Smart Company Project: Antea Group

Engineering and consultancy firm Antea Group develops sustainable solutions for our living environment. With a broad range of services, including research, design and project management, they deliver solutions in the fields of environment, infrastructure, spatial planning & mobility, and water. Their projects range from integrating bridges, roads or natural areas into their surroundings to developing climate-neutral residential districts and industrial environments, always with a strong focus on sustainability and safety.

What was needed?

Antea is a large organization with vast amounts of data. This data was not easily shared across different departments, however. It was also unclear who owned which data, and multiple versions of the same files existed. Antea was therefore looking for a Digital Twin that could serve as an interactive data catalogue.

What did Sirus do?

We proposed a data platform as the foundation, based on our standard architecture. We then expanded this platform with components tailored to Antea’s needs. To demonstrate its capabilities, three use cases were developed. Afterward, Antea was able to independently expand the platform and build additional use cases. On top of that, the platform allows users to easily retrieve different versions of data based on their creation date.

Use case 1: High-voltage route - updating and visualising geographical data

The first use case focuses on a high-voltage route and demonstrates how the platform automatically processes and visualises geographical files, such as data on offshore wind turbines or agricultural areas. Both internal and public geographical data layers – sourced from geographical web services, GeoServer and Databank Ondergrond Vlaanderen – are automatically ingested into the platform, transformed, and made available in Azure Maps, Microsoft’s equivalent of Google Maps.

Antea employees can toggle layers on and off, access detailed information, check for overlaps and perform measurements. The map becomes an interactive and structured inventory of the available company data. Knowledge is no longer confined to a single department, but shared across the entire organization.

Use case 2: Dynamic water data

The second use case focuses on dynamic data. We visualised several waterways east of Mechelen, showing how water levels and flow rates evolve over time on a dynamic map. This includes both real collected data and predictive data, generated using a machine learning model to forecast how these values may evolve.

Use case 3: Data for the BIM4Infra event

The third and final use case is based on the first one, but uses data relevant to the BIM4Infra event organised by Agentschap Wegen en Verkeer. Internal data was excluded for this purpose. Instead, only publicly available geographical data layers were used to present the Digital Twin project to visitors at this technical event.

Technicalities of the project

We use Azure Data Lake as the storage solution. NiFi handles the (real-time) processing of files, while a context broker makes the data available in a user-friendly way. This context broker is then accessed through a frontend web application, which uses Azure Maps for visualisation.

What's next?

We’ve already developed three very specific use cases. The strength of this data platform – built on a standard architecture – is its flexibility and scalability. Not only can new use cases easily be added, the platform is also highly scalable for other (real-time) applications.

What did our Sirus developers think?

“It was an incredibly educational project for me. Not only because of the architecture, but also due to the Azure Maps environment. We used 3D visualisation to place high-voltage pylons and wind turbines directly on the map, and experimented with a 3D elevation model. Being able to present the project myself at the BIM4Infra event was the icing on the cake. IT projects are often quite theoretical and difficult to explain, but when you can show a moving, interactive map, it suddenly becomes much more tangible.”

Hannes Dendoncker Data Engineer at Sirus

What did the client think?

“We are very satisfied with the collaboration between Antea Group and Sirus. Throughout a journey in which we were still exploring our direction, Sirus consistently contributed constructively and inspired us to make the right choices. The decision to work with generic components has proven to be a strong foundation for future developments. The project is not yet complete, but we clearly feel that we are heading in the right direction.”

Robrecht Lippens Head of Digital at Antea Group

Smart Company Project

At Sirus, innovation is at our core. We strive to help build the Smart Companies of the future, and Antea Group is now part of this innovative future. We are proud to be a part of this collaboration, and if you are to – be sure to follow us on LinkedIn for updates!

Interested to be a part of projects like the Smart Company Project for Antea Group? Learn more about Sirus’ Smart Company Approach and don’t hesitate to take a look at our careers page!