Mastering 3D Plant Engineering, Digitalisation & Automation
A practical field guide blending plant engineering fundamentals with modern digital workflows — photogrammetry, BIM, LiDAR, CAD automation and Industry 4.0 patterns for engineering teams and digital leaders.
Soumen Roy
Soumen Roy is an executive technology and transformation leader with 27+ years of experience leading digital engineering, Industry 4.0, and data platform programs for heavy industry and enterprise software. He has led large multi-disciplinary teams, delivered 10+ enterprise transformations and built platforms that reduced analytic lead-times and delivered measurable ROI across India, Indonesia and Canada.
- Focus areas: photogrammetry & drone surveying, BIM/CAD automation, data platforms (lakehouse), microservices & analytics.
- Audience: plant engineers, BIM managers, digital leaders and architects looking to modernise brownfield and greenfield projects.
Short Summary
Mastering 3D Plant Engineering is a hands-on guide for plant engineers, BIM specialists, surveyors and engineering managers who want to convert legacy engineering processes into repeatable, digital-first workflows. The book walks through end-to-end pipelines — from site capture (drones, LiDAR, satellite) to model creation (photogrammetry, BIM) to engineering delivery (CAD automation, semantic layers) and operational integration (digital twins, analytics).
Detailed Description
The book combines engineering fundamentals with practical recipes and case studies. It opens with an overview of common plant engineering problems (brownfield complexity, inconsistent as-built documentation, long survey cycles) and then demonstrates how modern data capture and processing eliminate bottlenecks. Chapters include real-world patterns for:
- Site Capture: drone flight planning, photogrammetry basics, LiDAR capture and satellite imagery integration.
- Data Processing: image-to-pointcloud workflows, orthophoto generation, pointcloud cleanup, and mesh / DSM production.
- BIM & CAD Integration: translating pointclouds into Revit / AutoCAD assets, model cleanup, and maintaining coordinate systems.
- Automation: AutoLISP and script-driven CAD automation to accelerate drafting, reduce errors, and standardize deliverables.
- Digital Twin & Analytics: building a semantic layer, linking model attributes to operational KPIs and integrating with analytics pipelines.
- Governance & Scale: QA/QC checklists, processing SLAs, storage strategy (object stores), and team roles for repeatable delivery.
Recordings & talks
Review & Endorsements
“A practical and rare field guide that bridges classic plant engineering with modern digital practice. This book demystifies photogrammetry, BIM and CAD automation in a way that engineers can actually adopt on-site.” — Industry peer