Washington State Department of Transportation Uses 3D Immersive Visualization
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Visual Engineering Resource Group (VERG) uses Bentley’s 3D immersive visualization software, LumenRT, to create images, videos, and real-time presentations for use in such diverse applications as design reviews, courtroom legal support, and cultural resource documentation. VERG has gained national recognition for producing visual communications that explain complicated stories to a mass audience in a compelling and engaging way.
Solution
VERG routinely provides still and animated visualizations of proposed roadway intersection improvements, most notably in roundabout designs. Generated in LumenRT, a LiveCube real-time immersive experience illustrates the benefits of a roundabout versus a signalized intersection, helping stakeholders and the public understand the need for a specific design. For courtroom presentations of WSDOT projects, VERG uses LumenRT to produce compelling 3D environments that accurately reflect the engineering designs—in real time or as video fly-throughs.
Outcome
Whether in a public meeting or courtroom, LumenRT LiveCubes allow viewers to move around in real-time 3D environments to experience the designs in the context of their surroundings. Accurate details such as critical views, measured distances, and right-of-way and access issues are readily apparent. From a position of better understanding, stakeholders are more likely to approve a project. VERG’s visualizations also document cultural resources throughout the state, contributing to their preservation.
Software
WSDOT has standardized on Bentley software as its primary CAD technology. The LumenRT/MicroStation relationship was the main driver in VERG’s adoption of the software. Used in conjunction with MicroStation’s other 3D modeling applications, LumenRT enables seamless workflows to bring to life 3D design models of buildings, bridges, intersection/interchanges, and historic structures under WSDOT’s purview. The ability to create LiveCubes for rapid production of animations and still images saves VERG considerable time.
