The capital of Finland first tested city modeling as long back as 1987. But the most recent model of the Kalasatama district demonstrates the new state-of-the-art possibilities of this technology: creation of a highly accurate digital twin of the city.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My hosts, Helsinki\u2019s With 3D glasses on, I was able to experience the unrealized city plan made by Eliel Saarinen<\/strong>, the father of the world-renowned architect Eero Saarinen<\/strong>. The virtual model in question was a digitized version of a huge physical model from 1915. Being able to stroll the streets and fly over the roofs of the imagined city really made me understand how awesome the original design was. I had seen a scale model of this same plan while it was laid in the foyer of the Museum of Finnish Architecture many years ago, but this experience was quite different.<\/p>\n The makers Helsinki Architect Jarmo Helsinki Kalasatama is a new seaside district being developed in Helsinki. A smart city project called Fiksu Kalasatama<\/em> has been experimenting with smart services in collaboration with the residents, businesses, and other stakeholders in the area. Helsinki 3D+ and Forum Virium, an innovation unit of the city, joined forces to serve the needs of the experimenters through the development and use of digital twins.<\/p>\n The Kalasatama \u201cWe created CityGML is Digital One of the key results from the KIRA-digi project was the documentation of the model creation and utilization process. The project team have described the process and use cases in a comprehensive project report that is going to be made available online, both in Finnish and English<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur Because the My hosts Helsinki \u201cWhat we\u2019ve done here in Helsinki has aroused interest in cities around the world. We\u2019re facing the same challenges of climate change and the quality of life as they are, \u201csays Suomisto. \u201cWe\u2019re not competitors in a business sense. Instead, we\u2019re networking and collaborating with other cities and sharing our work with open data standards and open source tools with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n To learn more about Helsinki 3D+ and to experience the city models, visit<\/em> https:\/\/www.hel.fi\/helsinki\/en\/administration\/information\/general\/3d\/3d<\/a><\/p>\n UPDATE: <\/strong>You can now download the report The Kalasatama Digital Twins Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n The images are courtesy of the city of Helsinki.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\ncity modeling specialists Jarmo Suomisto<\/strong> and Enni Airaksinen<\/strong>, showed me their
\nlatest projects. One of them offered a glimpse of history through a lens of the
\nfuture.<\/p>\n
\nof the virtual Saarinen model, the Helsinki 3D+ team, used the same technique
\nas they would use with a real-sized city. They took 3000 photos and programmatically
\nturned them into a point cloud and further into a triangular mesh. In the case
\nof digitizing the real Helsinki, an airplane took over 42,000 pictures at 1.2
\nkilometers height, all with astounding accuracy. The length of a pixel in those
\nphotos equated to 7.5 centimeters (3 inches) on the ground.<\/p>\n![\"-\"](\"https:\/\/aec-business.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Saarinen-city-plan.jpg\")
The Helsinki 3D+ Team<\/h2>\n
\n3D+ is an ICT development project that was started in 2015. It is now a
\nfull-time job for a team of three mavens.<\/p>\n
\nSuomisto and Kari Kaisla<\/strong> have
\njointly over 60 years of experience in 3D modeling and geospatial information
\nmanagement. Kaisla created the first comprehensive model of Helsinki back in
\n2001. Enni Airaksinen, City Model Specialist and MSc, joined the team recently
\nafter graduating from the Aalto University. She\u2019s one of the few CityGML
\nspecialists in Finland.<\/p>\n
\n3D+ is not a traditional city survey or planning service. It is a tool that can
\ncollaborate across all multiple functions of the city for whenever the use of a
\ncity model could provide value. Suomisto mentions education and social services
\nas two examples. \u201cCity models are not just PR. They have a role to play in
\nsolving universal urban problems,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n![\"-\"](\"https:\/\/aec-business.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Helsinki3Dplus-team.jpg\")
The Kalasatama Project<\/h2>\n
\ndigital twin project got funding from KIRA-digi, the national digitalization
\nprogram of the Finnish government. The project team worked full time for over a
\nhalf year to complete five critical tasks, namely to:<\/p>\n\n
\nKalasatama development.<\/li>\n
\nexperiments that are part of the Fiksu Kalasatama project.<\/li>\n
\nthose related to CityGML.<\/li>\n
\nthe city\u2019s processes and services.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
\ntwo city models, for which we used the very latest technologies available. The
\nfirst one is a triangular mesh that is more detailed than the comprehensive
\nHelsinki model. The other is a CityGML model. We included several new themes,
\nlike planned buildings and bridges,\u201c Airaksinen explains. \u201cIt is possible to
\nexpand the same processes to cover the whole city in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\na global standard established by OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). It is a
\nsemantic, expandable information model that can describe objects\u2014e.g.,
\nbuildings and building parts\u2014and their relationships in a hierarchical
\nstructure. CityGML makes the model \u201cintelligent,\u201d rather than just a three-dimensional
\nrepresentation of the reality.<\/p>\n![\"CityGML](\"https:\/\/aec-business.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Kalasatama-CityGML-Architecture.jpg\")
<\/a>
\ntwins are also a hot topic in building construction and operations. Combining
\ncity and building digital twins in the same model would make sense, but is not
\nstraightforward. Current BIM and GIS standards don\u2019t support this union, and
\nSuomisto predicts it may take years before it happens.<\/p>\nMany Uses<\/h2>\n
\nprimary purpose was not to create virtual entertainment or pretty pictures. Our
\naim was to increase the understanding of various phenomena and issues; to
\nsimulate, anticipate, and optimize,\u201d Suomisto proclaims.<\/p>\n
\ndigital twin data is open for anyone to use, the city and businesses alike can
\ncreate new services based on it. Helsinki\u2019s Energy and Climate Atlas, for
\nexample, uses the million semantic surfaces of 80,000 buildings to calculate
\nand visualize the city\u2019s solar energy potential.<\/p>\n
\nalso showed how they used digital wind analysis software to assess the effect
\nof wind on the high-rise buildings of Kalasatama. The software can replace
\ncostly wind tunnel analyses and is already used in the auto industry.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n3D+ had earlier created a portal to visualize Kalasatama development projects.
\nCitizens could study the area in 3D and add feedback with a mobile device. The
\nsame system is now used in other projects as well.<\/p>\n