The Year in Infrastructure Awards is an exciting and well-regarded global competition that recognizes the “going digital” advancements in infrastructure. These awards bring together infrastructure professionals and members of the media from around the globe to share innovative practices in infrastructure project design, engineering, construction, and operations.

This year’s event attracted 420 projects from 340 organizations covering 60+ countries and 350+ different cities. Eye-bot was honored to present at this year’s Reality Modeling Academy as well as receive the Special Recognition Award for our work with Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC on their Pennsylvania Chemicals Project in Monaca, PA.

2D and 3D Models

Eye-bot’s primary role in this project is to generate 2D orthophotos and 3D digital twin models on a weekly basis. We also generate 2D and 3D deliverables of surrounding staging areas and laydown yards, as well as provide a standard photo and video services for inspection/media purposes. Operating a UAS around such a vast construction site presents several challenges that must be overcome.

To capture data of the entire 1000+ acre site during short periods of inactivity, we perform a unique dual-aircraft capture technique that allows us to complete the mission in less than four hours. We then must process thousands of images and deliver the 2D and 3D products in less than 72hours. To achieve this quick turnaround, we utilize a cluster of high-powered computers running ContextCapture engines that are processing in parallel. Eye-bot is also pushing the limits of ContextCapture’s cloud computing by experimenting with a hybrid local-cloud process that gives us all the control of local processing with the elastic resources of the cloud.

With a measurable electronic record, problems can be identified and resolved in the office before they impact the operations on site. In addition to the 3MX mesh, a 2D orthomosaic is also generated and processed into a series of different formats for consumption on many levels. This unprecedented data has paved the way for major improvements in the planning and execution of the site’s construction.