Bentley Systems releases digital twin initiatives for smart cities

Bentley Systems has unveiled new digital twin initiatives to improve efficient city and regional operations for more connected and resilient infrastructure.

A digital twin is a digital representation of an asset that allows planners and engineers in public works, utilities, property management and development and local government better manage city infrastructure over its lifecycle.

Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley said the company’s major technical thrust is the advancement of digital twins across infrastructure domains.

“Our digital cities group’s charter is both to ramp infrastructure engineering digital twins to full city scale, and at the same time to help with going digital through entry points for any engineering department in any municipality,” he said.

City-scale digital twins are able updated through 4D surveying and reality modelling through programs such as ContextCapture and Orbit GT to derive 3D models from photogrammetry (including drones) or point clouds. Reality modelling aims to provide engineering-precise contact to support planning, design, construction and operations.

Users of Bentley’s open applications are then able to leverage this to help model new buildings, roads, transit systems, tunnels, bridges and utilities.

Public works departments, property developers, utilities and transportation agencies can gain a full and current view of the built environment, with engineering and architectural firms able to develop new services that can update and manage digital assets over their lifecycles.

Bentley Systems Vice President, Digital Cities, Robert Mankowski said, at Bentley Systems we have long and rich histories in respectively geospatial technology, and in BIM, for municipal infrastructure applications spanning capex and opex.

“Today, I believe we are the leading innovator in reality modelling and in geotechnical modelling and data management.

“With our new cloud-based iTwin Services bringing this all together, city and campus digital twins now offer an immediate opportunity to help cities and regions solve a wide range of challenges and problems, enhancing their infrastructure performance and their constituents’ quality of life.”