GIS

New iTwin Cloud Services by Bentley

Bentley Systems, Incorporated has announced new cloud services for infrastructure engineering digital twins. It is digital representation of physical assets and their engineering information that allow users to understand and model their performance in the real world over their lifecycle. In effect, “evergreen” digital twins advance BIM and GIS through 4D.

iTwin Services enable engineering firms to create, visualize and analyze digital twins of infrastructure projects and assets. It federate digital engineering content from BIM design tools and multiple data sources, enable “4D visualization” of digital twins, and log engineering changes along a project/asset timeline, to provide an accountable record of who-changedwhat- and-when. Engineering teams are using it to conduct design reviews, validate design data, and generate design insights. Users of Bentley’s design applications can apply the iTwin Design Review service for ad hoc design reviews, and project teams using ProjectWise can add the iTwin Design Review service to their digital workflows to facilitate overall project digital twins. PlantSight is an offering jointly developed by Bentley Systems and Siemens, which enables owner-operators and their engineers to create living and evergreen digital twins of operating process plants. www.bentley.com

SAP partnership with Microsoft

Building on a joint commitment to simplify and modernize customers’ journeys to the cloud through project “Embrace,” SAP SE and Microsoft Corp. announced an extensive go-to-market partnership — from conceptualization to sales — to accelerate customer adoption of SAP S/4HANA® and SAP® Cloud Platform on Microsoft Azure.

The new partnership brings together SAP and Microsoft, along with a global network of system integrators, to offer holistic bundles that provide customers with unified reference architectures, road maps and market-approved journeys to illuminate a clear path toward the cloud. As part of this simplified customer journey, Microsoft will re-sell components of SAP Cloud Platform alongside Azure. www.sap.com

OGC updates IndoorGML standard to v1.1; seeks public comment before approval

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is seeking public comment on the v1.1 update to the IndoorGML standard.

The goal of IndoorGML is to represent and allow for the exchange of the location information required to build and operate indoor spatial services such as indoor navigation systems. Several standards, such as CityGML, KML, and IFC, have been published to describe 3D geometry and semantics of buildings for outdoor/indoor spaces, but they lack some important features that are specific to indoor spaces. IndoorGML aims to provide complementary and additional encoding features for indoor space. In this respect, IndoorGML is a complementary standard to CityGML, KML, and IFC.

IndoorGML v1.1 introduces a new feature for level (i.e. storey or floor) information as an additional attribute of cell space to respond to the requirements from many indoor spatial applications. IndoorGML v1.1 is fully compatible with the previous version IndoorGML v1.0.

The OGC IndoorGML Encoding Standard was developed to provide a common schema framework for interoperability between indoor spatial applications. These cover a broad spectrum of application areas such as indoor location services, indoor web map services, indoor emergency control, indoor IoT sensors, guiding services for visually handicapped persons in indoor space, and indoor robotics. Crossplatform, vendor-neutral communication of indoor spatial information is essential to meet the market demands of these applications. www.opengeospatial.org

SAIC wins $68 million contract with NGA

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has awarded the $68 million Zeus contract to Science Applications International Corp. The Zeus acquisition is the follow-on contract for the Innovative GEOINT Application Provider Program (IGAPP) that SAIC has supported since 2014. SAIC serves as the unbiased trusted broker for NGA, partnering with startups and innovative sources to acquire apps and data content that support geospatial intelligence missions.

Zeus expands the scale and scope of the IGAPP program. It will be responsible for identifying, prescreening, price negotiating, recommending, and delivering candidate applications and data content to NGA. The program will continue to operate under the IGAPP program name. saic.com

Maptitude Geodemographic Segmentation Streamlines Neighborhood Targeting

Caliper has announced the release of the Maptitude Geodemographic Segmentation for the USA. It is providing 8 segments and 32 sub segments that provide an intuitive way to explore the demographic makeup of neighborhoods across the country. These locations can be analyzed with the tools and data already included with Maptitude, such as spatial/SQL filters, reports, overlay, and radius/ring tools. This provision of a low-cost lifestyle segmentation product for the entire USA is unprecedented.