CU Mar-Apr 2020

INDUSTRY news
DIGITAL INNOVATION HOLDS THE KEY TO HS2
Shareplant is urging the
industry to tap into efficiency
gains brought by digital technology,
to help make ambitious
infrastructure projects like HS2
feasible. Mark Watters, founder
and MD of Shareplant, said:
"The viability of major projects
like High Speed 2 hinges on our
sector's ability to catch up and
make the same gains in efficiency
other industries have enjoyed
by embracing digital technology.
"Our industry should be hungry
for every opportunity to
make savings and deliver more
cost-effective, leaner schemes.
If we can deliver these kinds of
ambitious projects on time and
on budget, it makes a difference
not just for us but for the
whole of the UK that will benefit
from the new infrastructure."
Shareplant is a UK-first online
construction equipment sharing
& rental marketplace and
construction management
software suite for site managers
and equipment owners,
bringing the efficiency of the
sharing economy (services like
Uber or Airbnb) to construction
plant and tool hire while
helping to modernise the management
and administration of
construction projects by using
paperless, cloud-based construction
software.
The software and app unlock
new revenue streams for construction
firms, making it easier
to offset depreciation while plant
is idle during a project and easier
to cheaply rent plant - leading
to more efficient and frictionless
allocation of resources, smart
use of data and generating savings
that flow through every
stage of a project.
www.shareplant.com
NEW SUPPORT FOR OASYS MASSMOTION
Oasys MassMotion has
received multi-language
support with a simple Chinese
interface and user support,
along with new features and
capabilities. These include new
elevator analysis options, conditional
wait spaces in process
chains and a range of usability
enhancements.
Initially developed for Arup
engineers to help understand
the impact of crowding on
major infrastructure projects,
Oasys MassMotion is now the
most flexible, commerciallyavailable
crowd simulation software
in the world. It offers
robust geometry editing and
BIM import capabilities, flexible
operations and logic modelling,
and a wide variety of analysis
options, including easily implemented
analysis of vertical circulation.
It enables the smartest
agents to react dynamically to
emerging situations.
www.oasys-software.com
BENTLEY SYSTEMS ACQUIRES GROUPBC
Bentley Systems has
acquired GroupBC, a
leading UK SaaS software
innovator. For over twenty
years, GroupBC’s and Bentley’s
software solutions have
been deployed for complementary
purposes to improve
project and asset information
management.
Keith Bentley, CTO for Bentley
Systems, said, "Our iTwin cloud
services, taking advantage of
iModel-based solutions for
interoperability, are ideal for federating
CDEs. This enables us
Virtual Surveyor has released
Version 7.1 of its popular
drone surveying software, introducing
functionality to efficiently
calculate volumetrics in quarries,
mine pits, retention ponds,
and other basins that fill with
water. This new functionality
complements advanced cutand-fill
mapping capabilities
unveiled in late 2019.
"Virtual Surveyor is now the
go-to package for managers
of mines, drainage pits, and
stormwater retention basins,"
said Tom Op 't Eyndt, CEO of
Virtual Surveyor nv in Belgium.
"Volumetric calculations involving
water bodies can be performed
much faster and more
accurately."
Virtual Surveyor is popular
among surveyors because it
bridges the gap between UAV
photogrammetric processing
applications and engineering
to assure that the users of our
BC SaaS services will benefit
from further extending the value
of their project and asset information
through digital twins.
"With the help of our new
GroupBC colleagues, we will
now be able to better serve
engineers, contractors, and
owners by bringing together
their collective IT (information
management), OT (operational
technologies including
reality modeling), and ET
(engineering models)."
www.bentley.com
VIRTUAL SURVEYOR SOFTWARE FOR DRONES
design packages. The software
generates an interactive
onscreen environment with
UAV orthophotos/DSMs
and/or LiDAR point clouds
where the surveyor selects
survey points and breaklines
to define the topography, creating
highly accurate products
up to five times faster than
otherwise possible.
In Version 7.1, the user can
apply two new functions called
Extract Level and Create Water
to delineate an entire water
body and represent its surface
as a single elevation. Delineating
the water feature can be
accomplished with a single
click on a point where the
water meets the edge of a
basin, pond or quarry. This
creates a perfectly flat elevation
for the water surface in the
generated surface model.
www.virtual-surveyor.com
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March/April 2020