More art than science, earthwork engineering relied heavily on local custom in 1904 when Karl Terzaghi (1883-1963) earned an engineering degree in Austria.

A team of New Zealand-based software designers that brought digital 3D modeling to engineering geotechnics less than two years ago recently launched an upgrade to their software. It is now being used on some major projects, including the U.K.’s multibillion-dollar London-Birmingham high speed railroad (HS2).