Hexagon's Acquisition of myVR Provides Mobile 3D Model Viewing
Hexagon AB today announced the acquisition of myVR, provider of software for photorealistic 2D, 3D, and 360-degree visualization of interactive maps over low-bandwidth connections. The Norwegian company compresses large 3D models for viewing on many platforms, including mobile phones and tablets. The 3D city model viewing and 3D maps are embedded within large online mapping providers in Europe, such as Yell.com.
This acquisition fits with Hexagon’s portfolio of design, measurement and visualization technologies, and also fits within the markets that Hexagon already serves. MyVR has been active in the oil and gas, building and construction, and the government space.
“The acquisition of myVR will be of great value for Hexagon’s current offerings. Everything is going mobile, including our customer offerings,” said Ola Rollén, President and CEO, Hexagon AB. “In the past, the problem with displaying 3D data on a mobile device such as a tablet has been size limitations of data transfers, and also the ability to handle the transfer in a real-time environment. myVR has a unique solution to this problem, and Hexagon will make use of its technology in all of our divisions.”
MyVR has a number of different product offerings as well as solutions built on Adobe Flash, HTML5/WebGL and OpenGL(ES) for delivery of visualizations online, on the desktop, and on mobile platforms. There is a 360° Streetview product, a 360° Panorama for browser viewing, a 3D Map with Adobe Flash, the mMap SDK for 2D/3D maps on mobile platforms, 3D MapView plug-in for Win, Mac and Linux desktops, and a variety of services for custom software development.
View the following YouTube videos for more of a sense of myVR’s capabilities.
This 3D visualization of the Royal Castle- Finn shows seamless viewing of a high-resolution 3D model.
This iPad visualization demonstrates support for video within a map interface:
This announcement comes at a time when there’s great convergence between Computer-aided Design (CAD), Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Hexagon is a major force behind this consolidation, with a number of hardware and software offerings that when coupled provide a seamless integration across tools and workflows. This addition provides the missing piece for the portability of models across devices, and the fact that it will be leveraged across different Hexagon companies for different vertical market workflows, provides great value for this acquisition.
