Technology

Digital Twins of Buildings

In recent years, the concept of digital twins has gained traction across various industries, and the construction and building management sectors are no exception. For buildings, digital twins provide a powerful tool to improve efficiency, optimize performance, and enhance overall management.

What are Digital Twins of Buildings?

A digital twin is a virtual representation of a physical asset, system, or process that updates and evolves in real-time, mirroring its real-world counterpart. Digital twins for buildings integrate data from sensors, building information modeling (BIM), 3D point clouds, and other sources to create a dynamic, data-rich digital replica of a structure. This model not only includes the physical layout and design of the building but also real-time data on energy usage, occupancy, environmental conditions, and system performance. Through advanced analytics and simulations, stakeholders can monitor, predict, and manage building operations more effectively.

How to create a Digital Twin of a Building?

1. Import and fusion available data: Upload all available 2D drawings, BIM models, point clouds, photos and specifications and connect them to a virtual replica of your building.

2. Create and add additional visualization data: In case your visulization data is outdated or doesn't show the complete view create new visualizations, e.g. with technologies like laser scanning, and adddthem.

3. Connect IoT sensors: Connect your IoT sensors and IoT platforms with your open digital twin platform to enhance your digital twin with real-time data.

4. Integrate systems: Integrate your building management system (BMS), facility management system (CAFM), your ERP system and other solutions with your digital twin platform to connect all your building's data in one place.

5. Customize dashboards and reports: Create dashboards and reports across all data sources and adjust them to your requirements to gain real-time insights about your building's performance.

Stages of a Digital Twin

: Only a static visualization
: Linked with additional data
: Reflects the actual implementation
: Updated with real-time data from IoT sensors
: Reflects responsive action in the physical twin
: Simulates scenarios semi-automatically
: Makes decisions fully autonomously

Benefits of Digital Twins for Building Management

: Digital twins enable building managers to monitor and control systems such as HVAC, lighting, and security in real-time. By identifying inefficiencies and anomalies, digital twins help reduce energy consumption, lower operational costs, and improve system performance.
: With predictive analytics, digital twins can forecast potential equipment failures or maintenance needs. This allows facility managers to perform maintenance before issues arise, minimizing downtime and extending the lifespan of building systems.
: Digital twins provide insights into how spaces within a building are used. By analyzing occupancy patterns, managers can make informed decisions about space allocation, optimize layouts, and ensure that areas are neither underutilized nor overcrowded.
: Digital twins provide a detailed, up-to-date model of a building, making renovation and retrofitting projects more efficient. Architects and engineers can simulate changes and assess their impact before implementation, saving time and resources.
: In the event of emergencies, digital twins offer valuable insights for crisis management. By visualizing real-time data, managers can plan evacuations, assess risks, and coordinate responses more effectively.
: Digital twins provide a detailed, up-to-date model of a building, making renovation and retrofitting projects more efficient. Architects and engineers can simulate changes and assess their impact before implementation, saving time and resources.

How dTwin uses Digital Twins?

dTwin harmonizes and visualizes all your facility’s data in a digital twin. It shows your asset and your asset’s data across its entire lifecycle and lets you customize how you view it. dTwin is technically agnostic. It collects real-time data from any source, format, or device and makes it easy to understand and act on. dTwin delivers insights and tools which enable you to monitor, report, plan, predict and optimize your built assets.

dTwin uses the available data - no matter if there are BIM models or point clouds, photos or 2D drawings - and creates a digital replica of the building. It connects IoT sensors and various systems (BMS, CAFM, ERP, IWMS...) and delivers real-time insights via dashboards, stats, graphs and reports. It simulates and predict scenarios to lead to better decisions. This is how dTwin creates a sensored, responsive and adaptive digital twin of a building.