Last month Dublin held its first 3D Data Hackathon over the weekend of the 11th and 12th of May 2019. The 3D model of the Dublin Docklands SDZ (Strategic Development Zone) that provided the core dataset for the event has now been released to the public as open data on Dublin’s Open Data portal Dublinked.
These events are the culmination of a process which began at the end of August 2018 with the release of a tender for a 3D model of the area that would form part of the Dublin Docklands Smart Development Plan as reported by the Irish Times. The winning 3D model was created by Dublin-based company D3D Geomatics. In the lead up to the 3D Data Hackathon and release of the model, the Building City Dashboards team assisted the project organisers at Smart Dublin and Dublin City Council by testing the dataset and advising on requirements for use of the data with various immersive, mixed reality technologies.
The subsequent 3D Data Hackathon opening event took place on Friday the 10th May at Autodesk’s new European Headquarters which hosted the weekend event. The Building City Dashboard team supported by sending our Data and Training Coordinator Oliver Dawkins as a panelist on the Friday and judge on the Sunday. Dr Gareth Young also participated in the hack and provided VR demonstrations on the Friday for attendees including former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Nial Ring.
Over the weekend 14 teams competed across four main challenge areas: Transportation and Mobility; Infrastructure and Asset Use; Planning and Construction; Civic Engagement and Serious Gaming. The winning team were ‘Place Engage’ who used the 3D model to create an augmented reality app designed to help citizens visualise new developments in the city.
Second place went to the ‘Smart Responders’ who proposed another augmented reality app which used Building Information Modelling (BIM) data to help first responders like fire fighters locate essential services during emergencies. Third place went to the ‘UBEM (Urban Building Energy Management)’ team who focused on using 3D geographic information to help measure and optimise energy usage and resource management within buildings and across districts. Further information about the teams and their solutions can be found on the 3D Data Hack website. There is also a photo gallery of the event.
The 3D model of the Dublin Docklands SDZ is currently available for download as an FBX file with associated textures from the Dublinked Open Data repository: 3D Data Model Resources for Dublin Docklands SDZ
To support users who want to visualize the data interactively the Building City Dashboard team have prepared starter guides for both the Unity and Unreal game engines: 3D Data Hack Docklands Model Starter Guides
This data and the associated guides have been released under a Creative Commons BY-NC licence. This means that you may not resell the data, and if you create a new application or service using any of its components, you must credit the original data source. The data has been made available by project partners Smart Dublin, D3D Geomatics, Dublin City Council, and by the Building City Dashboards Team, a Science Foundation Ireland funded project at Maynooth University.