Sometimes you don't need to drill down to the nth degree, just the first layer or two and answers naturally fall out. The more constrained the environment - such as with 'invisible' spatial criteria (eg distances from live tracks, cables, conductors, limitation surfaces, planning criteria, cross-flows...) - the more you save working this way. If you are working in rail or infrastructure maintenance - the transformation will blow socks off.
6. Construction and Site 3D Management: Once you are onsite, with dozens-hundreds of workers running about, or running a large event with a mega-audience, plus changing weather and supply logistics, communicating and managing in 3D saves time and risk. On horizontal construction projects, daily-weekly drone captures of photomesh are captured, and now slip into high performance models integrating the design. For major events, like Gallipoli in Turkey, our clients instruct all the media teams, have 3D wayfinding for all visitors, tweak seating arrangements, and manage the "VVIP" visitors and their private medical/manicure entourage plus sniper teams. Truly. Bringing it all together in one interactive 3D to get and give all the answers to those thousands of questions and conflicts in a jiffy saves a whole lot of trouble at the coalface.
7. Rapid Inductions in 3D: Recruitment including induction is one of the critical success factors of organisations and projects. And it takes time and effort. But now, our clients say what took days and weeks to inform newbies (including visitors) about a project or site now takes a morning in a full 3D immersive environment. New staff are productive in a fraction of the time, and (probably) with better retention of information thanks to the engaging nature of interactive 3D rather than wordatious reports, manuals and checklists. Yawn. Why not take it up a level and gamify induction? Our clients do driver induction on phablets, to emergency response simulations and instruction visual documents. They are sometimes accompanied with simple questions and answers, or even on-screen point-and click quizzes. Simple is usually best.
8. Increase Sophistication and Subtlety via 3D: Isn't it annoying when two adjaciences were clearly not thought of together? The bus stop in the middle of the footpath. The two footpaths missing each other by a metre. A new bridge that doesn't quite fit the busses underneath because they forgot about the inclines (truly). It is embarrassing when on your watch. Elements always become more integrated, multi-purpose and responsive from animated integrated interactive 3D visibility. The earlier you do 3D integration out in the open, the less embarrassment and annoyance you'll get. Not only this - you will get more magic. Clients win nuanced, emergent phenomena that occurs due to the intertwining of functionalities rather than the clunky segregated specialist approach. Clients even start thinking about soffits, usually a forgotten space, because our 3D cameras easily let you see under things like bridges and structures. SLOAP disappears (“Space Left Over After Planning”). No missed desire lines. No wasted/conflicted space. More stuff in less space to leave more space for the right stuff - which is often good quality mini-spaces.
9. Gain Control from 3D: Don't you hate feeling powerless at those presentations and meetings? Especially if that other crew has flashier eye-candy that has the attention of the big cheese. Your words/CAD plan just won't cut it - but you know its right and it will put a dent in the universe. Dammit. Our clients find that she who controls the big 3D interactive model gets to drive the process. Any assertion tested, questions answered - right now. You have the ultimate BS filter, and your nemeses will be terrified. Difficult consultants often say "there goes our job". They are wrong of course - most designers make their money from detailed documentation. Our clients make their money from leading from the front, ideating, integrating and/or implementing the right solution, fast. With Urban Circus models, our clients win disproportionate levels of control and access right up to the top table. Very good for career growth. Some of our clients have gone from Line Manager to CEO in a few short years.
10. Manage Upward with 3D: Getting the attention of the top brass is hard enough - then explaining complex integrations, impacts and consequences to those from a different background, and with a mountain of distractions around them - you have to be good. Outstandingly good. This now takes takes a fraction of the time - making their lives easier and making you look like a hero of clarity in the age of cacophony. Information is demystified from specialist hieroglyphics and wordatious reports. Making it simple and clear gives you the ear of the most senior people - those who matter. A typical client story (this one in the public sector) is: We could not get an audience with the minister previously; now with Urban Circus support, we see him weekly and our influence has grown to build a whole new future-focused department.
11. 3D Briefings and Instructions: So you told him/her to do X, and they did Y. Or X +/- 1. Or didn't synchronise X with Z. And the repercussions flow on and on... Ouch. Any misinterpretation can cost you dearly. Our clients avoid any chance of misunderstanding or miscommunication because they visually instantly demonstrate exactly how it is to be, and maybe how it is not to be, in full colour 3D. A semi-literate child can understand it. And this comes at no extra cost when they did the thinking, the planning and integration in the 3D portal. Now you just point and click and show how you want it to be in hyper-real 3D. You mark-up (squiggly pen), comment and email/MMS to their phone. They absolutely get it now. One click was all it took.
12. Reduce Variations and Contingencies by using 3D: Variations often cost projects/organisations an extra 20%. In some sectors 50% contingencies are added. Firstly this might alert you to who is dis-incentivised to want a big, clear, interactive 3D model so there are less variations. Someone gets that money. Mistakes and variations are often too difficult to talk about it because there is mud on face. And we are a polite species in general. But if you really want to reduce variations and contingency, and this is the Big BIM Promise ("5 new schools for the price of 4"). BIM is fine, but it's deep and heavy and technical and massive. It is for technicians. Your BIM, if you have it, needs to feed into an integrated 3D environment so you can actually see it and drive around it like Grand Theft Auto (that's a computer game). Variations and RFIs evaporate like the morning dew on a clear day. The sun comes out, and you have time to go to the beach after work.
13. Fewer Dead-Ends Starting with 3D: Clients get so frustrated with the separation of 'idea' to 'testing the idea'. Our clients are real smart. They are experienced, have done the years on the floor and know how it all fits together. But then they had to say - OK lets get that idea (you drew on a whiteboard/napkin) tested. That will be 6 months and how much?! And then the 'experts' come in and tell you 27 other ideas, that probably don't work, but need to be tested following the 'design process'. And then the tests failed - by metres - and they say - that's all part of the process. Argh. Now you have magic hands behind the magic screen - that's Urban Circus. Clients call us up and test their ideas right there and then - an on-ramp here, a new path there, assets moved over there, move the this to thence - take a snapshot, try a different version, repeat. After a few hours/days of this - you have verified to planning level 1-2 really good concepts into their context, and now you send them as a brief for detailed analysis to the technical experts. 12 months and a whole lot of frustration saved. More energy gets into the smarter ideas. More gets done.
14. User Responsive Design by 3D testing: Too often design has been functionally correct, but difficult from the user/human perspective, especially at interfaces. One example was the tram overpass, already in construction drawings, we were asked to just visualise to communicate to the community - who could not understand the scale and integration. With stairs as designed in place, hiding places for nefarious types to conceal and capture are easily seen, amongst other things. The client is horrified and says, as they always do "why didn't we have you earlier". Happily, swiss cheese holes were sliced into concrete walls to ensure all was safe and open for our (especially female) commuters. Lives are saved. Doing your planning in responsive, integrated, contextualised 3D gets even the most functionalist designers and engineers instantly seeing the human scale and avoids brutal, difficult, stupid, embarrassing, unsafe outcomes that are all too common.
15. Fast Optioneering in 3D: Making decisions between options can be slow and painful to understand from all angles. But so too is developing those options. These two processes are called 'optioneering' and Urban Circus have become masters of this science. Fully integrated, animated design options with live single-click comparisons from any vantage point whilst driving/walking etc gives not only fast, sophisticated analytical prowess, but faster decision making with eyes wide open. The tools used to develop the options reduce engineering and development planning times by months, clients say.
16. Integrated 3D Design and Comms: One system works for planning and design review, auditing, technical internal and external communications and even external communications. Increase your communication quality and frequency, saving you lots of friction and giving you more influence, whilst saving on communication content development costs.
17. 3D Integrated Dashboard: Some clients tell us of the wonderful 20Gb BIM model they have received of the one building (out of 20) that takes an hour to open on a special computer that only that person can use - and it crashes most times. Others say how every sub-project (eg building) is in a different drawer/format/person's head. Building a system and workflow that creates one interactive, accurate, integrated 3D model of all these goings-ons from utilities to railways, terrain surfaces, proposals approved and under consideration, all to 0-100mm accuracy (independent of detail) across one to thousands of square kilometres in an online, 30 frames per second format is obviously attractive. Smart clients like the whole picture, to see the whole landscape to orchestrate all the pieces and how they interact.
18. Reduce Legal Costs from 3D: Disputes and legal wrangling is never fun, highly wasteful of time and money. The more ambiguity and 'room for interpretation' then the more costs for disputes and legal bills can go up. Clients tell us time after time - the costs of disagreements and disputes, negotiations and 'getting on the same page, plummet. Fall off a cliff. It is all the things that don't happen. The phone doesn't ring, letters don't get sent to your boss, variations don't get requested; 'they' don't answer back - because the now information is irrefutable and intuitive. Not even an idiot would argue against it. You can leave audit trails in full 3D of historical considerations. You can create visual 'contracts' - if you think of the interactive 3D as a new form of 'document' (a source of information), then that sounds like it is the 21st Century. Many clients call it the 'single source of truth'.
19. Reduce Meetings Quantity. Improve Quality with 3D: Busy productive people hate wasteful meetings. They especially dislike repeating the same meeting again and again; or a meeting with 12 consultants on $400/hour where nothing is decided, or a giving a 30 minute presentation that people just don't remember much of. Meeting after meeting after meeting. When these clients turn to our visual 3D products, they never look back. In cultural change management, what took 20 meetings now took a singular 20 minute meeting and you left a few images or a 2-minute video and got 70% penetration. In major projects, the 5-10 planned meetings per stakeholder across issues becomes only one meeting - they understand and give instant feedback. Clients fall off their chair at first. Our Integrated 3D models and products brings it all together, evaporates confusion and miscommunication. This saves your time and sanity, and reduces costs. 
20. Less Real Site Visits by Doing it in 3D: Clients tell us of times they had to fly across the country for a 30 minute meeting to explain a simple situation to a designer. Or even fly several representatives to another country for a meeting about moving a pole a couple of metres. Most clients just save the effort of going on-site with a good context model from LiDAR and photomesh. Indeed, they say they get 10x more information from the integration workflow because they can see from every vantage on ground plane and above. You can do the algebra on: #site visits x hours (don't forget preparation) x labour costs + expenses.

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Does this help in your business cases, justifications, returns on investment analyses and convincing arguments? Let me know via comment or msg. Just one of these 20 Benefits going from wrong to right for you could be a big RoI.

Too often one innovator/experienced client has to convince the laggards, the cynics, the over-confidants and inexperienced, the "we can do it all ourself-ers", the financial controllers... and which line item does 'integration' fit into anyway?

Because of these difficulties of innovation - is why we offer any number of online free live demos. This de-risks the situation and lets you test that the dream really is real. And then you can dip your toe in the water with a pilot.

Just ping Urban Circus for a free online demo / call and a very helpful, cheery person will be right back in touch with you to set up a session.