History

How it all began ...

The roots of the company

The roots of Lenné3D stretch back nearly 20 years. In 2000 in the framework of a feasibility study – sponsored by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) – users and potential users of professional software for the 3D visualisation of landscapes were questioned in a representative survey. Demand for new state-of-the-art software in this field was identified.

This study was followed by a four-year research project based at the Institute of Land Use Systems of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and also sponsored by the DBU. In this research project an interactive system for the visualisation of spatial data was developed and named Lenné3D.

The founding of Lenné3D GmbH

In 2005, Lenné3D was founded as a spin-off of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (Müncheberg), the Zuse Institute Berlin and the Hasso Plattner Institute (Potsdam). The company seat was Berlin. The company specialised in software development and services in the field of the 3D visualisation of landscapes and vegetation. The managing director was Philip Paar, supported by partners Prof. Dr Oliver Deussen, Prof. Dr Jürgen Döllner, Hans-Christian Hege, Prof. Dr Jörg Rekittke, Dr Wieland Röhricht and Dr Liviu Coconu. One year later Dr Malte Clasen joined as a partner.

One of the company’s largest projects was its participation in the three-year research project SILVISIO – The future of forests made visible, sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

For this project both the methods and the software of Lenné3D were developed. The open-source software Biosphere3D was programmed at the Zuse Institute Berlin by Malte Clasen (see above) and since 2010 has been continually optimised and extended by Lenné3D with an eye on the latest methods of 3D visualisation.

From 2007 Lenné3D was a business partner of the geographic information systems manufacturer Esri. As part of the partnership Lenné3D developed multiple versions of plug-ins for ArcGIS Desktop with which individual company methods of plant distribution and plant renderings could be used in the product range of Esri. The development of these plug-ins was discontinued in 2015 and the partnership with Esri ended.

A change of management

In 2010 Jochen Mülder succeeded Philip Paar as managing director and further developed the company into a project- and service-oriented specialist in the field of landscape visualisation.

In the same year and again in 2012 the partner structure changed and Lenné3D moved from Berlin to Hamburg. Since 2014 the company seat has been in Bielefeld, Germany.

From its headquarters, Lenné3D today supports and advises a wide range of private and public-sector clients from the fields of spatial planning and engineering as well as clients from science and research.