Bentley systems has acquired Cesium, an open platform for creating 3D geospatial applications
Cesium ion, the company’s SaaS, brings 3D geospatial experiences to more than 1m active devices every month, while Cesium’s open source offerings have more than 10m downloads.
Its 3D Tiles open standard has been widely used by enterprises, governments and tens of thousands of application developers globally, and was adopted as a community standard by the Open Geospatial Consortium in 2019.
Bentley said the combination of Cesium’s technology with its iTwin platform will allow developers to seamlessly align 3D geospatial data with engineering, subsurface, IoT, reality and enterprise data to create digital twins with user experiences that scale from vast infrastructure networks to milimeter-accurate details of individual assets – viewed from land, sky and sea, as well as outer space or deep below the Earth’s surface.
‘Better informed decisions in full 3D geospatial context’
Bentley CEO Nicholas Cumins said: “A 3D geospatial view is the most intuitive way for owner-operators and engineering services providers to search for, query and visualize information about infrastructure networks and assets.
“With the combined capabilities of Cesium and iTwin, infrastructure professionals can make better informed decisions in full 3D geospatial context – all within a single, highly performant environment.”
Patrick Cozzi, CEO of Cesium, added: “Joining Bentley marks an important milestone for Cesium as we continue our journey to create the best developer platform for the built and natural environment – founded on open standards and open-source technologies.
“The combined power of our two organizations and our shared commitment to openness will provide new opportunities for growth and create greater value for an already flourishing developer ecosystem that ranges from small start-ups to global enterprises.”
As part of the acquisition, Cozzi has been named Bentley’s chief platform officer, leading the development of the combined Cesium and iTwin platform offerings, reporting to Bentley’s CTO, Julien Moutte.
