Digital Twinning at the National Capital Commission

The National Capital Commission (NCC) owns more than 11 per cent of the 5,000 square kilometres of Canada’s National Capital Region (NCR). With a mandated focus as a planning authority and land steward, the NCC recognizes that the maintenance and development of these lands does not occur in singularity. Responsible stewardship demands consideration of the interactions of assets with surrounding landscapes owned by private, municipal and provincial parties. To better analyse these interactions, the NCC partnered with Carleton University’s Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) in 2017 to create a digital twin of the core of the NCR. This City Information Model (CIM) has been developed to serve as a repeatable sandbox through which stakeholders can make better informed architectural and implementation decisions by virtually challenging new design concepts against a realistic digital environment. Flexible and portable by design, the underlying technology platforms used to build the NCR model offers a range of opportunity for expansion by integrating the information models of other interested parties, augmenting with metadata, or amalgamating the NCR model with other regional or national models.

This presentation will address:
— The National Capital Commission and Carleton University’s Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) joint development agreement as an example of possible partnerships with the NCC;
— The applications for integrating Building Information Modeling into environmental modeling to create a more complete asset information model;
— The use of the NCR model to dramatically improve the quality and experience of public consultations for signature projects such as the LeBreton Flats redevelopment.