FORUM8 and U.S. based Mandli Communications have entered into a joint marketing agreement to maximize the market impact of both FORUM8's simulation software and Mandli's new laser scanning system, Maverick.

Based in Madison, Wisconsin, Mandli Communications is an industry leader in the design and development of highly specialized digital imaging, data collection equipment, and operational methodologies for various Departments of Transportation throughout the United States.

Since 1983, Mandli has made available to the transportation industry a complete range of imaging, pavement, and positioning equipment. Together with a suite of supporting GIS software and services, Mandli has enabled their clients to design, manage and maintain safe and efficient transportation infrastructure networks.

Mandli has worked with over 30 states across the country, and has brought technology solutions to several nations outside of the U.S. Mandli currently functions exclusively from the Madison office. The corporation has employees with various skill levels in engineering, business, sales, production, programming, human resources, data collection, data processing and management.

FORUM8 is the leading Japanese producer of state-of-the-art 3D Engineering software.

Its premier product in the west, VR-Design Studio (formerly known as UC-win/Road), is at the forefront of Real-time Interactive 3D VR Simulation & Modeling technology.

Established in 1987, this award-winning company has offices and partners on every continent, and is a member of the ITE as well as an associate of the TRB visualization group.

VR-Design Studio is the ideal solution for urban and transport planning and design projects, either on its own or adding value to 3rd party 3D design or micro-simulation software and other data sources such as point-clouds and photo-logs.

It was through the ability to import point cloud data directly into VR-Design Studio that led to the first collaboration between Mandli and FORUM8 and a project for Hawaii DOT.

The project involved the production of a semi-automatic method to color point cloud data collected by Mandli with images from their photo-log. This data was used to build an interactive 3D VR simulation environment of an area outside Honolulu's international airport.

This project had two main elements:

 - The development of a special software tool to add color (RGB) to point cloud data of a target section of State Route 92. This software tool would enable photo-log images to be correctly merged into point cloud data, both of which were collected by Mandli Communications. This was the first time such a process had ever been attempted hence both the procedure and the software that was developed were both unique.
 - The production of a specific Interactive 3D VR Simulation environment using Forum8’s VR-Design Studio and the imported colored point cloud and additional shapefile data.