Your Plant in 3D ?
Does anyone have any idea how many plants already have some sort of 3D plant model (and in what form is that). i.e. anything from a solid or wireframe 3D model you can tilt and turn and look around, to full virtual plant walkthroughs ?
Apart from physically architecting a plant in some sort of CAD package - can anyone see a real use from a process or maintenance point of view?
Pete
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Saw something like this at the NPRA
I saw really neat presentation on this topic by Kevyn Renner at the NPRA conference a couple years ago. Here's a snippet of an article that describes this application.
"Kevyn Renner of Chevron, who leads Chevron's efforts to apply new information technology to refining, followed Greaves with an account that I found fascinating. One of Chevron's flagship facilities, the El Segundo Refinery, has been accurately captured in 3D, thanks to about 5,000 scan setups, and the resulting model is serving as a proving ground for a variety of cutting edge techniques. "We can't move pipes or vessels quickly," said Renner, "but we can move information quickly. So, can we use a virtual world to enhance operational performance?" The answer appears to be a resounding `yes'. Renner demonstrated applications that attached real-time sensor information to the model creating, in effect, a constantly updated 3D GIS. With this intelligent model functioning, experts from around the world can interact usefully with it by means of avatars in a Second Life type environment.
Renner used an interesting analogy at one point: he showed a graph of sudden improvements in high jumping, due to radical changes in technique, culminating in the famous Fosbury Flop. The point was that new technology enables dramatic improvements in production and that's true, in spades, for laser scanning.
The whole talk confirmed an impression that I've had for a while: scanning adoption is accelerating at least as fast as GPS. Why? Because virtually every industry can find benefits in digital models, especially the high-dollar manufacturing, infrastructure, and energy industries. The potential for surveyors to be providers is immense. And there will eventually be secondary markets like as-builts of virtual environments and verification services, updating of models, etc. Some of this work will lean on the skills of boundary surveyors, that is, accuracy of location and management of spatial rights will eventually be important in virtual worlds and will require adjudication. It's as if a new planet is being constructed, and one of these days it's going to need surveying."
Full article - http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/5064/153/
Your Plant in 3D ?
Don't know about the electronic versions. I've seen actual scale models built for plants during the design phase. (Back in the day - when I worked for a large Engineering & Construction Co. we actually had a model shop)
Other than being interesting to look at - I don't know how truly useful they were. For training new people they can be a useful tool - beyond that I don't know.
The electronic versions may also have some benefit in defining hazardous areas and even in calculating damage zones for failure analysis. But, I think they too would be somewhat limited for training purposes.