Bentley buys country’s leading surveying software maker
Bentley Systems, Inc. said it acquired Char*Pointer Tecnologia, boosting the infrastructure software giant’s ability to take advantage of opportunities in helping engineers and contractors build a modern transportation system in South America’s largest country.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Char*Pointer’s topoGRAPH software helps civil engineers and other infrastructure professionals process survey data generated by total station instruments, laser scanning, and GPS devices.
Exton, Pa.-based, privately held Bentley, with $550 million in sales last year, said the software, which allows users to create drawings and plans, analyze terrain models, calculate earthwork volumes, and to design roads and railways, complements its own civil engineering and transportation software.
“Our goal is to leverage Bentley’s 3D information modeling software and engineering collaboration solutions, along with our new colleagues’ expertise in surveying software and knowledge of local requirements, in addressing Brazil’s enormous need for a safer and more efficient transportation system to support its burgeoning economy,” said Bentley COO Malcolm Walter.
Last year, Brazil’s government announced measures to attract up to $66 billion in private investment for road and rail projects, including upgrades for 6,200 miles of its rail network and a $27 billion public-private funding drive to modernize the country’s seaports.
Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of Brazil’s roads are unpaved, despite it hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which will attract millions of additional visitors to the country’s heavily congested road system.
“Brazil can and, I believe, will resolve these challenges faster and more cost-effectively by leapfrogging other countries in using 3D information modeling to deliver higher-performing, more-resilient transportation infrastructure,” Walter said.
Bentley applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure.
Its products for architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with software solutions for sustaining infrastructure include:
• MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling
• ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing
• AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations
On Tuesday, Bentley announced V8i (SELECTseries 3) releases of itsInRoads, GEOPAK, and MXROAD products powered by its OpenRoads technology.
The software lets engineers and designers upload data captured from photogrammetry, lidar, GPS and point clouds, for their design or survey projects, then analyze and manipulate it, all while ensuring the original data’s provenance.
The three products now have the unifying capabilities of its OpenRoads technology to boost BIM (business information modeling) objectives of multi-disciplinary roadway teams, including:
• better design decisions
• increased construction awareness
• interoperability for asset management
“This shared technology represents the next step in Bentley’s advancement of its civil engineering and transportation products as we continue to build on our hallmark of both practical and scalable information modeling software, now including comprehensive, unified, 100 percent 3D modeling software for roadway design for all of our civil engineering users,” said Ron Gant, Bentley global marketing director, civil engineering and transportation.
