V2/Concepts/Intro to Site
Contents
What is a Site
A Site represents a place whereby sensors are physically located. A Site usually comprise of one or more buildings. A Site in Senfi has a geographical location and a 3D representation.
3D Representation
Users may choose to use bespoke model or user drawn model as the 3D representation of the Site.
Bespoke Model
Users can upload a bespoke model as the 3D representation of the Site. A bespoke model is one which is prepared in a 3D modelling software like Autodesk 3DS Max, Revit etc.
Advantages of using a bespoke model:
- This allows for Users to repurpose their existing BIM models as a source for the Digital Twin.
- Operators viewing the Digital Twin will get a true representation of the building's space, allowing them to get oriented easily.
User-drawn Model
Users who do not own a bespoke model may choose to generate a quick user-drawn model. A user-drawn model is one which is drawn by tracing on a map. Currently, you can only draw one outline in the user-drawn model. This will be used as the building footprint. You can specify the number of floors in this building and the system will generate a building model for you.
Advantages of using a user-drawn model:
- Fast to generate
- Cost saving
Building/Block/Level (BBL)
3D model tends to only have geometrical information of the buildings. For ease of location referencing, Senfi uses the concept of Building>Block>Level (BBL) to refer to a particular location in the Site, E.g. Campus A > Block B > Level 5. This information is added to the 3D model during the Site creation. View Building/Block/Level (BBL) for more information.
Zone
On top of BBL, a site can also have Zones defined. BBL is an organization of building structure, while Zone is an organization of spaces, such as physical zones or abstract zones. A physical Zone can be an area or even a room in the site, E.g. Level 1, Room Unit #01-01. Whereas abstract Zone can be defining of an area where access is restricted in the site. BBL Zones are automatically added to a Site when BBL is created. Each Zone can have relationships to other Zones, such as hasPart or intersect. View Zone for more information.
2D Floor plan
On top of the 3D representation, it is strongly encouraged to have a floorplan associated with each level of a building/block. This makes it easy to locate things both in 3D as well as in 2D. Associating a floorplan with a level requires calibration. This process involves selecting a few corresponding points in the 3D building and the floorplan. This only needs to be done once when adding a floorplan, or when there are changes to the floorplan or 3D model.
Lobby
If the lift system is integrated for monitoring and management in Senfi, lobbies have to be created and assigned to the Site and Buildings to aid in location referencing. A lobby is used to group lifts together. Multiple lifts can share the same lift lobby.
Site ID
site_id is a unique integer associated with a particular Site. It is auto generated when the Site is created, and it is passed in as a parameter in integration to identify the Site.
What's Next
- Learn about Building/Block/Level (BBL)
- Learn about Zone