The Year in Infrastructure Conference, hosted by Bentley Systems in Vancouver, became a stage for showcasing the future of digital infrastructure, with a compelling keynote from Patrick Cozzi, founder of Cesium and now Bentley’s Chief Platform Officer. Cozzi took attendees on an in-depth journey through Cesium’s path from a visualization tool for aerospace to an industry-defining, open-source geospatial platform now powering Bentley’s ambitious vision for infrastructure engineering.
Cesium, known as an open-source platform for creating highly detailed 3D applications, has made significant strides since Bentley’s acquisition, demonstrating a groundbreaking approach to digital infrastructure. Addressing a full auditorium, Cozzi highlighted Cesium’s evolution and Bentley’s vision to create a world where digital twins, geospatial data, and 3D models work together seamlessly, all powered by Cesium’s robust capabilities.
Mark Coates, VP Infrastructure Policy Advancement, Bentley Systems
The Year in Infrastructure Conference in Vancouver was abuzz with discussions about the future of infrastructure, digitalization, and sustainability. Among the many thought leaders present, Mark Coates, Vice President of Infrastructure Policy Advancement at Bentley Systems, offered a compelling perspective on how global collaboration, digital tools, and innovative policies can transform the infrastructure landscape.
In an exclusive interview, Coates detailed his team’s mission to identify and promote best practices from innovative infrastructure projects worldwide. “We see these fantastic lighthouse projects,” he explained. “The goal is to make sure they don’t remain isolated, but rather become the next level of norm across industries, governments, and financial institutions.” This, Coates believes, is essential to addressing infrastructure challenges in a world increasingly affected by environmental and operational changes.
NETROnline, the producers of www.historicaerials.com, have successfully completed the scanning of the first half of the 1.2 million frames of the Tobin aerial film archive that dates back to the 1930’s. This archive documents in detail the massive changes that took place across the southern United States during the first half of the 20th century.
The scanning was performed using GeoDyn’s PromptScan M2 photogrammetric scanner. To date, NETROnline has scanned over 600,000 frames at a resolution of 13 microns, accurately capturing and preserving the full detail from this important archive.
The initial phase of the project has been the most challenging as it included many rolls of film from the 1930’s that are primarily nitrate-based, as well as over thousand frames that had been previously cut out of the rolls and which required careful handling. Without scanning, these films would soon have deteriorated beyond scannable condition, risking a significant heritage loss.
In the rapidly evolving field of location intelligence, Nearmap stands out as a pioneering force, reshaping how aerial imagery is captured, processed, and delivered to its diverse clientele. At the recent 2024 Esri User Conference in San Diego, I had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Santovasi, Director of Product ; Dan Maurer, EVP of Strategy & Operations; and Scott Townsend, SVP of Global Marketing at Nearmap. Our conversation illuminated Nearmap’s innovative journey, its strategic goals, and the remarkable technological advancements they have achieved.
The Nearmap Journey
Nearmap, founded 17 years ago, has revolutionized the aerial imagery sector. From its inception, the company has focused on bridging the gap between image capture and delivery, employing proprietary camera systems to collect high-resolution imagery across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. These camera systems, now in their fourth iteration, are installed on aircraft such as the Cessna 310, Piper Navajo, and Chieftain, and are managed by a survey operations team.
Dan Maurer explains, “We started by re-engineering the link between the capture of imagery and its delivery to customers. Our end-to-end process ensures that imagery is processed and delivered efficiently, whether through our web-based interface, MapBrowser, or via APIs.”
Initially focused on orthogonal 2D imagery, Nearmap has since expanded its offerings to include oblique 3D images and AI-driven insights, providing users with comprehensive tools to solve their specific challenges. Maurer adds, “We’ve moved from just delivering imagery to providing insights and answers, integrating this data directly into the workflows of GIS users across various industries.”
Expanding Capabilities and Humanitarian Efforts
Nearmap’s advanced imaging capabilities include near-infrared captures through their latest HyperCamera 3 systems, adding a valuable layer of data for environmental and urban analysis. “We are rolling out the HyperCamera 3, which captures four-band imagery, enhancing our ability to provide detailed and nuanced insights,” says Santovasi.
In addition to their regular data collection, Nearmap plays a crucial role in disaster response. They conduct post-disaster capture flights known as their ImpactResponse imagery, which provides critical data to aid recovery efforts for those that need it most. “Our humanitarian flights after disasters are part of our commitment to supporting communities in need,” notes Townsend.
In the realm of desktop computing, speed and power are the twin pillars upon which the ultimate user experience rests. Today, Intel has once again affirmed its commitment to these principles with the announcement of its Intel® Core™ 14th Gen i9-14900KS processors, heralding a new epoch in desktop processor speeds.
Intel’s latest marvel, the i9-14900KS, bursts through previous boundaries by offering a staggering 6.2 gigahertz (GHz) max turbo frequency straight out of the box. This isn’t just another incremental step forward; it’s a giant leap that cements Intel’s status as the purveyor of the world’s fastest desktop processor. For the legion of PC enthusiasts, gamers, and content creators, this represents not just an upgrade but a transformation in what they can expect from their desktop systems.
Intel Core 14th Gen i9-14900KS Special Edition Unlocked Desktop Processor Provides Record-Breaking 6.2GHz frequency right out of the box – giving high-end PC enthusiasts the cutting edge power they look for in their desktops. (Credit: Intel Corporation)
“The Intel Core i9-14900KS showcases the full power and performance potential of the Intel Core 14th Gen desktop processor family and its performance hybrid architecture,” says Roger Chandler, Intel’s vice president and general manager of the Enthusiast PC and Workstation Segment. His words underscore a fundamental truth about today’s computing demands: they are evolving, and Intel is leading the charge in meeting these demands head-on.
European Space Imaging (EUSI) partner Maxar collected satellite images over Gaza on Sunday, 26 November. The imagery provides a look at new efforts to bring in food and supplies into Gaza while the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is in place. In the link provided below, the image gallery focuses on a number of areas of interest including: humanitarian aid trucks approaching the Egyptian border with Gaza; crowds of people gathered near gas and propane storage stations; people walking along the Salah al Din road in Gaza; several of the key hospitals in Gaza City and additional aid supplies for Gaza being brought into El Arish airport in Egypt. Please let us know if you have any questions about the images or associated information.
European Space Imaging (EUSI) partner, Maxar collected new imagery yesterday (7 November) of Gaza that spotlights the following:
New cross-border activity between Gaza and Egypt at the Rafah border crossing where aid/humanitarian trucks and vehicles increasingly are transiting the area and bringing in supplies to Gaza
Groups of people evacuating south along Salah al-Din road as part of the humanitarian corridor that was opened briefly today to enable civilians an opportunity to flee the fighting in Gaza City
A Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) image of a number of active fires burning in Gaza City. With the SWIR satellite imagery, vegetation appears in shades of blue while active fires/thermal hot spots show up as orange/yellow.
European Space Imaging (EUSI) and itpartner, Maxar collected a serieof satellite imageyesterday (10 September) that focused on a number of the villageand townthat were damaged by the recent 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Morocco late on Friday. Many homeand buildinghave collapsed from the quake and a number of roadare impassible due to landslides. Aioften seen after an earthquake, tentand emergency shelterhave been established in and around a number of the villageand military troopand equipment are helping with search and recovery efforts. In the link provided below, you can download a gallery of imagethat spotlight some of the damage seen in the mountainouvillagesouth of Marrakesh. Please let uknow if you have any questionabout the images.
The Caledonia Water Alliance (CWA), formed between AECOM and Morrison Water Services, is supporting the delivery of Scottish Water’s water infrastructure element of its capital investment program. The program’s six-year framework requires building information modeling (BIM) compliance and digital technologies to improve deliverable materials. This close collaboration resulted in the utilization of mobile GIS as well as the integration of Web GIS and BIM.
President of AECCafe Sanjay Gangal spoke recently with Montreal-based Nick Fonta, General Manager, XR division at Autodesk about Autodesk’s XR immersive experience and the company’s acquisition of The Wild, an immersive remote collaboration platform for architecture, design, and enterprise teams.
Sanjay: Thank you so much for joining us, Nick. So, tell us about Autodesk XR Solutions.
Nick: For sure. Autodesk has an interesting journey or history when it comes to XR. We started in the 1990s with our first project around XR, and it was a full 3D immersive experience with AutoCAD data that people could navigate into, a little bit like a first-person shooter. You could interact with basic interactions with the AutoCAD scene at the time. That was a project in prototype. And since then, we’ve been doing a lot of things, we have a research group who continued testing the limits of those technologies, but more recently, we’ve had a few things maybe worth noting. The first thing being about seven years ago, we moved into the real-time engine business, if you will, with our own engine, which was called Stingray. And we also built a first product in our trying to understand what that meant phase for Autodesk, and the product was called Revit Live. And both Stingray and Revit Live were our first real experiments to try to understand how real-time technologies, VR, and AR can can add value and solve real problems for our customers in the AEC and manufacturing spaces.
We tried a lot of things there, and then finally, a lot more recently, we have products today that support mostly VR, a little bit of AR as well in a portfolio. We have VRED, which targets mainly the automotive industry. VRED is a very high end, high resolution, high level of fidelity when it comes to imageries and rendering. It comes with the collaborative VR experience, so you can bring multiple designers to review, do the design reviews typically on cars, but it’s also used in other manufacturing industries. So that’s one, as a product, it’s been around for about five years, maybe a bit more, and is still around. It’s very successful, we’re seeing a lot of adoption and growth there, and we also have a capability called Create VR that allows designers to sketch and ideate in VR from scratch in a 3D space for a very creative way of transferring your ideas as a designer into the 3D world. Recently we released a capability out of Fusion products, one of our Hero products in manufacturing that allows any Fusion model to be experienced in AR, experienced on iOS with a publish to a USDZ. This is what we have today. This is where this all journey started, maybe a couple of months ago, and I’m sure we’re going to talk more about that now.
