ENGINEERING DRAWINGS AND DIGITAL TWINS

• US 20200134106A1
• Filed: 10/30/2019
• Published: 04/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trimble Solutions Corporation (Trimble Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Trimble Solutions Corporation (Trimble Inc.)
• Inventors: Suomi, Jukka, Kyllonen, Oxana, Huovila, Mikko, Pool, Charles, Rousu, Ville
• Granted Patent: US 11,250,179 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/10 Geometric CAD
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/13 Architectural design, e.g. computer-aided architectural design [CAAD] related to design of buildings, bridges, landscapes, production plants or roads
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/203 Drawing of straight lines or curves
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Abstract

To enable to display one or more drawing content, which have been created during defining one or more engineering drawings from a model which comprises one or more parts to model one or more structures, digital twins of the one or more drawing content with associated information are created and published. The associated information of the digital twin comprises three-dimensional coordinates for the drawing content in question, determined based on one or more parts, to which the drawing content relates, and identifying information of said one or more parts.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

running in a computing device an application for creating or manipulating engineering drawings that are created from model data of a model and stored to drawing data of the model, which model data comprises a plurality of parts to model one or more structures, the model being displayable in a three-dimensional model view that is different from engineering drawings;

detecting, by the computing device, in an engineering drawing, drawing content, which relates to at least one of the plurality of parts, is additional information to the model data, and stored to the drawing data;

creating, by the computing device, in response to the detecting, a digital twin of the drawing content, wherein the digital twin is a separate piece that is not in the engineering drawing but has its counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing;

determining, by the computing device, at least identifying information of the at least one of the plurality of parts, and location information of the at least one of the plurality of parts in a global three-dimensional coordinate system of the model to determine three-dimensional coordinates for the counterpart drawing content; and

publishing the digital twin of the drawing content with the three-dimensional coordinates and the identifying information of the at least one of the plurality of parts without changing the counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising performing the detecting in response to a user input creating to the engineering drawing the drawing content.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the computing device, drawing metadata comprising one or a plurality of a drawing identifier, a drawing type, a drawing version, an owner of the drawing, a creator of the drawing, an organization of the drawing, a status of the drawing, assembly information, structure information, one or more tags inputted by a user and one or more user-defined attributes; and

publishing the digital twin also with the drawing metadata.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 3, further comprising:

detecting, by the computing device, in the engineering drawing, a drawing content of a second type, which does not relate to any of the plurality of parts;

creating, by the computing device, in response to the detecting, a digital twin of the drawing content of the second type;

publishing, by the computing device, the digital twin of the drawing content of the second type with the drawing metadata.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, further comprising performing the detecting in response to a user input creating, to the engineering drawing, the drawing content of the second type.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the drawing content, which relates to at least one of the plurality of parts, comprises a dimension or an annotation.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the model is a model for a building and the engineering drawing is a technical drawing required for a building permit to build the building.

8. A computer implemented method comprising:

running in a computing device an application for at least displaying, using model data, a three-dimensional view of a model, which comprises one or more parts to model one or more structures;

detecting a user input requesting drawing content data relating to at least one of the one or more parts, wherein the at least one part includes either one or more parts selected by a user or, when no specific selection has been received as a user input, one or more parts that are in the displayed three-dimensional view of the model;

determining identifying information of the at least one of the one or more parts;

retrieving, using the identifying information, from a data repository, which comprises a plurality of digital twins of drawing contents created from counterpart drawing contents in engineering drawings defined to the model from the model data of the model and stored to drawing data of the model, one or more digital twins of the plurality of digital twins of requested one or more drawing contents with their three-dimensional coordinate information, wherein each engineering drawing is different from the three-dimensional view of the model, each of the one or more drawing contents, which is stored to the drawing data, is additional information to the model data, and each digital twin is a separate piece, that is not in the engineering drawing but has its counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing; and

displaying the one or more digital twins of the drawing contents on top of the model by placing each drawing content in the one or more digital twins on top of the displayed model view using corresponding three-dimensional coordinate information.

9. A computer implemented method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the drawing content, which relates to at least one of the one or more parts, comprises a dimension or an annotation.

10. A computer implemented method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the model is a model for a building and the engineering drawing is a technical drawing required for a building permit to build the building.

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising program instructions for causing, when executed by a computing device, which runs an application for creating or manipulating engineering drawings that are created from model data of a model and stored to drawing data of the model, which model data comprises a plurality of parts to model one or more structures, the model being displayable in a three-dimensional model view that is different from engineering drawings, the computing device to perform:

detecting, in an engineering drawing, drawing content, which relates to at least one of the plurality of parts, is additional information to the model data and stored to the drawing data;

creating, in response to the detecting, a digital twin of the drawing content, wherein the digital twin is a separate piece that is not in the engineering drawing but has its counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing;

determining at least identifying information of the at least one of the plurality of parts, and location information of the at least one of the plurality of parts in a global three-dimensional coordinate system of the model to determine three-dimensional coordinates for the counterpart drawing content; and

publishing the digital twin of the drawing content with the three-dimensional coordinates and the identifying information of the at least one of the plurality of parts without changing the counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the program instructions further causes, when executed by the computing device, the computing device to perform the detecting in response to a user input creating to the engineering drawing the drawing content.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the program instructions further causes, when executed by the computing device, the computing device to perform:

determining drawing metadata comprising one or a plurality of a drawing identifier, a drawing type, a drawing version, an owner of the drawing, a creator of the drawing, an organization of the drawing, a status of the drawing, assembly information, structure information, one or more tags inputted by a user and one or more user-defined attributes; and

publishing the digital twin also with the drawing metadata.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13, wherein the program instructions further causes, when executed by the computing device, the computing device to perform:

detecting in the engineering drawing, a drawing content of a second type, which does not relate to any of the plurality of parts;

creating, in response to the detecting, a digital twin of the drawing content of the second type;

publishing the digital twin of the drawing content of the second type with the drawing metadata.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the program instructions further causes, when executed by the computing device, the computing device to perform the detecting in response to a user input creating, to the engineering drawing, the drawing content of the second type.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the drawing content, which relates to at least one of the plurality of parts, comprises a dimension or an annotation.

17. An apparatus comprising

at least one processor;

and

at least one memory including computer program code;

the at least one memory and the computer program code being configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to;

run an application for at least displaying, using model data, a three-dimensional view of a model, which comprises one or more parts to model one or more structures;

detect a user input requesting drawing content data relating to at least one of the one or more parts, wherein the at least one part includes either one or more parts selected by a user or, when no specific selection has been received as a user input, one or more parts that are in the displayed three-dimensional view of the model;

determine identifying information of the at least one of the one or more parts;

retrieve, using the identifying information, from a data repository, which comprises digital twins of drawing contents created from counterpart drawing contents in engineering drawings defined to the model from the model data of the model and stored to drawing data of the model, one or more digital twins of the plurality of digital twins of requested one or more drawing contents with their three-dimensional coordinate information, wherein each engineering drawing is different from the three-dimensional view of the model, each of the one or more drawing contents, which is stored to the drawing data, is additional information to the model data, and each digital twin is a separate piece, that is not in the engineering drawing but has its counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing; and

display the one or more digital twins of the drawing contents on top of the model by placing each drawing content in the one or more digital twins on top of the displayed model view using corresponding three-dimensional coordinate information.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the drawing content, which relates to at least one of the one or more parts, comprises a dimension or an annotation.

19. A system comprising at least:

one or more data storages for storing model data comprising one or more three-dimensional parts to model one or more structures, for storing drawing data comprising two-dimensional engineering drawings created using the model data, one or more of the engineering drawings comprising one or more drawing contents defined to the engineering drawings, wherein each of the one or more drawing contents, which is stored to the drawing data, is additional information to the model data, and for storing drawing content data comprising at least digital twins of drawing contents, the digital twins being associated at least with their three-dimensional coordinate information and identifying information, which identifies one or more parts in the model data, wherein each digital twin of a drawing content is a separate piece, that is not in an engineering drawing but has its counterpart drawing content in the engineering drawing;

one or more first apparatuses configured to perform;

running an application for creating and/or manipulating engineering drawings that are created from model data of a model and stored to drawing data of the model, the model being displayable in a three-dimensional model view that is different from engineering drawings;

detecting, in an engineering drawing, drawing content, which relates to at least one of plurality of parts of the model;

creating, in response to the detecting the drawing content, a digital twin of the drawing content;

determining at least identifying information of the at least one of the plurality of the parts of the model, and location information of the at least one of the plurality of parts of the model in a global three-dimensional coordinate system of the model to determine three-dimensional coordinates for the digital twin;

publishing the digital twin with the three-dimensional coordinates and the identifying information of the at least one of the plurality of the parts of the model without changing the drawing content in the engineering drawing; and

one or more second apparatuses configured to perform;

running an application for at least displaying, using the model data, a three-dimensional view of the model;

detecting a user input requesting drawing content data relating to at least one part of the plurality of the parts of the model, wherein the at least one part includes either one or more parts selected by a user or, when no specific selection has been received as a user input, one or more parts that are in the displayed three-dimensional view of the model;

determining identifying information of the at least one part;

retrieving, using the identifying information, from the data repository, one or more digital twins of requested one or more drawing contents with their three-dimensional coordinate information;

displaying the one or more digital twins of the drawing contents on top of the model by placing each drawing content in the one or more digital twins on top of the displayed model view using corresponding three-dimensional coordinate information.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein at least the one or more data storages for storing drawing content data are cloud-based storages in a cloud environment whereto the digital twins with associated information are published.