Two new software products for rapidly converting collections of photos into 3D models and rapidly creating realistic environments for those models—one called ContextCapture, the other called LumenRT—demonstrate technical sophistication, data management techniques, rendering speed and ease of use that has reviewers taking notice but asking for more validation, too.

“Can it compare to LiDAR? I want to know the worst, best and average accuracy to know how I can use it in construction,” says Jia Gong, assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Engineering. In early November in London, Gong saw the products demonstrated at Bentley Systems Inc.’s 2015 “Year in Infrastructure” conference, where the company announced the software release.