Tag: microsoft

Unreal and Unity are the new Browsers

Someone asked me why I hadn’t commented on Cesium and Unreal getting together. Honestly , no reason. This is big news honestly. HERE, where I work, is teaming up with Unity to bring the Unity SDK and the HERE SDK to automotive applications. I talk about how we used Mapbox Unity SDK at Cityzenith (though I have no clue if they still are). Google and Esri have them too. In fact both Unreal and Unity marketplaces are littered with data sources you can plug in.

HERE Maps with Unity

This is getting at the core of what these two platforms could be. Back in the day we had two browsers, Firefox and Internet Explorer 6. Inside each we had many choices of mapping platforms to use. From Google and Bing to Mapquest and Esri. In the end that competition to make the best API/SDK for a mapping environment drove a ton of innovation. What Google Maps looks like and does in 2021 vs 2005 is amazing.

This brings up the key as to what I see happening here. We’ll see the mapping companies (or companies that have mapping APIs) deliver key updates to these SDK (which today are pretty limited in scope) because they have to stay relevant. Not that web mapping is going away at any point, but true 3D world and true Digital Twins require power that browsers cannot provide even in 2021. So this rush to become the Google Maps of 3D engines is real and will be fun to watch.

Interesting in that Google is an also-ran in the 3D engine space, so there is so much opportunity for the players who have invested and continue to invest in these markets without Google throwing unlimited R&D dollars against it. Of course it only takes on press release to change all that so don’t bet against Google.

Open Environments and Digital Twins

The GIS world has no idea how hard it is to work with data in the digital twin/BIM world. Most GIS formats are open, or at works readable to import into a closed system. But in the digital twin/BIM space, there is too many close data sets that makes it so hard to work with the data. The loops one must go through to import a Revit model are legendary and mostly are how you get your data into IFC without giving up all the intelligence. At Cityzenith, we were able to work with tons of open formats, but dealing with Revit and other closed formats was very difficult to the point it required a team in India to handle the conversions.

All the above is maddening because if there is one thing a digital twin should do, is be able to talk with as many other systems as possible. IoT messages, GIS datasets, APIs galore and good old fashioned CAD systems. That’s why open source data formats are best, those that are understood and can be extended in any way someone needs. One of the biggest formats that we worked with was glTF. It is widely supported these days but it really isn’t a great format for BIM models or other digital twin layers because it is more of a visual format than a data storage model. Think of it similar to a JPEG, great for final products, but you don’t want to work with it for your production data.

IFC, which I mentioned before, is basically a open BIM standard. IFC is actually a great format for BIM, but companies such as Autodesk don’t do a great job supporting it, it becomes more of interchange file, except where governments require it’s use. I also dislike the format because it is unwieldy, but it does a great job of interoperability and is well supported by many platforms.

IFC and GLTF are great, but they harken back to older format structures. They don’t take advantage of modern cloud based systems. I’ve been looking at DTDL (Digital Twins Definition Language) from Microsoft. What I do like about DLDT is that it is based on JSON-LD so many of those IoT services you are already working with take advantage of it. Microsoft’s Digital Twin platform was slow to take off but many companies, including Bentley Systems, are leveraging it to help their customers get a cloud based open platform which is what they all want. Plus you can use services such as Azure Functions (very underrated service IMO) to work with your data once it is in there.

Azure Digital Twins
Azure Digital Twins

The magic of digital twins is when you can connect messaging (IoT) services to your digital models. That’s the holy grail, have the real world connected to the digital world. Sadly, most BIM and digital twin systems aren’t open enough and require custom conversion work or custom coding to enable even simple integration with SAP, Salesforce or MAXIMO. That’s why these newer formats, based mostly on JSON, seem to fit the bill and we will see exponential growth in their use.

Bing Maps and COVID-19 (Updated)

Update (03/23/2020): It looks like Microsoft has made some good changes. They now tell you when the data was updated and the news links work much better. I can see myself using this over other maps because it is so simple. Simple is quick.

There are no shortage of COVID-19 maps online. EVERYONE has one so why even bother posting one? Well I looked back on my blog posts and the last time I posted anything about a Microsoft map was back in 2006 and that was when it was called Virtual Earth. Well here it goes, the Bing COVID Tracker.

According to the info section, the data is from the CDC, WHO, ECDC and Wikipedia. It is a pretty bare map and if you didn’t see the Bing logo in the upper left or the Microsoft credits in the lower right, you might not even think it was a Microsoft product. There is no notification as to how often the data is updated but it appears that when I’m checking at the time of this post, it is current for the past hour. If you click on a state you get information about the cases and links to news articles about COVID-19 in that state. Pretty basic as you can see from the Arizona view below. COVID and Biden…

This feels more like a mashup than a multi billion dollar companies attempt to education the public to the threat of COVID-19. A real shame as events such as this usually bring out the best in technology, this attempt by Microsoft feels so very dated. At least I got to post my first Bing map….

Stefan Wonders if Microsoft will buy ESRI

Link – Memo to Bill Gates

I’d guess IBM would buy ESRI before Microsoft would. I just don’t see how ESRI fits into their business model, but IBM seems like a great fit. Seriously though there are tons of other smaller companies that would fit better into Microsoft’s plans that ESRI and ones that are public and can be bought much easier than ESRI. I don’t think ESRI is too worried about the “mass market” especially if the software is given away. There is just no incentive to give up their independence for market-share.

Actually the more I write about this the crazier his post seems. Lets just leave it at “AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN”.