View from a cloud
Neolant is a Russian software company with expertise in plant design. They recently began following the ASCON model by making their core technology available an an independent product. For ASCON, it was their C3D modeling kernel; in the case of Neolant, it is their server-based InterBridge data viewer and manipulator for 2D and 3D files from CAD and PLM systems (a.k.a. cloud-based project review and maintenance software).
The company freely admits that CAD vendors have their own products, and that InterBridge is not first to the market. And so their job is to convince customers that InterBridge is worth a look against competitors like Autodesk Navisworks, Intergraph SmartPlan Review, and Bentley Navigator. Neolant targets 3D plant design, industrial operations, and civil construction specifically.
Here are some of the arguments Neolant makes for InterBridge:
- While other systems come from an architectural background or are better suited to short-term projects, InterBridge is designed to handle interdisciplinary models over the long-term. This comes from its experience with nuclear power plant design.
- While integrated models from other vendors "might be only a beautiful 3D picture useful only for boggling the minds of managers," InterBridge does collision analysis
- InterBridge's native format is more lightweight than most other viewers, handling hundreds of thousands of elements and and storing all information about facilities, obviating the need for CAD licenses
- Neolant says InterBridge is useful for construction planning (install, say, the piping system separately from the ventilation system) and operations (reporting pipe diameter and manufacturer for replacement units)
- In addition to reading a variety of CAD and standard formats, InterBridge also loads 3D point cloud, which can then be used to compare as-builts with the design documents
Large 3D plant model in InterBridge
Neolant makes some remarkable claims for InterBridge, saying it is...
... a smaller 2MB download, versus 6GB for Navisworks from Autodesk, for example
... faster at loading files, such as opening an 842MB DGN model in 9 seconds, versus 540 seconds for Navisworks
... faster in drawing, such as 0.3 seconds for a large 3D model, versus 1.7 seconds for Intergraph SmartPlan Review
... uses less memory, such as 1.9GB for a 131,000-element 3D model, versus 4.2GB for Bentley Navigator
(It did these benchmarks using a 3.4GHz i7 desktop with 8GB RAM and a 4GB nVidia GT640 graphics board.)
Get more info from http://www.neolant.com/interbridge.
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