Digital twins are a mystery to the majority, yet almost everyone has seen or used a version of a digital twin in the past– often without realizing it. If you’ve watched a home improvement show where they create a digital representation showing what the room or the house will look like once they have knocked down all the walls and added furniture, that is–at its most basic representation–a digital twin. Here’s another example: Have you ever built a house and used a 3D design software to create that design? That too is a digital twin, in a very basic form.
The Digital Twin Consortium defines a digital twin as “...an integrated data-driven virtual representation of real-world entities and processes, with synchronized interaction at a specified frequency and fidelity.” I personally prefer Jon Polly’s definition from a 2021 Business Magazine article: “Digital twins are a digital representation of a physical asset that can be interacted with throughout the entire lifecycle – design, build, operation, and refresh.”
Versioned and Interactive
Digital twins of a building or floor plan, can now be referred to as a “living floor plan” solution, are the basis for the most interactive digital twins. Digital twins are one of the most pivotal implementations in a digital transformation initiative because they take the physical representation of an asset – a piece of equipment, a building, a campus – and create a versioned and interactive digital representation. The key here is versioned and interactive.
Imagine building a house, school or company headquarters. The builder provides the owner with a set of 2D blueprints as the final deliverable. As the owner, if any work was done to the property (asset) after the fact, did anyone go back and update the blueprints to show that a wall was knocked down, a window was added or new cable runs were put into a wall? Probably not. This is where versioning comes into play. Versioning is where a building’s living digital floor plan is updated in real-time – not just the physical walls and windows, allowing living floor plans to capture technology additions, change orders, deletions, refreshes, and more with simple mouse clicks – not a trained CAD or Revit designer.
Digital twin technology should empower the everyday person to create interactive, living floor plans independently and share them seamlessly across all device types, streamlining design and planning while reducing costly on-site adjustments.
First, there needs to be a three-dimensional (3D) representation of the building. This can be as basic or detailed as needed from walls, windows, floors, and ceilings to engineering accuracy representations. There are many professional softwares that can help create the 3D floor plan. There are also LiDAR scanning drones that can scan (to BIM) an engineering level of accuracy, the sewage piping and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) ductwork. Physical camera(s), 360° cameras, LiDAR, Building Information Model (BIM) clouds, and thermal imaging can provide context to the representation.
At this stage, you have a visually stunning digital representation of the assets, but it does not fully meet the requirements for a digital twin. While the model or point cloud provides detailed visuals, they generally lack interactivity and they are difficult to share. In the physical building, respective teams can view security cameras, adjust IoT sensors, reboot servers, and control lighting or HVAC systems. A versioned digital twin – through a living floor plan – creates that same level of interaction in a digital environment. Now, think back to that paper blueprint. How do teams collaborate “inside” that document in real time? Typically, it involves a large conference room table and lots of people huddled over the drawings flipping dog-eared pages, coordinating across multiple trades. But what if those same teams could step inside a living version of the floor plan – much like a multiplayer video game? In this dynamic model, key stakeholders – securities, facilities, IT, and others – become the “players” navigating the platform autonomously. Each participant can interact with different layers of the digital twin, making real-time adjustments, coordinating workflows, and troubleshooting issues before deployment.
By gamifying the digital twin into an interactive living floor plan, stakeholders streamline installation workflows which reduces deployment errors and improves efficiency. Living floor plans provide substantial time savings, efficiency gains, and cost reductions for multiple teams involved in the design, estimation, sales, construction, and management teams – transforming how buildings are planned and executed.
The Why
Why are digital twins so popular? Aside from the fact that dog-eared prints get torn, lost, and absolutely changed? Aside from the fact that technologies have advanced to a point where we can interact with the digital versions with the same ease as we can the physical versions? Aside from the company mandates of digital transformation and business intelligence outcomes? Aside from government officials mandating digital twin sharing of school floor plans to first responders? Aside from being able to perform tabletop exercises to run virtual security drills, train staff on emergency responses within a 3D replica of the building, and manage the complete connected building systems from one interface?
Interactive 3D digital twins will be the embodiment of a “single pane of glass”, hosting disparate yet connected systems in real time.
The reality in most organizations is that stakeholder groups operate in silos. A change made in one department may have unintended consequences for another – but without cross-team communication, these impacts often go unnoticed until they become costly problems. Here’s an example: Numerous professionals touch buildings every day, from maintenance, asset tracking, security, events, parking…and a slew of other location or space related projects. Now, imagine each team being able to use the 3D digital twin of the building to facilitate their respective projects and contribute the changes to the core template floor plan. The floor plan evolves with the building and becomes a central hub or source of truth. Now, overlay real time data to a single dashboard and you have a game changer that speeds up every project, saves lives by providing vital building information to first responders and quite possibly increases the value of the property.
This is where a living floor plan changes the conversation. Think back to the video game analogy. In a multiplayer video game, each teammate is operating on the same map for the combined outcome of teamwork and winning. What if businesses could do the same?
A living floor plan platform offers users the ability to layer disparate technologies inside one platform, giving them the ability to interact with technologies in real-time, with network-connected technologies, BACnet, and MQTT connectivity. These interactions can be through layering technologies, where the user can see all systems and how they work together; preventing a simple change in temperature from creating a damaging effect on servers. By gaining a holistic view of how systems interact across the entire portfolio, stakeholders can recognize significant return on investment (ROI) opportunities – both in hard costs and soft costs, where systems working in tandem can add value to other disparate systems. Living floor plan users typically see approximately a 50% reduction in time spent on facility maintenance planning which means faster access to infrastructure layouts, 30% fewer emergency maintenance visits because they can remotely diagnose and troubleshoot issues virtually, and a 20-30% increase in stakeholder satisfaction due to better building navigation and faster issue resolution.
Saving our Future
According to Security.org, as of April 2024, since the Columbine school shooting in 1999, “more than 400 school shootings have taken place, exposing over 370,000 students to gun violence”. Columbine, Colorado was a defining moment in the history of our nation; much like that of the JFK assassination, the Challenger explosion, and the 9/11 Tower attack. The 400+ shootings have become less and less shocking to the nation, though all tragic to the families and the communities.
The tactics of the sheriff’s officers at Columbine were called into question, because they did as the policy advised; set up a perimeter, hold, and wait for Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT). This was a decision that ultimately cost additional lives. If you were a police officer, being sworn in just a few years after the 1999 Columbine shooting, the tactics changed. Rapid Emergency Deployment (RED) training was mandatory for all police officers before completing Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET). RED Training required that once three officers were on site of an active shooter scenario to enter the building and take the fight to the active shooter(s). Time is indeed of the essence.
RED Training is not inherently wrong; however, it involves police officers running into a potentially unknown facility and using only the sense of hearing to run towards the threat. Yes, this needs to be done, because time is indeed of the essence. But can it also be agreed upon that situational awareness can be provided in tandem? That is where systems like digital twins come into play. Imagine every school having a living floor plan solution that can stay updated weekly, monthly or quarterly with all pertinent and vital building information easily accessible, instantly sharable and ready to use for practical training. For example, living floor plans can be used to train staff and facilities in ALICE protocol simulations and emergency response drills. By integrating these living models, teams can practice navigation, coordination and crisis management, enhancing preparedness and response times in real-world scenarios. Now imagine if you can stream in live camera feeds into a real time 3D digital twin? Response times when on-site could see a major improvement. IC could radio to boots on the ground more specific commands, access and unlock doors, track cleared spaces more effectively and ultimately get to people in need faster.
The Movement Needs Momentum
There has been a movement across the United States, gaining momentum in the wake of each school shooting, to provide emergency services such as public safety, fire, and emergency medical services with digital maps and/or blueprints of the school facilities.
The problem is that updated drawings often don’t exist; and if they are in existence they’re often difficult to locate, increasing emergency response times, according to a 2022 GovTech report. The issue, according to security consultant David Corr is that “wrong information is even worse than the lack of information”. The push, being led at the state level and in conjunction with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, is to ensure a digital map of every school lives in a cloud-hosted repository and is made available for emergency services on their field devices.
But while the need is clear, the movement lacks momentum. Only a small handful of states have mandated this, with many states making compliance with a digital map repository voluntary.
This is where living floor plans become expressly effective. Out-of-date floor plans can be revived with new three-dimensional technologies. They can be updated at a set frequency, at potentially a fraction of an architect’s cost to version a CAD or REVIT file. They can be interactive, where emergency services can open the model and see where the victims are and where the active shooter(s) are, directing RED responses to the appropriate locations simultaneously. Because living floor plans are truly digital technologies, they can be hosted in a way that the school district and its agents can utilize the living floor plan, but the same living floor plan can be shared with a county or statewide repository of school maps and floor plans for real-time interaction.
The outcome of technologies like this is faster and safer solutions for de-escalating the active shooter(s) and providing faster aid to victims. Living floor plans enhance situational awareness and reduce response times by providing an interactive 3D command center from multiple locations, remotely or onsite; providing immediate incident command to police and school administration, in real-time.
Facing the Problem
The problem historically has been that digital twin technologies of this magnitude would cost tens of thousands of dollars in equipment and man-hours. And, unfortunately, some still do.
However, digital twin technologies can now create functional floor plans within minutes – and at a fraction of the cost. Add in interactive technologies such as location services, field-of-view calculations, and IP connectivity to systems completed at a fragment of the time and cost of digital twins of years gone past. While the requirement is to provide accurate floor plans for all our schools, the goal should be to provide accurate and currently versioned three-dimensional digital maps to emergency services. Providing this with interactive capabilities for similar pricing provides emergency services with valuable information necessary to regain control of the school and render aid faster.
No blueprint, living floor plan, or digital twin will stop an active shooter, but it will make the response faster and safer for all parties – an outcome that cannot be argued with.
Continue the Conversation
If you found this piece insightful, I invite you to follow me on LinkedIn as I continue to unpack the value and drive momentum toward the future of 3D digital twins and usher in a “living” floor plan solution that can be utilized as a Building Operating System or what I call (BOS).
- Timber Barker: CEO/Founder @ Boom Interactive Inc.
Timber Barker is the CEO and founder of Boom Interactive, a Salt Lake City based software company on a mission to enable rapid 3D modeling of floor plans and provide a disruptive real time solution for the masses. His mission: Every building, every team now has a opp ready, accessible, 3D communication platform for buildings and projects tied to them, especially ones that impact public and school safety.