Bentley Systems Acquires Citilabs and Orbit Geospatial Technologies

Bentley Systems, one of the worldwide leading providers of comprehensive software and digital twin cloud services for advancing the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, has announced the acquisitions of global mobility simulation (CUBE) and analytics (Streetlytics) software provider Citilabs, and global provider of 3D and mobile mapping software, Orbit Geospatial Technologies (Orbit GT). The newly acquired technologies, in conjunction with Bentley’s existing design integration and digital cities offerings, enable engineering-based mobility digital twins. Road mobility digital twins converge cities’ digital context (including 4D surveying facilitated by Orbit GT for drone-and vehicle-mounted mobile mapping), and digital components (including from Bentley’s OpenRoads engineering applications) with... (read more)

2019-10-21 08:47:20

C-Astral Fields Mini UAS ATLAS C4EYE in Benchmark Trials with NATO Forces

C-Astral, a Slovenian integrator of small unmanned systems and a member of the Terra Drone group, has announced it has been successfully fielding its new mini UAS ATLAS C4EYE (Advanced Technology Light Acquisition/ATAK System) in a series of closed trials, involving the cooperation of manned, unmanned and NATO JTAC assets. The 2.6kg blended-wing-body platform has been going through a flight and feasibility testing phase and is now entering the operational phase, with multiple procurement contracts being currently negotiated. The system is currently among the most advanced mini UAS system in its category with more advanced capabilities than the industry standard... (read more)

2019-10-15 11:18:53

Trimble to Acquire Cityworks to Expand Digital Asset and Infrastructure Management Solutions

Trimble has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Azteca Systems LLC (dba 'Cityworks'), a leading provider of enterprise asset management (EAM) software for utilities and local government. Cityworks' solutions address the global challenges associated with maintaining and replacing aging utility, transportation and public assets and infrastructure. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to customary closing conditions and expiration of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. Financial terms were not disclosed. Cityworks, based in Sandy, Utah, was launched in 1996 and provides a powerful and flexible office, cloud and mobile EAM software... (read more)

2019-10-09 08:58:20

SenSat Raises US$10 Million for Simulated Reality Technology

SenSat – a UK-based geospatial startup company using artificial intelligence to unlock value in the infrastructure industry based on digital representations of real-world locations – has announced a US$10 million Series A funding round, led by Tencent, with participation from Sistema Venture Capital. The new capital will be used to support growth, enabling SenSat to expand its London team of 30 experts by more than threefold over the next year. It will focus on data scientists, mathematicians, software developers and creative problem solvers, as well as driving continued international expansion. SenSat creates digital representations of real-world locations – otherwise known as digital twins... (read more)

2019-10-02 01:30:26

Carlson Survey and GIS 2020 Modules Offer User Interface Upgrades and Efficiency Tools

Carlson’s latest release of Survey 2020 brings intuitive UI upgrades along with a host of new features and tools to improve day-to-day efficiency. A long-anticipated Migration Wizard for upgrading software as well as sharing settings and files across the office highlights this year’s list of customer centric updates. This new migration tool allows users to install a new release and then just simply transfer all of their previous settings, custom symbols, linetypes, fonts, etc. to the newer version. A new Start Page and Open Drawing dialog box with a georeferenced map can be used as a visual filing system, making... (read more)

2019-10-02 09:04:28

GeoSLAM Launches New Innovation for Rapid Urban Mapping

Recently, GeoSLAM announced its latest innovation for rapid urban mapping – the ZEB Discovery. Officially unveiled at Intergeo 2019 in Stuttgart, the ZEB Discovery signifies a new era in data capture and integration of a point cloud with high-resolution imagery. The mapping solution is capable of rapidly capturing intricate data with the use of the company's industry-leading simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology and NCTech’s iSTAR Pulsar panoramic camera for ultra-high-definition image capture. The end-to-end solution automatically synchronizes the point cloud with imagery for a unique walk-through of the area of data captured. Combining the two data sources into one... (read more)

2019-10-01 11:33:14

InSAR Used to Create Ground Stability Maps

Zooming on a Groundbreaking Revolution

Satellite radar interferometry (InSAR) is a technique that can measure millimetre-scale movement of the ground from space. It does this by comparing the return echoes, and thus the signal-path length, from two or more radar images taken over the same place, over time. Modern InSAR is now used by a range of industries concerned with ground or structural stability, from building development and control, to oil and gas production, to mining, to road and rail management. This article explains some key aspects of InSAR technology, including its innovative use to produce ground stability maps. Phase Shifters InSAR is based upon... (read more)

2019-03-07 05:09:42

3D Modelling for Property Valuation in China

A High-resolution Remote Sensing-based Approach

Rapid urban development in China has transformed the cityscapes, with a dramatic increase in high-rise buildings. However, the current 2D property valuation methods neglect the vertical dimension, even though that aspect contains significant indicators that impact property value – such as types of views, scope of vision and daylight. 3D modelling of geographical data can help to change this in high-rise and highly-density areas, going beyond 2D to enable identification of complex property characteristics in the vertical dimension too. This article presents research to explore a 3D modelling approach using remote sensing data for more precise property valuation. The accelerating... (read more)

2019-09-26 10:00:54

AI-powered Object Detection as a Mapping-business Accelerator

Geospatial Imagery Analytics Market Expected to Reach US$8 Billion by 2025

UAV, aerial and satellite mapping service providers are competing for the global market – with a rising hunger – for geospatial insights. Automating the feature extraction process is key to accelerating, scaling up and diversifying a location intelligence service portfolio. Cloud-based platforms coupling cutting-edge machine learning research with a user-friendly implementation offer a powerful turnkey and cost-effective solution to those looking to gain competitivity by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) automation into their workflows. With more and more business relying on location data to optimize their planning and day-to-day work or to gain first-hand market insights, the geospatial imagery analytics market... (read more)

2019-09-24 01:35:49

Leica Geosystems Announces Major Efficiency Improvement to Airborne Urban Mapping Solution

Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon, has introduced the Leica CityMapper-2. This next-generation hybrid oblique imaging and Lidar sensor provides fast and efficient digitization of cities. As part of Leica Geosystems’ RealCity solution, which combines the CityMapper-2 with the Leica HxMap high-performance processing workflow, the new sensor is designed to provide faster updates while preserving image quality over a wide range of flying conditions. The most significant improvement comes from the newly developed optical system incorporating two nadir (RGB & NIR) and four oblique 150 MP metric cameras using CMOS technology and equipped with Leica Geosystem’s unique mechanical forward-motion-compensation (FMC). The... (read more)

2019-09-23 10:49:00