Lori Hufford, Vice President, Application Integration at Bentley Systems, and Richard Kerris, Vice President, of the Omniverse Development Platform at NVIDIA were interviewed by TECHx Executive Editor Rabab Zehra to understand more about NVIDIA’s ominverse integration with iTwin. Let’s have a look at the responses we received.
Lori Hufford: Many additional applications for digital twins rely heavily on visualization and simulation. The partnership between Bentley iTwin and NVIDIA OMNIVERSE enables us to provide real-time immersive 3D and 4D experiences and physics-based simulation for even the largest and most complex infrastructure assets. NVIDIA’s usage of the open USD standard within Omniverse and its reality physics-based simulation really match and complement iTwin to enable infrastructure digital twin use cases. We were thrilled to be the first company to build apps using NVIDIA omniverse to leverage its real-time rendering, artificial intelligence, and simulation capabilities after working with the Omniverse team.
Richard Kerris: Working in a collaborative atmosphere is extremely essential to us. We incorporate input from our clients and our developers, such as Bentley, into the platform. It’s a fantastic connection in the sense that we have the same idea of where things may go, which is crucial.
Richard Kerris: Omniverse is built on the principles of openness and extensibility, with the goal of enhancing rather than replacing existing workflows. So it’s based on Pixar’s Universal Scene Description, which has now been embraced across sectors and provides a consistent manner of defining and managing 3D assets. As a result, we like to refer to it as the HTML of 3D.
By connecting to the platform, we can work with a lot of the applications that people are presently using. This open platform can now connect to all of the existing applications that users are utilizing. After then, you may make use of the platform’s features to improve your productivity.
It’s also critical to us that we have an open, expandable platform, and to be honest, there’s nothing else like it out there, so we don’t think of it as a competitor, we take a complementary approach to it. Everyone must benefit from a platform in order for it to flourish. Our goal was for people to be able to use it, develop on it, expand it, personalize it, and do anything they want with it, exactly as a platform should.
Lori Hufford: An infrastructure digital twin of a construction project gives up a lot of options from a construction standpoint. Stakeholders can create a 4D model of the construction sequence. It mimics all of the logistics and site utilization combined with visual realism, allowing the viewer to truly absorb the information.
Richard Kerris: One of the fundamental aspects of the OMNIVERSE platform that allows this to happen is that everyone is on the same platform. Only the information that is updating on each individual project that we’re working on is shared. That’s critical because, as these initiatives become larger, greater databases emerge, and maintaining those datasets becomes increasingly difficult. However, if we’re all using the same platform, such as omniverse, and we’re all working on a huge data collection, this won’t be an issue.
You may be working on a massive building, but you may be concentrating on a single level and a portion of the material that will be on that floor. Because the only thing that passes back and forth in that collaborative area is the objects on that floor. It allows for considerably more efficient and strong collaboration whether you’re on the other side of the room or halfway around the world.
Lori Hufford: With Bentley’s iTwin, the digital technology, we’re expanding beyond 3D to 4D, building on the notion of database for infrastructure, digital twins. The current condition is advantageous, but keeping track of developments is the game changer. The assurance of safety is one of the most essential elements for digital twins.
