Forum catch up highlights 4D future

By Spencer Fowler Steen

The Fishermans Bend Business Forum (FBBF) hosted a members’ catch up night at Starward Distillery in Port Melbourne last month, which showcased the government’s new 4D mapping technology that will be used in the precinct.

Attended by the likes of Fishermans Bend Development Board chair Meredith Sussex and the new head of the Fishermans Bend taskforce Emily Mottram, the event on September 11 provided a first look into the new technology facilitated by University of Melbourne representatives.

The state government announced in August that in a first for Victoria, 4D mapping technology would be used to plan the development of Fishermans Bend.

The “digital twin” project will deliver 3D modelling of infrastructure over time - the fourth dimension - above and below ground, allowing planners to visualise the impacts of their decisions before they are made.

University of Melbourne Professor Abbas Rajabifard told Southbank Local News that digital twin technology made a virtual copy of real, physical objects that people could see and interact with in virtual reality.

“The Fishermans Bend digital twin allows us to collect, manage and visualise complex information using geospatial innovations to make better decisions about future cities,” he said.

Using real world data about things such as soil type, water levels and sewerage pipe conditions, the technology allows planners to see accurate simulations of what would happen to assets such as roads, public transport and buildings over time.

It will also be able to provide warnings about imminent faults or problems in the physical environment.

One of the advantages over traditional modes of planning, is that it integrates previously separate sets of data in one easy to access place.

It does away with the need for archaic paper plans and unwieldy pdf documents, allowing other industries to easily come in and innovate on one central, open plan.

The project is a collaboration between The University of Melbourne, CSIRO’s Data61 project, Melbourne Water and various other stakeholders.

Recently, CSIRO’s Data61 project have been using the same digital twin technology to help prawn farmers make sense of massive amounts of data on water quality.

The researchers use virtual reality headsets and graphics from the gaming world to visualise and interact with data in order to monitor and improve production systems in real time.

The University of Melbourne also stands to benefit from the digital twin project, having recently purchased land at Fishermans Bend to build a new engineering, design and IT campus.

Fishermans Bend, an area roughly three quarters the size of Melbourne’s CBD, is expected to house around 80,000 residents and employ the same number by 2050.