Interviews

CloverPoint Morphs with Geospatial Trends to Deliver Cutting-Edge Technology

CloverPoint is a British Columbia-based company that has been delivering a number of geospatial and web development products and services to a wide variety of clients since 1992. V1 editor Matt Ball spoke with Jeff Warwick, president and CEO, about the evolution that the company has undergone and about their new alliance with Autodesk to provide asset management tools that fuse a geospatial and building information modeling approach.

V1: To start, I think it would be interesting to discuss the organization’s history. I understand that you have strong geospatial roots. Was there a specific market sector that you started out in, and how have things evolved.

Warwick: We started out with four enthusiastic just-graduated students from the University of Victoria. When we started, we were learning GIS right out of university in the late 1980s, so you can imagine how rudimentary it was then. At that stage GIS was very new, and it was an industry starved for data. Our first generational successes were about helping people getting data into the systems.

As the company progressed, we started to see that we had to evolve as the industry evolved. GIS has had several generational changes, from feeding the systems with information to being analytical with the information to solve problems. We transitioned from being a company that just put data in, to being a company that became very analytical with the data.

In the late 1990s as the Internet evolved, we became a distribution company, to help our clients distribute their information. With our current generation, we’re putting out a Facebook application called MapSocial, which is meant to be a tool used by everyone. We’ve gone from power users to everyone being enabled by geospatial information.

It’s been a natural evolution as the needs of our clients have changed.

V1: You’ve been very nimble to change the pieces as the markets have demanded. Do you also find a call to integrate all these pieces with specific solutions for customers?

Warwick: As a medium-sized business we find we have to lead, blazing a path for people to follow. We have customers that are following us, and looking for us to do innovative things. We’re finding that we’re the technology experts, and the ones that are relied upon to use this technology to see our clients’ problems, solve them, and then they will come along. We’re finding that we need to stay ahead as a cutting-edge technology company.

V1: At Autodesk University, where we met last, you showed a total new evolution with your 3D visualization and asset management tools.

Warwick: The Autodesk connection has come from a unique place. As we’ve built our software, we’ve seen that there’s a convergence of tools that people want to use to enable themselves spatially. We see new areas with people using these tools. The Autodesk marriage came with the work that we’re doing with the construction and BIM industry.

People see BIM as a building with a highly detailed model, but we look at BIM and Autodesk as a source for the creation of rich 3D data that all serves a purpose. We’re a big believer in the value-adds on top of that data. As you’ve seen, we’ve created a city out of the many building models that people give them. We see so much value in the information, and we provide the ability to get the models out to the masses.

It’s one of those leading edge areas that we’re working in. We teach our clients how to value the 3D models that they have, and leverage them in various aspects of the business that they’re doing. You hear catch phrases like collaboration, but that’s because there’s value in that.

V1: With your asset management tools, are you bridging the GIS and CAD/BIM divide?

Warwick: We’ve created a core framework that we call Insight that comes from both the GIS and BIM perspective. The two-dimensional map is now moving into the third dimension with new information that can be acquired or just needs to be leveraged. Companies have spent a lot to create information that is just sitting on a shelf, and we help them find value in that information.

What ends up happening as we talk to people, they help us lead by giving us a problem to solve. We’re also big on the interactive side of things. The jargon is Web 2.0, where we create a system that people push data into it. With Web 2.0 it’s about empowering people with tools to deal with their problems.

V1: With the asset management tool, is the primary target organizations that own or manage multiple buildings?

Warwick: We’ve had initial success with the University of British Columbia, and through our relationship with channel partners such as Stantec Engineering in the AEC space that do a lot of master planning for universities and healthcare.

We’re big on R&D, where we spend two out of three dollars back into the company. We realize the only way to lead with technology is to spend time with it. We’ve committed our resources to understanding technology, and as fast as it changes, we work to stay ahead of it.

An area that we’re thinking ahead, with our same client base, is augmented reality that delivers. It’s going to be one of those next technology evolutions, where everyone will be using it, but they aren’t using it now. We’ve been playing with it, and have received different government funding to develop the technology. We can’t say enough good things about the Canadian federal government when it comes to how they support technology firms like ourselves.

V1: I’m familiar with the augmented reality platforms like Layar. Are you working on developing applications on top of platforms, or are you developing your own platform and interface?

Warwick: We’re familiar with Layar and SecondLife, they have very much of a gaming feel to them that we aren’t interested in. We are interested in taking technology back to the grass roots of geospatial. We have some working demos for asset tracking to bring details behind the walls into view. With mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP), you’ll be able to use an iPad to see that information while you’re in the field.

The ability to see designs in situ, where you can virtually see that information in real space, is hugely powerful as we talk to people that see the value in it. We’re working at an R&D level that takes us to a spot on the ground, without a marker, to coordinate your location with information. We’re interested in virtualizing information on top of real life.

V1: You can really point to efficiency gains, cost savings, and even safety improvements if people have this information at their fingertips. Are you seeing more of an interest in those efficiency gains based on the poor economy, and having to do more with less?

Warwick: We do hear a lot of that from people. We have to think in terms of the investments people make, and it’s quite easy to show people how they can get a better return on that investment.

At every level of people that we talk to in an enterprise setting, you can imagine how complex these systems appear to those that have never been exposed to them. One of our biggest missions is on education. We spend time educating people on the need to understand their assets, and how it’s managed in their business. If you’re not using these systems, you really can’t get a good handle on it.

We have a meeting tomorrow with a company that manages the technology park affiliated with the university. They have a full-blown Revit model of their campus, and they want us to take that in, and pull in metered data from their electrical systems so that we can show them in real 3D time and space their consumption of electricity. Another company provides the meters, and we geolocate the meters and then create a dashboard of consumption.

We’re in the early stages of that type of process, but you can see where the future is going. The value of an XYZ coordinate, with a detailed 3D model and sensor input is exciting. We’ve had people talk to us about all kinds of versions of this, and when you solve the problem for one, you solve it for a whole bunch of other people too.