Infrastructure software manufacturer Bentley Systems and positioning instruments provider TopCon announced on Wednesday their joint intention to connect cloud services to advance the construction industry globally.

The announcement was made by the CEOs of both companies during their keynote addresses at Bentley's 2016 Year in Infrastructure conference, in London. The CEOs presented new construction work flows, designed to increase efficiency and productivity with enhanced integration between the companies’ respective cloud services.

Bentley and TopCon said they would bring cloud-based solutions to market, which would include the services of both companies, and provide construction work flows that were not previously possible. Initially, Bentley will offer its ProjectWise Connect edition users seamless connectivity with MAGNET Enterprise, while TopCon will incorporate ContextCapture image processing for its mass data collection via unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

TopCon CEO and president Ray O'Connor noted that the companies shared a vision about the advancements that they could achieve through the "continuous representation of reality".

"We also share a commitment to rolling up our sleeves and working together to make possible tangible results and real benefits for our customers as we advance 'constructioneering'," he stated.

O'Connor added that the companies’ "strategic collaboration" would continue to integrate surveying, engineering and construction, thereby improving the outcomes for project delivery.

Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley highlighted that, to date, the surveying, engineering and construction industries had separately advanced to three-dimensional (3D) technologies. However, he noted that, until now, 3D models had been recreated – rather than reused – at each phase.

"It has been exciting to work with TopCon to introduce 'constructioneering' to our engineering users, who can now start from the reality-captured survey context and leverage and update their digital engineering models through the construction process.

"Our joint cloud service innovations for constructing and improving roadways, including as-built capture, are enabling the highest level of work flow automation," Bentley commented.

He explained that, compared with traditional work flows between design and construction – in which data from survey and digital engineering models can be lost and inefficiency recreated – 'constructioneering' empowered engineers to extend their role within both the surveying and construction spheres of the project.

Bentley elaborated that cloud services first bring the construction site conditions to the engineers to ensure that their work starts with an accurate model of the current 3D context – as captured by TopCon's UAS photogrammetry and laser scanners – and then processed into an engineering-ready 3D reality mesh by Bentley's ContextCapture software. Cloud services subsequently convey the engineers' work directly to construction processes in the field.

"This automation process – achieved through the connection between TopCon's MAGNET cloud service and Bentley's ProjectWise Connect edition cloud services – improves project delivery, with design performed in context, and the resulting digital engineering models feeding the 3D machine controls that guide the construction machinery," noted Bentley.

O'Connor and Bentley concluded that they both expected this collaborative effort between their companies to expand the 'constructioneering' work flow to further applications for infrastructure services worldwide.