Skip to main content

3D Repo develop virtual reality safety app for Balfour Beatty

3D Repo is working with contractors Balfour Beatty and Vinci and the UK roads agency Highways England to deploy a virtual reality simulation program for safety training. 3D Repo, a spin-off from University College London, develops open-source software for building information modelling in the cloud. More than 40 different 3D file formats are decomposed and federated in the company’s big data repository.
April 18, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Seeing is believing, and staying healthy: 3D Repo’s construction site simulation
3D Repo is working with contractors Balfour Beatty and 5177 Vinci and the UK roads agency 8100 Highways England to deploy a virtual reality simulation program for safety training


3D Repo, a spin-off from University College London, develops open-source software for building information modelling in the cloud. More than 40 different 3D file formats are decomposed and federated in the company’s big data repository.

The simulated program - part of the UK’s Smart Motorway programme – is a fully immersive simulation to prevent on-site accidents by making highways construction and maintenance projects safer through improved training. It features real world scenarios while the virtual experience gives users different perspectives of the same potentially dangerous situation in order to develop an understanding of safe working zones.  

“In order to demonstrate our understanding of our customers’ needs and facilitate the collaboration between our customers and their clients, we wanted to digitally transform our approach,” commented

Neil Thompson, head of digital research at 1146 Balfour Beatty, said that using a standard visual reality headset, the 3D Repo simulation provides multiple views of different scenarios. The user is immersed in a position relative to an activity, for example bank excavation, so they can examine both the worker’s as well as the plant driver’s visibility. The user can then position themselves where they think they are safe and switch to the plant operator’s position to understand what they would see.

All this is done within the safety of an office or training room and without the need for lengthy manuals, training sessions or specialist personnel. As the scenarios are hosted online, the system can be set up easily from any location and can be deployed across numerous sites at the same time.

“Upon login, users can access all their projects remotely on the fly and without the need to create custom executables each time,” said Jozef Dobos, chief executive of 3D Repo. “We also utilise existing site-specific 3D models and building information modelling (BIM) data so that custom scenarios can be created and uploaded as and when needed.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Eradicating work zone danger
    June 26, 2013
    New safety systems for highway work zones are helping to reduce deaths and injuries in the United States, while much work is being done in Europe to improve work zone safety. Guy Woodford reports. With more road building underway than at any one time in Texas history, the US Lone Star state’s Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is introducing its first highway safety system with queue-warning technology and temporary rumble strips to cut work zone collisions. Debuting along a central Texas stretch of the
  • Speeding repairs of concrete motorway
    April 2, 2014
    A novel technique is now being introduced in the UK that can help cut construction costs, as well as the time needed for road repairs. Connect Plus, the company that finances, operates and upgrades the 400km M25 network on behalf of the UK’s Highways Agency, has pioneered an innovative method for the replacement of life-expired concrete motorway The introduction of this method is helping reduce the delays experienced by drivers by as much as 80% in the sections of road where it is now being implemented.
  • Bentley boosts its OpenRoads CONNECT construction software
    November 1, 2016
    Construction software solutions provider Bentley Systems announced that its OpenRoads Designer CONNECT Edition will be available from December. OpenRoads CONNECT Edition is the successor to Bentley’s civil engineering brands InRoads, GEOPAK, MX, and PowerCivil. OpenRoads Designer is a multi-discipline 3D modeling application for roadway projects from conceptual design through construction stages. Bentley Systems said that it “blends traditional engineering workflows for plan, profile and cross-section
  • Connected Tech for Construction Continuity
    December 11, 2020
    No one could have predicted the situation we found ourselves in in 2020, with a global pandemic bringing the economy to its knees, projects delayed overnight, rapid restarts, remote management, and challenging labor dynamics.