Artelia

Artelia is an international multidisciplinary engineering and project management company with services that span the project lifecycle. With a presence in more than 40 countries, Artelia serves clients in the transportation, water, energy, building, and industrial sectors.

The Challenge: Missing and disconnected data hinders carbon footprint analysis

Missing and disconnected data hinders carbon footprint analysis on construction projects early in the design process. The model often lacks essential information like element specs. Further, key data for calculating a project’s carbon footprint is disjointed. The model, carbon measurements, cost, and schedule live in different systems.  To bring them together, teams use spreadsheets, data entry, and other manual workarounds. And every design change necessitates updates across systems.

These inefficient processes are a roadblock to sustainability. The earlier design teams can communicate carbon impact to their clients, the greater influence they can have over outcomes. Artelia sought a way to make carbon analysis easier to share further upstream and throughout the project lifecycle.

The APS Solution: A web app fills data gaps to provide carbon analysis and visualization

Artelia built a web app that fills data gaps to provide carbon footprint analysis early in the design process. The app overlays the building model with color-coded simulation that represents high/low cost and high/low CO2 footprint. At a glance, Artelia clients can see the impact of design choices on sustainability and identify areas that need improvement.  

Several Autodesk Platform Services APIs power the app. The Model Derivative and BIM 360 APIs gather model metadata on elements like area, volume, and length. The Data Management API aggregates and structures the information in a cloud-based datahub. The hub also pulls in details that may be missing in early model design like cost, and the missing params were prepared before the datahub.

The web app demonstrates an impressive level of resiliency, seamlessly integrating with various APIs to retrieve accurate CO2 emissions, cost and time data for specific regions. By adhering to the highest standards, it ensures reliable and up-to-date information is readily available.

The datahub also provided parameters that being missing in the 3d model, those parameters has been built into the datahub before and I match each element in the model by a relation between the hub and The Model Derivative and BIM 360 APIs

All the data comes together in rich visual form with the APS Viewer API. This allows for an interactive model experience, where stakeholders can analyze project information in context. Artelia says the solution helps its clients to optimize projects, reduce carbon footprint, and improve decision-making—even when only a fraction of model metadata is available.

Business Outcomes: Better decision-making to drive more sustainable projects

• More sustainable projects: CO2 analysis takes place earlier in the project lifecycle, providing more opportunity to inform design choices
• Better decision-making: Color-coded overlays make it easy to grasp CO2 impact in context
• Superior communication: Visual representation allows stakeholders to share common understanding of the project  

APIs and Services

Viewer

BIM 360 API

Data Management API

Model Derivative API

Authentication