How will design and engineering workflows change when a substantial amount of geospatial data can be crowdsourced? This was a key theme at SPAR International 2013. In his keynote address, Michael Jones, chief technology advocate of Google, painted a picture of a world in which the general public becomes a continuous source of real-time data through emerging technologies such as Google Glass. Smartphones and tablets are already driving some of this shift. “There’s a whole world of information,” he said, “and every bit of it is important to somebody.”

Recognizing this trend, Autodesk recently launched new software called ReCap with the idea of taking reality capture mainstream. “We believe that every Autodesk user deserves to start with the existing environment rather than a blank sheet of paper or a blank screen, so we’re trying to make reality capture software easier to use, more scaled and more integrated,” said Robert Shear, director and general manager of reality capture for Autodesk.