http://gis.cadalyst.com/gis/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=421505
"Where Are My Urban Warriors?
"Geoff Zeiss, director of technology for Autodesk Geospatial Business Unit, was among the attendees. He brought along a laptop loaded with iMOUT, an Autodesk product that unites CAD, GIS, BIM (building information modeling) and 3D visualization technologies.
"When Zeiss launched the program, it revealed a cityscape, not unlike the view inside a videogame. The Web-based navigation tools let him move seamlessly from the outdoor setting to the interior of a building. Along the way, he turned on and off various walls and roofs to reveal the skeleton structure beneath the cement shell, checked the line of sight accessible from a window and took note of various heating and ventilation elements that could interfere with emergency operations. While he conducted his walkthrough, a 2D floor plan remained visible on a panel next to the viewing window. To render the urban environment on the fly, iMOUT tapped into real-world geospatial data, as-built architectural data and the visualization power of Autodesk Media and Entertainment products, he revealed.
Autodesk iMOUT, a solution conceived for military operations in urban terrain, may be also used by first responders in emergency situations. The product combines BIM, CAD, GIS and videogame-style visualization.
"It's different from [Microsoft] Virtual Earth or Google Earth," Zeiss pointed out. "[The building] is a BIM model. The elevator shafts could have come from a mechanical program. The road data could have come from a civil engineering application. Other data could have come from CAD, GIS, 3D city models and subterranean utility infrastructure data." Though conceived originally for commanders of military operations in urban terrain, "anybody who needs to respond to emergency situations" will find it useful, he said....
