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Tools that make collaboration easier among A&E firms and their consultants

By Andrew Weeks

This past summer during the coronavirus pandemic, engineering consultants were hindered to get on site to review work at a pump station near Dickinson, N.D. It didn’t take long for engineering firm Bartlett & West to solve the problem: it brought the pump station to its California-based partners – virtually, that is.

The tools used to make this happen went far beyond any Skype or Zoom meeting. By utilizing a program called Matterport, consultants in the Golden State were able to do a virtual, three-dimensional walk-thru of the North Dakota project almost as if they were onsite. This benefitted both parties in several ways: It saved time, travel expense, and allowed participants to remain in their home offices during the global pandemic.

“It’s really been a game changer,” especially during these times, said Mike Van Duyne, project manager with Bartlett & West. He said the company, which has 18 offices across the Midwest, including his office in Bismarck, adopted Matterport in late 2019 and his only regret is that his team didn’t start using it sooner.

That seems to be the consensus of several regional architecture, construction and engineering firms about the newer technologies they have adopted. That adoption rate seems to keep swinging upward as more firms discover the benefits of using these technological collaboration tools.

They say it is important that their team members and consultants and clients are all on the same page, and some of the newer technology programs aim to do just that.

Bartlett & West uses Matterport, while Hagstrom Engineering and Sandman Structural Engineers, for instance, use a program called BIM 360.

“I can’t see why people wouldn’t use it,” Van Duyne said of Matterport, explaining its benefits.

Matterport, a spatial data program produced by a company with the same name, utilizes smart cameras that capture 360-degree views of a project. Depending on how advanced the camera is that a user adopts, the more detailed images captured, even going so far as getting the measurements of a room.

“We can scan a site, do multiple rooms, multiple floors – there are all sorts of things within a scan that we can do – and once we upload that to Matterport it takes all of those photos and stitches them together in what’s called a digital twin,” Van Duyne said. “And that’s exactly what it is, a digital twin of the space we just scanned.”

He said the company uses the program for all types of building projects – industrial, institutional, and even residential.

Once the virtual twin has been created it is uploaded to Matterport, and 3D models with a web address are available within 12 to 24 hours. That hyperlink is then sent to team members to view the project. They can click around in various locations within the imagery, technologically moving about the building – a virtual walk-thru of the project.

“It’s the same old adage here: you’re utilizing technology to make things faster and more efficient, which is driving down costs for clients as well as making our projects more cost-effective and profitable,” Van Duyne said. “Bartlett & West prides itself on utilizing technology and staying up with the latest technology on behalf of efficiencies for our clients. I think that has always been helpful, and we’re utilizing those technologies to not only make our lives as design professionals easier but for our clients as well. It’s about helping our communities and clients improve for a better tomorrow.”

Patric McCoy, structural technician and computer drafter at Sandman Structural Engineers in Moorhead, Minn., said collaboration among team members and consultants is paramount in his work. That’s why he uses a program called BIM 360, which he said is all about making collaboration better.

A DESKTOP IMAGE OF BIM 360, USED BY HAGSTROM ENGINEERING. THE COMPANY ONLY RECENTLY STARTED USING THE PROGRAM, AND COMPANY OWNER MATT HAGSTROM SAYS IT HAS MADE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE AS FAR AS BEING ABLE TO BETTER COLLABORATE WITH CONSULTANTS. IMAGE: COURTESY OF MATT HAGSTROM

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