Bentley pushes ahead with acquisitions and partnerships
Software specialist Bentley Systems is expanding its range of software products both through key acquisitions and in-house developments, as well as developing its partnerships with other firms. Two firms Bentley has bought are UK company Legion (see box) which is a leading provider of advanced pedestrian modelling software. The other acquisiation is the Swedish company Agency9, which offers city-scale digital twin cloud services that will help enable smart city development.
Bentley is itself introducing its iTwin Services platform, for digital twin cloud services aimed at use in major infrastructure projects. This will allow more efficient synchronisation of actual and virtual data for a project.
The new open-source library, meanwhile, is a significant step, using JavaScript packages and intended to improve accessibility. The firm’s chief executive Greg Bentley said, “We chose JavaScript specifically because it is the common language. It’s built using the most common and productive tools available worldwide.”
The firm says that this move will allow developers to create immersive applications that can connect infrastructure digital twins to other digital models. Bentley continued, “We have made all the source code available. We realise making it open source is a tremendous commitment.”
The system allows users to create web-views of 1D, 2D, 3D and 4d models from BIM files and other digital data models.
Also new from Bentley is an advanced new modeling environment, allowing multi-discipline collaboration.
In addition, Bentley is further developing its partnerships with Microsoft and Topcon. One new development is the potential for integration between its ProjectWise 365 Services package and the Microsoft 365 package. This will allow greater collaboration for digital workflows. Bentley’s arrangement with Topcon is for a further development of the constructioneering initiatives and programs developed between the two companies.
Atos and Bentley
Meanwhile, Bentley Systems and Atos have announced a strategic partnership to create operate digital twins for the owners and operators of industrial and infrastructure assets.
The arrangement, announced at Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference in London in October, marries Atos’ global expertise in digital transformation together with Bentley’s infrastructure, engineering, reality modeling and asset performance software.
Businesses will be able to take advantage of fully-integrated and managed digital twins as a cloud-based service. It will support owner-operators to meet their key performance indicators in several ways, according to Bentley. There will be full immersive visibility of assets including up-to-date 3D models of assets via drone-enabled scans. There will be real-time monitoring to predict asset performance and avoid failures.
Performance analysis will maximise asset availability, increase productivity, ensure optimum performance and ultimately extend the asset’s life. Also, in the in the case of dangerous or inaccessible asset, there is remote operation of assets.
Bentley and Atos have previously worked together on several manufacturing client projects, which brought together Atos’ expertise in system integration and data capture and analytics with Bentley’s reality modelling software.
Atos has 100,000 employees in 73 countries and an annual revenue of around $13.7 billion. Within Europe, it leads in big data, cybersecurity, high-performance computing and digital workplace.
