Topcon Positioning Group and Bentley Systems have agreed to work together to connect their services in the cloud to allow for collaborative projects that they have termed ‘constructioneering’.
Topcon’s area of expertise is positioning instruments for surveying and construction, while Bentley provides modelling and planning software for advancing infrastructure, and the companies want to combine these functions in the cloud to provide more holistic and dynamic construction workflows.
Initially, Bentley will offer its Project Wise Connect Edition to connect users with Topcon’s Magnet Enterprise, while Topcon will make Bentley’s ContextCapture image processing compatible with its mass data collection via unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
Ray O’Connor, president and CEO of the Topcon Positioning Group, said: “Topcon and Bentley share a vision about the advancements we can achieve through what I call the continuous representation of reality. Our strategic collaboration will integrate surveying, engineering and construction to improve the outcomes for project delivery.”
Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems, added: “To date, surveying, engineering and construction industries have separately advanced to 3D technologies. But unbelievably, until now, 3D models have been recreated – rather than reused – at each phase.”
He said ‘constructioneering’ would mean that users could start with the reality-capture survey process, and update digital models throughout a construction.
The vision is for work started with an accurate model as captured by Topcon UAS photogrammetry and laser scanners that is then processed into an engineering-ready 3D model meshed with Bentley’s ContextCapture software.