Our recent Spar3D webinar saw our guest, Mark LaBell Jr, Senior VDC Technical Leader at SSOE telling attendees how valuable Cintoo Cloud has become for their business as well as for their clients.
SSOE is a project delivery firm for architecture, engineering and construction management, doing business across the globe. With many of its projects having really tight timelines, teams are often working around the clock to meet deadlines.
A major challenge for their project teams is shifting their laser scan data around due to its massive size. Since 2015, they’ve been using a custom-built solution to host their point clouds, with the main data centre in Toledo replicating everyone’s data each night to send to their offices around the world.
Laser scanning is essential to drive the success of their brownfield projects. For this, they rely on third-party transfers, which come in the form of a mailed hard drive or Dropbox or SharePoint FTP. Since 2015, they’ve scanned over 700 projects, and have between 120 and 140 terabytes of Reality Capture data. One of the reasons they’ve turned to Cintoo Cloud to host and manage their scan data.
One of their main use cases for Cintoo Cloud is to view project scans and assess crucial details, such as looking at equipment across multiple levels of a building. They use BIM 360 as their design hub, then connect to Cintoo to regularly update their Naviswork models in the platform.
Cintoo Cloud is also highly valuable for their equipment vendors. A team member can create a unified mesh and export it as an OBJ, FBX or STL file. They receive an email as soon as this has been created, download the mesh and then share it with the relevant vendor for them to plan their installation. This is greatly enhancing workflows with this group of stakeholders.
Additionally, SSOE uses the platform to take measurements. They do this from the interface, or they use the Reality Capture data that either they’ve taken, or a third-party provider has supplied, and add it directly into the platform. This avoids needing to remodel all of the equipment that they’re trying to add and is a truly collaborative process with everybody engaged in the process, as opposed to previously when it could be disjointed and time-consuming.
The platform’s Work Zones feature is ideal for providing full access to those who need it while also being able to restrict access for those focused on smaller sections of the project, such as a contractor only working in the north end of a facility. This also means that they’re streaming smaller chunks of data rather than needing to stream whole projects.
“We see Cintoo as our partner and far more than just a software provider. Using the platform, we’ve been able to reduce our server infrastructure and as an Autodesk shop, integration with BIM360, enabling us to upload our models and track issues, is hugely beneficial,” said Mark.
“Teams will now be able to easily review facilities year after year, taking measurements and planning new projects with clients without having to call up data from the archives.”
For SSOE’s clients, they can get hold of their data within hours, rather than needing to wait a week or two while a hard drive is mailed to them. And a major benefit, which is crucial for their large global clients particularly, is that they don’t require any software to be able to interact with the platform.
If you’re looking to get more from your laser scan data, sharing it with stakeholders around the world and improving project workflows, give our free trial a go: www.cintoo.com/try and email sales@cintoo.com to discuss incorporating the platform into your operations.
