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Jeff and Sadie’s Bricklayer Display

Jeff Brody and Sadie Edelman have collaborated on creating a cool bricklaying animation and display and have set it all up on the dock near the education display (under the wind turbine) on the Public Works sim. If you teleport to the island, look for the red poseball by the brick wall, right click on it, choose “lay brick” and your avatar will begin placing brick on the wall.
Bricklaying in Second Life on Public Works
This animation came about because we had been talking about how there really are no construction-related animations in SL, so Jeff and Sadie started by making the bricklaying one which is really cool for all of us working in construction-related fields. If you need an animation like this for your site in SL, you can buy the animation by clicking on the red poseball and paying $250L. (Jeff and Sadie have graciously offered to donate the money to help fund the tier on the island.) A brick trowel and brick are located in the poseball and can be pulled out if you buy the poseball. Then you can wear these attachments to make the animation even more convincing.

Sadie worked on the other elements of the display like the wall, mortar pile, bucket, and cement mixer (which turns and looks awesome). The two of them have done a great job, and I can’t wait to see more of their creations! If they are able to make enough of a variety of animations, we talked about being able to have a construction site display with avatars demonstrating the different trades.

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For all things pavement….

Throughout my travels in Second Life, I have seen the impressive vision expressed by people who work for government agencies located in the United States. There are a number of creative and innovative government employees who have seen the potential of using Second Life to better perform their jobs and to reach out to citizens and other government professionals. The builds they have helped create provide an educational and intellectually stimulating location in which to learn and interact with others.

Today I found out that a group of government professionals, in partnership with the University of Washington, has been working with Internet-related technologies other than Second Life to come up with an impressive tool to share knowledge related to pavements. The result has been the Pavement Interactive Wiki. According to the site, “this document (or ‘Guide’ for short) is an Internet-based multimedia document whose primary purpose is to provide a general pavement overview covering all aspects from materials to design to construction to maintenance. It functions as a ‘Collaborative Web site’ that resides on the Internet and requires only a PC/Mac and minimal freeware to access the information.”

The site provides a multimedia and interactive product that engages the design and construction community and offers them training, information, and the ability to collaborate on all pavement-related topics.

Because all the content from a former Web site, Pavement Guide Interactive, was imported to the wiki, there is already a large amount of pavement-related information in the reference section. Other areas of the wiki are “portals” or areas where members of the original pavement consortium can create distinct pages for their agencies. Other groups, such as organizations, can create their own pages for collaboration in the “Groups” area of the site.

Users who register at the pavement interactive wiki can add research and content in the “articles” section. I registered immediately and added this wiki as a resource on our own Public Works wiki under the transportation section of the Public Works in Real Life page.

As a government worker myself, I applaud the leadership, vision, and innovation that continues to be exhibited by engineers and other public works staff employed by federal, state, and local agencies of our government. I figure it is only a matter of time before I can visit DOT, FHWA, and EPA islands in Second Life.

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Second Life Builds Take you from Cradle to Grave…

Well, maybe not really cradle to grave as in the lifetime of a person, but more in the lifetime of a project. Everyone seems to have realized the benefits that Second Life can offer during the planning stage of a project, but few have discussed how Second Life can be used throughout the remaining phases of a construction project. Because I tend to focus more on the construction and operation phases, I find myself looking for ways to use Second Life to streamline tasks within those areas instead of just for planning and design.

The other day I was thinking about two engineers I know who work for a local construction company. Both have seen the Second Life demo I give everyone who dares to visit my office, but I don’t think either have taken the time to check it out on their own. I was wondering “what would finally push them to use Second Life?” and started thinking about the bidding process. If I could build my project in Second Life and tell bidders that they could visit a representation of the project while they were trying to put together their bid, perhaps this would entice them to check out this new 3-D world.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought that this actually might clear up a lot of issues and questions engineers and architects get during the bidding process. Which could help minimize costly add-ons later on that occur because something was not caught early on. As questions came up, a build in Second Life would offer a representation of the completed project where engineer/architect/contractor/owner could meet to go over concerns about the bid package. And although making the whole build a completely accurate replica is not feasible, smaller builds could be placed nearby to serve as details of specific components – just like details are used in plans.

If the build was left in place during construction, engineer/architect/contractor/owner could again use the 3-D model as a place to meet and discuss specific concerns or questions that arise during construction. It would be so much easier to discuss problems with a completed model. Also, a builder/contractor could make his own solution and display that in-world for analysis and review by the architect/engineer.

Even after the project is completed, the build could be left in place for monitoring and operation – particularly for structural builds, (the ability to monitor equipment in the real world from a location in Second Life has already been accomplished) but that is another topic for another day. In the meantime, we have a new wastewater plant that will be going out to bid soon….

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We have a Wiki!!!

At our first engineering meeting this year, Theory Shaw visited and suggested we develop a wiki for the projects that we were planning. What a great idea! He has been involved with the architecture group’s wiki and generously offered to set up a wiki for us. Wow, what a great guy. Our new wiki is located at http://publicworksgroup.wikidot.com/start

There is a listing of some of the projects we discussed along with a section for collaboration on real life public works issues.

Some of the projects include the following ideas:

Construction of a “Code House.” This house will be set up to illustrate the International Building Code in 3-D. When completed, you will be able to walk through the home and either see the code visually or obtain notecards with code information. Most of the home has been constructed, but we have to start placing the code-related items in it. Right now it is located up around elevation 500. Let me know if you are interested in working on this project!

Another project has been under construction by TEEX Clary who is with the Texas Engineering Extension Service. I want to make sure he has the first stab at announcing his project so I won’t give too much away here, but he has done an incredible job at building a 3-D training tool related to issues that all of us in transportation face. Stay tuned for more about this project or visit the island to see what is going on. You can also IM him in world and ask him to show you around.

We are also working to develop design tools for real life work. My last blog covered one of these. Some of the others I have been thinking about are related to building 3-D models of ADA compliant ramps. If you had a box of sample intersection designs, it might make it easier to visualize or explain to others your design concept. Or you could alter a basic layout to more accurately reflect your situation. If we all collaborate and make the basic tools, then we will all have them available to use when we need to begin a design.

SL also offers us a great opportunity to educate the general public about our field and related issues. So far I have set up some Powerpoint displays related to emergency preparedness. This month I also developed a radon awareness training tool – An Introduction to Radon – and put all the components into a kit that anyone can buy for $0L. The kit includes the slides for a powerpoint presentation, two 3-D models of radon collection systems, and a notecard.

The other cool gadget I have started getting excited about is the “holodeck” tool. I have to admit at first I thought this was a little too much of a gimmick, but after looking into it more, I think this tool could be very powerful. Everyone who builds in SL knows that prim limits are a problem so making many displays may not always be possible. Well with the holodeck, you could make a “scene” that illustrates how to wire a 3-way switch, what areas need to be glazed in a home, etc, and then put them all in a holodeck. The user of the holodeck then chooses the display he/she wants to see and only views one display at a time. This is another project, I think our group should explore so if you have any display ideas or want to work on building some, let us know!

The way I look at it all is that maybe we can’t directly import our drawings into here yet but that shouldn’t stop us from exploring ways to use the existing capabilities to develop products we can use.

Passive Radon Collection System

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Manhole Kit Now Available on Public Works

Ever since coming to Second Life, I have been working on ways to use the software to help me on my real life job. One of the items I have been working on is a Manhole Sizing Kit. Every now and then on a design, I am not really sure what diameter manhole would work best. Sometimes I have larger than average pipes and sometimes there are numerous pipes in one manhole. In the past I have always drawn out the manhole and pipes to scale and tried to recreate the design in a way that would help me visualize how it will all work. Well, now I realized, I can easily do this in Second Life.

After already using Second Life for this purpose last month and realizing how much easier this task was by doing it in-world, I decided it would be even better to have the whole kit available so that I don’t have to build my manholes and pipes as I need them. If I have all the sizes available to begin with, then the process of sizing the manhole using Second Life will be even that much faster.
Manhole Sizing Kit on Public Works

Well so far I have a box with precast manholes available in the following inside diameters: 2′, 3′, 4′, 5′, 6′, 7′, and 8′. I also have reinforced concrete pipes in all the available sizes from 12″ to 72″ inside diameter. They are set up in boxes for sale for $0L inside the Public Works Resource Center which is the brick garage on the hill on the Public Works Sim. I will also be adding some PVC pipe boxes in the future – most likely SDR 35 and SDR 26. If anyone has any other types of pipes that might be useful, just email me at pwg@publicworksgroup.com.

Now anyone can use these tools to help them size manholes in the design process just by logging into Second Life and picking up a kit. In the end, the completed manhole design might even provide an interesting photo opportunity.

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What I want for Christmas

What I want for Christmas, at least from Second Life, is a scene exporter. Ok, maybe I won't get this for Christmas, but I would still be happy if I could get it sometime over the next year.

Lately I have been working on a design project in Second Life that got me wondering how I could use the end result in my real life work on a construction site without having to go into Second Life. I kept thinking that if I build a detailed model of something simple like a manhole showing all the pipe connections, it would be helpful to be able to capture that "scene" by establishing a given area around the site. And I mean in a way that is not just a "photo" like I can already do. What I want is the ability to capture it in a way that I can view it on a special "viewer" that allows me to pan, zoom, tilt, the exported 3D scene as if I was in SL. I don't need my avatar there – I just want the ability to view it in the same manner as I would in SL.

I realize that there are many who might suggest that regular CAD products could do this, but first, I think SL is best for building simple, yet dimensionally correct, 3D models in a fast and efficient manner; second, I want to be able to have the model placed in a realistic "scene" which is not easily created in a CAD program; and third, I need a construction worker to access this on the jobsite.

That is why I am convinced that SL is the best medium to create the scene – I just need a type of generic file format that the scene could be exported as and then viewed with a viewing software made just for this purpose. Then I could give the file to the contractor, and he could, at each manhole installation, easily access that file on his phone (which soon will evolve to allow this type of viewing) to verify that the installation is taking place as designed. To do this he would not need to have any knowledge of CAD.

Those of us in civil-related construction know that the plans are rarely consulted on the job. Sometimes the contractor does not even have them handy; yet he always has his cell phone. I want my 3D manhole detail on that phone!

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