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When Patrick McNerney, Chief Operating Officer, 3D Design & Engineering and Nabil Mimouni, President, met many years ago at a Texas structural engineering company, blueprints, Polaroids, 2D drawings and sketches were the medium they used to communicate with clients. Flash forward to 2017, and a company they founded seven years ago deals with structural design in a whole ‘nother dimension.
3D Design & Engineering specializes in civil, structural, and geotechnical services “tailored to meet the unique needs of the telecommunications industry” according to McNerney. With projects ranging from civil engineering feats like designing a lake (where the heavy equipment can operate to specification with light human supervision off of 3D input data) to coordinating and designing coverage for carriers around the upcoming Super Bowl in Houston, 3D has tried to stay “ahead of the curve” of innovation in their field. With the Super Bowl in their sights, McNerney said they are kept busy working with the city, the carriers and the NFL in making sure the fans are covered both in the stadium and at events surrounding it.
For the tower community, primarily serving carriers, they offer site visit reports that are viewable in a 360 degree bubble. “With the 360 Degree VR Bubble,” McNerney said, “our customers can visit any site virtually through the use of 360 Degree Virtual Reality Bubbles found in our site walk reports…it is similar to Google Street View. This saves money and time by not having to send field personnel on site to view the existing conditions.” They recently added 3D PDF drawings to their arsenal in which clients can “fly through a proposed site or rotate a tower around in 360 degrees – this provides much more detail than standard black and white 2D construction drawings,” McNerney said.
Another way the company can capture any existing structure digitally is by using 3D laser scanning. “This can be used in sites where building conditions are difficult and extreme attention to detail must be utilized to design a site,” McNerney said. “It can be used for insurance purposes to capture your assets digitally. Or it can be used for deformation analysis…probably the best use for cell towers.”
“Because all of our services are performed in-house,” McNerney said “we are able to provide the customer with the best turn-around time and communication.”
The company is currently licensed in Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico, and will be adding Arizona and California as pliable territory in the near future. McNerney will add to the mix soon a drone pilot’s license from the FAA, providing yet another dimension to viewing a tower site.
January 5, 2017
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