"Design, Test and Build First Digitally"

The City of Helsinki published a report of the Kalasatama Digital Twins Project a few months ago. The report explains the process of generating Digital Twins for promoting the planning, implementation, interaction and communication of Smart City projects in the Kalasatama region.

The main goal of the Kalasatama project was to generate a very accurate digital twin of the Kalasatama area (a district on the eastern side of Helsinki's city center). The reality models serve as a platform for designing, testing, applying and servicing the entire life-cycle of the built environment, as well as smart city development.

"An accurate, up-to-date model of an existing city structure and the future plans will enable the development of processes, practices and services based on 3D technology. Digital twin models at their best realize this idea of planning, testing and building things digitally first."

The project was divided in 5 different milestones:

1. Production of the Twin Models.
2. Sharing the Twin Models as Open Data
3. Twin models as a Smart Development Platform
4. Twin Models as a Simulation Platform
5. Twin Models in City Processes

Bentley Systems' solutions played a key role in the accomplishment of the project. The Digital Twin models were produced using Bentley Systems's ContextCapture. ContextCapture allows generation of engineering-ready 3D models.

"The modelling was quite straightforward because the user of ContextCapture was only responsible for defining the settings, preparatory actions and quality assessment. The photorealistic mesh model from Kalasatama was a particularly accurate replica of the real world (...)".

Bentley's OpenCities Planner was the application chosen to build the virtual platform for Smart Kalasatama. OpenCities Planner (Agency 9), enables visualization, communication and collaboration of 2D and 3D assets in a very intuitive and easy-to-use web platform.

"The model platform enables advanced digital design, testing and communication of projects before their actual implementation".

The platform was tested for several applications such as crowd-sourcing. And interactive survey was implemented to understand "what local people in the area would recommend to visitors, and what kind of SMART applications they currently use".

Another interesting application performed with OpenCities Planner is Shadow Analysis. The picture below highlights the Shadow Analysis of the Kalasatama Park on the 21st of December and 21st of March, at different hours. This study aimed to evaluate the impact that proposed constructions have on sun light. "Based on the analysis it can be seen the park receives sunlight even at the darkest time of the year".

"OpenCities Planner produces visual data that is very easy to review. With a few clicks, the selected planned buildings can be removed or added to the analysis."

The report is thorough, objective and covers not only the benefits but also the pain points of workflow and the different applications used. Doanload the full Kalasatama Digital Twins Report here.

Although the team in conservative in measuring the success, in my opinion, the project is a gigantic leap forward into how Digital Twins can impact asset management and development.