River Cooling is an innovative environmental technology developed by Interxion that uses water-based free cooling. It uses the water from an old industrial facility to cool the data centres MRS2 and MRS3 (based in Marseille) by heat exchange. The technology makes it possible to avoid the use of chillers, limiting the energy consumption of buildings and their carbon footprint. This solution is thirty times more energy efficient than a conventional cooling solution.
As part of the Port of Marseille Smart Port Challenge 2, Interxion and Dalkia Smart Building together with the start-up My Digital Buildings created a demonstrator based on an immersive experience to showcase the innovative concept of “River Cooling”. The demonstrator takes the form of a multi-media virtual tour accessible on smartphones. Thus, the user discovers in a simple and transparent way the functioning of River Cooling through the digital twin of the building and its installations.
To do this, the company My Digital Buildings used a mobile 3D scanner and a drone to digitize the buildings. Through this digitization intervention, 3D data and panoramic images have been captured and assembled to create a “Google Street View” virtual tour of the building. In addition, photo, video and sound recordings are presented throughout the course, associated with 3D computer graphics to popularize the most technical elements. A large part of the work was to imagine the most enjoyable user experience possible while providing the right information with the right tools and the most suitable media.