Bentley Systems: Exclusive interview

BIM Show Live is the UK’s largest BIM conference with two days of seminars and exhibitions where those in attendance can benefit from genuine learning and best practice. 

Bentley Systems exhibited at the event in April and conducted a presentation on the exhibition’s Tech Stage. In this exclusive interview, Neville Glanville, the Solutions Director at Bentley Systems, spoke to UK Construction Media about BIM Show Live, the Company’s experience at the exhibition and how it has helped to boost industry knowledge of Smart3DCapture. 

Tell us a bit about your company. How does BIM Show Live provide a platform to showcase this?

Bentley Systems are providers of innovative software and services for the enterprises and professionals who design, build and operate the worlds infrastructure.

BIM is a topic which has been gathering momentum in the UK, following the UK Government’s construction initiative which is mandating the adoption of BIM processes for Government procured projects from 2016. Also, as a result of this mandate the scope of BIM has extended beyond buildings, to the built environment as a whole and now encompasses infrastructure aspects such as road and rail.

BIM Show Live is a conference which has been focused on this specific subject for some time, and whilst we are known in this sector, it is always important to maintain the industry’s awareness of Bentley’s BIM advancements in technology developments and how we are innovating. Whilst attendees in the main tend to be knowledgeable on the subject of BIM, it is important they are continually made aware of our capabilities in the field, and for us to engage with the industry by means of the conference to understand trends and thoughts directly from the more expert members of the industry.

How has the exhibition changed over the years and how many times have you been?

2015 was the fourth time that Bentley have been in attendance, out of the five events in total. The overall event, exhibition and conference has evolved during that period, and has moved location from London to Manchester. This move was largely triggered by the need for a suitable venue and Manchester Central is a good venue for it.

Just how useful is that slot on the Tech Stage in giving you the platform to explain the technology you possess?

The slot on the Tech Stage is a good vehicle for introducing something new to the industry in the context of BIM. This year we had an exciting innovative technology to talk about in the form of Reality Modeling following our acquisition of Acute3D and the application Smart3DCapture, and one which I felt would resonate with the audience. The fact that I picked up a BIMMY Award for the presentation demonstrated the relevance.

Can you explain about Smart3DCapture? What does it provide to the industry?

Smart3DCapture is a software solution allowing you to produce high resolution 3D models from simple photographs, without any human intervention. It is able to analyse several photographs of a static subject, taken from different viewpoints, and to automatically detect pixels corresponding to a same physical point. Utilising cutting edge photogrammetry, computing vision and computational geometry algorithms, it meets industrial-quality requirements in terms of precision, scalability, efficiency, usage, robustness and inter-operability. Bentley Systems acquired Acute3D in February 2015, and quoting from the press release, Bentley Systems Founder and CTO Keith Bentley said: “The world class Acute3D developers have already achieved two breakthroughs, which remove the barriers to the adoption of reality modeling. First, Acute3D has made it possible for anyone to sufficiently capture existing conditions with just a camera. Of equal importance is the value of the Acute3D result. Rather than a voluminous cloud of discrete points, Acute3D produces a 3D ‘reality mesh’ – intrinsically in the same geometric idiom as engineering models, readily aligning the real-world context.”

How is this different, in your opinion, from anything else in the industry?

I suppose a comparison with point clouds is the obvious one, but actually each have their place. Advancements in laser scanning technology is ongoing, and advancements in digital photography and photogrammetry technologies are too. We define the overall subject of context capture, as Reality Modeling, where models created for design are augmented to add contextual detail to more adequately evaluate constructability. Point clouds and digital photography are able to improve the understanding and documentation of project site conditions. In addition the availability of this type of project information on mobile devices is improving access to data on the project site.

Since your time at BIM Show Live, how do you feel that those two days, the exhibition stand and your presentation has helped to increase the use of Smart3DCapture in the market place?

Attending an event like BIM Show Live is more about awareness, and it gave us the opportunity to engage with industry attendees on the subject of BIM, and an opportunity to present on the Tech Stage was to introduce something new and exciting.

Apart from the contact on the day, and those that took the time to watch the presentation, both the subject and the event by coincidence, introduced me to a company that was actually already using the technology, and are involved in capturing high quality photography and videos with the use of UAVs or drones.

This company is called M7Aerial, who also had a stand at the event. It is so important to have a local company that can carry out the survey, as well as utilise the technology, who we can introduce to our users and collaboration between our companies will continue to advance the adoption of such new technologies and methodologies on projects as the industry begins to see the benefit.

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