Bentley Acquires Acute3D to Advance Reality Modeling

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, announced that it has acquired France-based Acute3D, provider of Smart3DCapture software for reality modeling. Through reality modeling, observations of existing conditions are processed into representations for contextual alignment within design modeling and construction modeling environments. Rapid technology advancements in scanning and photography – and especially the burgeoning application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for these purposes – are making the capture of such observations broadly and continuously affordable in sustaining infrastructure.

Acute3D software automates the generation of high-resolution, fully-3D representations from digital photographs taken with any camera, whether highly specialized or embedded in a smartphone. Scalable from site to city, and with precision limited only by the quantity and quality of photography, Acute3D technology can assure that existing conditions are contemporaneously considered throughout the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations of any infrastructure asset. Now that photo sequences from UAVs are likely to become the most feasible source for surveying, construction monitoring, and inspection workflows, Acute3D's industrial-level accuracy and unlimited scalability are making it a preferred technology for UAV manufacturers and professionals around the world.

Acute3D was co-founded in 2011 by Dr. Jean-Philippe Pons and Dr. Renaud Keriven, who have attracted and led an accomplished team of researchers and developers, headquartered in Sophia Antipolis (the French "Silicon Valley"). Since its founding, Acute3D has attracted a rapidly expanding user base that includes Nokia, PASCO, and Saint-Gobain, and OEM licensees that include Airbus Group and Autodesk. In China, Internet giant Tencent is working with Acute3D to do large-scale 3D city modeling for several mega-cities, from both aerial and street view photography. Other applications of Acute3D have included existing conditions capture for construction sites, manufacturing facilities, mining operations, pipelines, and oil and gas exploration.

Keywords: Design Modeling, Construction Modeling, 3D City Modeling, Reality Modeling, ARC Advisory Group.