An interesting commission that took us once again to the underground part of the Old Brno city. The water tanks from the late 19th century, which the city of Brno has decided to reconstruct and open to the public, will be able to comfortably view through their 3D visualization. But first, let's recapitulate the progress of the work.
This year, our company has marked out and measured the main entrance of the staircase of water tower No. 2 and the escape routes of water towers No. 1 and 2. These staircases are already used for guided tours of the reservoirs as part of the "Secret Underground" tour route. During the course of construction, a further requirement arose to delineate and survey the former keeper's house and the connecting underground passage between the house and water tanks 1 and 3.
The actual delineation and surveying were preceded by preparatory work, which included the construction of a delineation network (with a Trimble S5 machine) with connection to S-JTSK (System of Unified Trigonometric Cadastral Network; GNSS method - Trimble R8) and mainly communication with the designer. Since the project was not prepared in the S-JTSK coordinate network, we had to modify the whole project in S-JTSK.
A Trimble X7 scanner was used to scan a water tank of approximately 2050 m2 (44.3 m x 46.3 m x 6 m), where the internal temperature ranged from 13 to 17 °C. This was connected to the S-JTSK with the help of demarcation points from our surveyors.
The actual scanning of the reservoir and surrounding area took 2 days and 200 scanning positions were created. While processing the data, we found that the structure is also very accurate, with a right angle deviation of only 0.19°. At a distance of 46 m, this is only a deviation of about 15 cm. The advantage of this method compared to the classical measurement is the high speed of data collection including the necessary details. In addition, the scanner also takes panoramic photographs and, if necessary, it is possible to verify the obscure location with photographs.
At the current stage of construction, the main construction works are already complete, and finishing works are underway on the construction objects and on the park landscaping in the area of the reservoirs. Everything is being provided by subcontracting companies, for whom we are also laying out and surveying e.g. pavements, public lighting, water connections, power lines, and LV (low voltage) connections.
The public will also be able to view the premises using 3D visualization. Its advantage is of course not only convenience, but the visitor will also "visit" places that are not normally accessible to the public. The entire work was created using game engine technology, which is a sophisticated software framework commonly used in computer games. The process of creating the entire application was based on the C# programming language and was particularly optimized for the web interface through the WebGL standard.
Creating such a complex visualization requires a wide range of knowledge that is typically used in the development of interactive virtual environments. Hard surface modeling refers to the creation of solid structures such as architectural and urban elements. On the other hand, "sculpting" focuses on the creation of organic shapes, which in this case involves the creation of a character. Other aspects such as optimization for the smooth running of the application, user interface (UI/UX) design, and many others are also essential to achieve a quality result.
You can learn more about our services on our BIM3D website.
