Better Justify Design Decisions
Waterschap Brabantse Delta uses Connec2 to give end users more focus on the operability and maintainability of components
More Focus on Operability and Maintainability
The construction department of Waterschap Brabantse Delta uses Connec2 to give end users a clear understanding of what is going to be built. For visualizing their first design in VR, they had a session organized and supervised by Connec2. After this experience, they started working with Connec2 themselves.
The construction department is responsible for all new construction and renovation projects within the water authority. The department acts as a link between the internal organization and external contractors such as builders and designers.
Jan Poppelaars – Technical Construction Manager – and John Gooiker – Technical Project Manager – both work in the Construction department and are the driving forces behind reviewing designs in VR.
Challenges
“Many of our contractors now design in 3D. To subsequently test or assess these designs, the 3D models are converted from different views into 2D representations. Evaluators of the 2D design then try to form an image of the new situation. On the one hand, because of the loss of information (3D to 2D) and on the other hand due to individual limitations in imagining a 3D situation from 2D, there is a risk that design errors will be overlooked. These are often corrected later, at additional cost.”
In addition, they notice that by using Connec2, designs are better developed in terms of accessibility, operability, and maintainability of components. Viewing a design in a VR environment provides another dimension and aligns better with the user’s experience. This makes the placement of components and details more noticeable, leading to better solutions.
Results
“End users report that they now have a much clearer view in advance of what will be built. We have the impression that we are seeing fewer failure costs because fewer corrections need to be made during the implementation phase. It is difficult to directly express this in hard cost savings. The main gain for our organization lies in visualizing the design for users (management, maintenance departments, etc.). As a result, designs are examined more carefully, and design decisions can be better substantiated.”
Connec2 as a Complete Innovative Tool
Visualizing a design from a 2D drawing, or even a 3D drawing, into reality is difficult for many users. With the accessible implementation of Connec2, turning a 3D model into a virtual world, a design is quickly transformed into reality. This increases user involvement in the design and ensures that aspects such as operability and maintainability of components are examined much more thoroughly.