Award-Winning Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Software
When Murray Fredlund was working on his Master’s Degree at the University of Saskatchewan, he found that there wasn’t a database on soil properties to help engineers that wanted to perform groundwater flow modelling. “In my spare time, I created a searchable database of soil properties from around the world.”
He commercialized the database to help pay for the remaining years of school and realized that there were opportunities to grow a full-scale company. “We invested in developing related geotechnical products in areas like groundwater flow and slope stability analysis to expand our suite of product offerings. We now offer twelve software applications with more in the pipeline. For example, we just announced the impending beta release of SVSEISMIC for performing analysis of earth structures under dynamic or earthquake conditions. ”
With a flagship product of 3D slope stability analysis and twenty-two employees, SoilVision was recently acquired by Pennsylvania-based Bentley Systems, a global leader in providing engineers, architects, geospatial professionals, constructors and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions.
SoilVision works with companies from around the world including major players in Canada, USA, Australia, China, South Africa, Brazil, Chile and Peru. “Most of our consumers are geotech consultants and firms,” shares Fredlund. “We’ve helped with world-class geotech work (earthwork construction), mining and oil and gas projects – often as part of the remediation process to return commercialized sites back to their natural state.”
He continues, “Although many of our clients are confidential, there has been some public news the last while about failures with tailing dams and reservoir containment dams. Our software is often used to figure out what happened and where things went wrong, which allows them to better engineer in the future.”
Fredlund is proud to be from Saskatchewan. “It’s a great place to grow the company. We have access to the computer science department at University of Saskatchewan and we draw a lot of international talent. We have people from all over the world that work for us here.”
Founder: Murray Fredlund
Incorporated Date: January 1997
Employees: 20-25
Website: www.Soilvision.com
