InfoTown™
Stevie's journey · Engineering · Lesson 2

The point cloud on a hard drive

Before you start

In the story

The scan saw every bolt. Then it lived in a drawer.

Back to the story

The right way

At the start

Stevie and Sam agree where big data lives: a proper store that copes with 400GB, backed up. The CDE holds a record of the scan: what, when, its coordinates, its accuracy and where the data sits.

Design office

Alex searches the CDE, finds the record, and has access the same afternoon. The 1986 drawing stays in its box.

Month five

The connection fits first time. The drawer holds biscuits.

In the drawerOne copy, a 1986 drawing, a dead drive and a rescan through scaffolding.
Stored and recordedA proper home for the data, a record in the CDE, and a connection that fits.
Think like Stevie

If it's too big for the CDE, it isn't too big to be recorded in the CDE. Where does it live, who can get to it, and is there a second copy?

Continue Stevie's journey

Story 3: Whose coordinates?

Two firms set out the same pipe from two sets of pins. They meet in the middle, nearly.
The right way, explained

The right way, explained

You can't fit a warehouse in the town library. But the library can hold a card saying what's in the warehouse, where it is, and who has the key.

If you're the designer

If you're the designer

Ask what survey data the contractor already holds before you reach for old drawings. A scan from last month beats a drawing from 1986.

In the town See it in the town: too big for the shared system. Is it still a parcel?

Stevie's view: a 400GB scan is still a parcel. It needs a label and a known address, even if it lives in the warehouse.

Parcels leaving the Design System The Design System building, cut away to show people working at their desks. Out of its door, along the road, travel parcels of different sizes: a drawing, a model, an RFI, a photo, a register, and a shipment of three parcels tied together. DESIGN SYSTEM People work in here… …parcels go out there → ? DrawingModelRFIPhotoRegisterShipment
Open a parcelOut of the Design System

A drawing

Examples
IM calls it
Watch out for
And nobody makes it alone

Your own room, then the shared table

Each team works in its own room until its parcel is ready for others to build on. Then it goes on the shared table in the CDE, so the drainage team draws round the beams that actually exist, not the ones from three weeks ago. Clashes get spotted on the table, not on site.

Making it together Three work-in-progress rooms for structures, drainage and architecture each send a parcel to a shared table in the CDE. On the table a pipe runs through a beam, and the clash is spotted there rather than on site. StructuresWork in progress DrainageWork in progress ArchitectureWork in progress THE SHARED TABLE (CDE) Ready for others to build on Pipe meets beam! Spotted here: a ten-minute fix On the table Two teams, one clash,one quick chat. On site A digger, a beam, a pipeand a very long week.

A point cloud is an Information Container too!

Big or small, a scan, a model or a drawing: if it has a name and someone needs it, it's a parcel to be managed.

Sam's Heads Up "Too big" is a storage problem, not an excuse

InfoTown good practice: What the team shares is managed through the CDE.

On your job: Your CDE may choke on scans and models. That's fine. Agree a proper store for them, and keep the record, the status and the link in the CDE.

For the audit What the auditor will ask
  • Where is the survey of the existing structure, and who can get to it?
  • What happens if that drive or server fails?
For the audit What good evidence looks like
  • An agreed place for large data, written into the plan.
  • A CDE record for each scan, with its date, coordinates and accuracy.
  • A backup, tested at least once.
From the standard
ISO 19650 Information containers

ISO 19650 counts any named set of information you can retrieve from a file, system or application as an information container, so a point cloud is one. It expects containers to be managed through the CDE, which can be more than one system.

Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.