As ESM Productions used 3D - modeling for preparation of a visit of the pontiff to Philadelphia

On November 24, 2015 the companies ESM Productions also Bentley Systems announced the project of use of software ContextCapture in the course of the organization of a visit of Pope Francis to Philadelphia.

Project Tasks

When planning an event of ESM company it was necessary to approve the actions with many public services of Philadelphia, Secret service of the USA, state bodies of Pennsylvania and with the Catholic diocese of Philadelphia.

This coordination became reality, more effective and timely using technology of modeling, from Bentley company and services of the specialists working in the Bentley command.

Planning actions for planning of a visit of the Pope to Philadelphia, ESM made the decision - to use possibilities of modeling of reality using Bentley technologies.

Project Progress

Having learned about the forthcoming event and plans of ESM, the CEO of Bentley Systems Greg Bentley invited colleagues (and former employees) the companies to offer the time and talent for the sake of public benefit on behalf of Bentley Systems company, helping to act as the host party in the region and to adequately accept the Pope.

About 30 employees of the company took part in preparation of this action that using technologies of modeling of reality to accelerate design of shoddy constructions for widely covered event, providing at the same time support of extremely necessary workflows on the organization of security.

Documentary Reality Modeling for the Philadelphia Papal Visit (2015)

Process of modeling of reality of Bentley provides three stages:

1. Photogrammetric processing of pictures. The software of Bentley ContextCapture was used for creation of very detailed, executed on the basis of 28 thousand photos, three-dimensional model of "a reality the grid" created with an unprecedented geometrical accuracy. The base of images was provided by Pictometry kompaniya, the aerial photography of high resolution is made from the helicopter by AEROmetrex company, the personnel from the earth is made by volunteers of Bentley - including pictures of facades of buildings, images of streets and an internal situation of the Cathedral of Saints Pyotr and Pavel.
2. Design with a binding to a geographical position. The high-precision 3D model is filled 2D and 3D maps and constructions therefore 28 GB of data are brought together. The data set is used for providing parts about 56.4 thousand shoddy constructions, the main and additional scenes and places for sitting during the action, about road barrier for the purpose of security by perimeter in 33 miles which had to conform to security requirements of Secret Service of the USA and also about effects of overlapping of local roads for the organization of flows of the pedestrian movement and about many other.
3. Revival of the designed environment. The software of Bentley Lumen RT company was used to add the movement and additional content for simulation of the expected result of work that significantly helped the specialists making decisions. The command added movement of people in crowd, moving vehicles, dynamic conditions of sunlight and also trees and plants.

Buddy Cleveland, recently resigned senior vice president of Bentley, the head of the Bentley command in this project, noted:

- It was very public and difficult project, with many concerned parties and the impracticable temporary diagram. We were connected to the project halfway. The visit of the Pope required effective planning for construction and management of shoddy constructions and municipal services in the middle of brisk city infrastructure. We timely decided to create the comprehensive, highly detailed 3D model of Philadelphia which would be visually realistic and exact by the size, and then to fully integrate this model with models of constructions which are also created by means of our tools. Both ESM, and Bentley are very grateful to partners, Pictometry and AEROmetrex which took the responsibility for providing basic images, aerial photographs and their processing using ContextCapture for creation of primary grid of reality".