An iTwin is an infrastructure digital twin.
An iTwin incorporates different types of data repositories – including drawings, specifications, documents, analytical models, photos, reality meshes, IoT feeds, and enterprise resource and enterprise asset management data – into a living digital twin. Please Go here to get additional information about iTwins and Bentley iTwin Services
Overview
- Contains digital components assembled from many sources
- Based on open source SQLite relational database format
- Backbone for iTwins
Details
- An iModel is a specialized information container for exchanging data associated with the lifecycle of infrastructure assets.
- iModels are self-describing, geometrically precise, open, portable, and secure.
- iModels were created to facilitate the sharing and distribution of information regardless of the source and format of the information.
- iModels are an essential part of the digital twin world. But a digital twin means a lot more than just an iModel.
iTwin connectors play an important role in enabling a wide range of both Bentley and third-party design applications to contribute to an iTwin.
Bentley iTwin Services provides connectors to support a wide array of design applications to ensure all of the engineering data can be aggregated into a single digital twin environment inside an iModel.
A complete list of available connectors can be found in iTwin Services Community Wiki
Examples of iTwin Connector include:
See Section on iTwin Synchronization for more details on existing connectors.
However in certain cases, where a specific format is not covered, one can develop a new connector using iModel.js SDK
The imodel-bridge package provided as part of the iModel.js SDK makes it easier to write an iTwin connector backend that brings custom data into a digital twin. To run this environment with the iModel.js library that this package depends on requires JavaScript engine with es2017 support.
Note: Please keep in mind iModelBridge is sometimes used as a synonym for iTwin Connector since it bridges the gap between input data and a digital twin.