Moving with the tech

The past: Origins

At Oasys, we’ve been developing geotechnical software for more than 50 years. Some of our software was originally built to work on punch card computers, and through time it has evolved to work in DOS (late 70s and 80s), on Apricot (90s) and then in Windows (late 90s).

Software of this time tended to be quite functional, drawing heavily on the requirements and expertise of domain experts – geotechnical engineers – and even being built by those engineers in some cases. Software inputs required direct entry, often relying on tables, and files were typically saved using a format unique to each product.

Improvements in processing power and memory over time meant that people could do their analysis quicker and model greater complexity; however, analysis methods remained largely unchanged and many are still in use today. Automation options were added to Oasys software starting in the mid-2000s via the addition of a programming interface, allowing control from scripts.

The present: Making better use of technology

The evolution of geotechnical software continues with the growing industry adoption of cloud software, which provides several key benefits. Cloud software can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, can be used from different devices and is operating system agnostic, plus there’s nothing to install. It’s regarded as secure, resilient and a more sustainable choice.

With the cloud, software users potentially have access to vast computing power. As a first step up from how software has traditionally been used, this allows us to run several analyses in parallel, for example in different browser tabs. Stepping up again, we can then run orders of magnitude more analyses at the same time, and in doing so unlock analytical methods that have until now been technically very difficult and/or very time consuming to achieve.

User-centred design means that modern software has become much easier to use and much easier to learn to use, and it therefore requires less investment to get familiar with. Accessibility is also improved, helping people with differing requirements to use the software.

Another benefit of cloud is the ease by which different software products can be connected, for example removing the need to directly enter inputs by obtaining that information directly from its source. Application programming interfaces (APIs) provide the gateways that connect software (often using universal data transfer formats such as JSON), and they also let us integrate software and its powerful computing capabilities into our own wider workflows.

The future (conclusion): What will be possible?

So, what’s next? Cloud software can already process volumes and velocities of data at speeds that mean that we as humans cannot usefully comprehend the outputs. Provided we can translate this into something digestible, for example using visualisation techniques, there is enormous potential for connected software to provide real-time insight as we investigate the ground and construct in it, as well as during the life cycle of assets.

When we add artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies to the equation, it seems clear that the software of the future will allow us to realise digital-enabled geotechnical processes that we cannot yet conceive.

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