How do leading engineers digitally identify defects?

Trendspek recently hosted leading engineers from Infracorr Consulting in a live webinar to discuss how Universities can transform risk management across campus with digital-led inspection and analysis.

Here are some of the key insights from our discussion.

Why are Universities turning to digital solutions?

Managing University campuses comes with a unique set of  challenges, including liability risks from heavy foot traffic areas, and understanding mixed-age portfolios featuring both historic and modern buildings.

Increasingly, Universities are looking to diversify their asset management due to:

• Large portfolio of mixed materials and varying aged assets, across multiple campuses
• Open to the public, high volume of foot traffic onsite
• Growing demand for massification (expand their presence to global markets) to attract a competitive pool of international students
• Increase agility and flexibility, from timetables, to spaces, to education offering
• Come up with creative solutions for under-utilised spaces across campus

Ian Godson, Founder and Director at Infracorr:

“Typically, what we might be able to inspect with these [traditional] sorts of techniques, it's very slow, and usually you would only inspect maybe 5, 10% of a structure or a building... obviously, working off ropes and cherry pickers is far more dangerous than working from a computer screen."

BENEFITS OF A DIGITAL APPROACH

Safety & Efficiency:
Minimises the need for physical access methods like rope inspections, reducing risk and costs.

Comprehensive Coverage:
Unlike traditional inspections, digital captures provide a full view of structures, ensuring no critical areas are overlooked.

Accurate Measurements:
3D models allow precise defect measurement, reducing variability in maintenance planning.

Collaboration & Transparency:
Stakeholders—engineers, contractors, and asset managers—can remotely access and analyse the model, streamlining decision-making.

Predictive Maintenance:
Tracking deterioration over time enables universities to allocate resources efficiently and prevent costly emergency repairs.

How does software like Trendspek help Universities?

By leveraging high-resolution drone imagery, Trendspek creates detailed 3D models of built assets, providing universities with fully scalable, interactive digital replicas, enabling remote inspections, precise measurements, and enhanced collaboration.

Unlike standard photographs, Trendspek’s 3D models are GIS-captured, meaning that every defect is accurately geolocated with latitude, longitude, and elevation.

In partnership with Infracorr Consulting and using Trendspek’s platform, the University of Sydney successfully captured and modelled over 100 buildings at its Camperdown campus, achieving 80–90% external coverage with minimal disruption.

Drones and other capture methodologies allowed for precise inspections without the need for scaffolding or intrusive site visits.

Diana Soliman, Principal Engineer at Infracorr Consulting:

“Being able to understand, capture and predict using data from historical inspections through Trendspek’s platform lets us better maintain and be proactive. For example, we might look at a crack that might have been of a very low severity when the first  capture was done, but it's now kind of deepened or widened a little bit. Using Trendspek, we can predict that this one is still OK for today, but it's going to need maintenance in the next couple of years, and put that on the backlog."