On June 9, BGC Engineering Inc announced that it has transferred its holographic visualisation software technology to a new spin-off company. Clirio Inc has been formed to manage, develop, support and sell the technology known as The Ada Platform™. BGC, with its commitment to innovation, created Ada to turn its experience and knowledge of client project data into action.
BGC commented: “With this solution, using the Microsoft HoloLens, experts and non-technical stakeholders can visit an augmented reality digital twin of their project site from anywhere in the world. The Ada Platform has been successfully deployed with customers globally, helping to shape decision making on complex projects.”
Steve Hedberg, CEO of BGC says: “I am hugely proud of the work our team has done to get Ada to this point. The ability for holographic visualisation of data to contribute to BGC projects and to global earth science practice will be enhanced by this new structure; we should all feel proud about where we are today. I am excited about the future prospects of Ada and look forward to continued collaboration with Clirio, our team and our clients.”
Clirio was formed BGC said “to set the Ada technology free to fly” under the management of a team focused on scaling the software business into new markets and ecosystems, with mining and earth sciences front and centre. Clirio is headed by CEO Ron Klopfer, who has a track record of over 20 years of leading high-tech startups. Joining Ron in the new venture is the original software development and product management team from the Ada project, eager to move forward on this new venture.
“We are at a moment in time where humanity can truly leverage holographic visualisation to fundamentally improve the way we perceive and steward our use of Earth’s surface and subsurface. I’m thrilled to be joining a team that has pioneered extended reality technologies from the very earliest stages,” says Klopfer. BGC will retain a minority stake in the new company and continue to champion the use of this revolutionary technology internally, and with its clients.
Ada has proven itself to be a powerful solution for communicating complex 3D data, such as GIS, CAD, Photogrammetry, LiDAR and subsurface modelling. It allows multiple participants to view and collaborate with true three-dimensional holograms, from desktop to life size. As an example, BGC Engineering Inc and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) recently used Ada Platform to provide residents with a 3D view of remediation work underway at the now closed Giant Mine near Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Mining industry clients have included Suncor, Rio Tinto, Antofagasta Minerals and Anglo American.
“The ability to take data out of a monitor and put it into the middle of a room as a hologram, to be able to walk through it and talk to others, is a generational change in applied earth science practice. With this new venture the development will accelerate and better solutions for more projects globally will result,” says Bill Burton, BGC’s VP of Innovation.
Clirio has a distinct advantage as a new entrant in the marketplace, as it is inheriting a proven software solution and seasoned team to develop and implement exciting new features such as remote collaboration and data annotation in the near future. Ada is already a powerful and easy-to-use tool that allows users to drag-and-drop the 3D data they are already using today to quickly create and implement holograms in the cloud. Ada uses Microsoft’s secure Azure cloud technology, with viewing available on the HoloLens 2 mixed reality device, and iOS phones and tablets.
