Photo analysis to efficiently record the condition of infrastructures
Straintest has won two major customers for pilot projects: SBB and, most recently, the Swiss Federal Armaments Office armasuisse. The start-up, which is only seven months old, already records and measures the finest hairline cracks on façades or infrastructure buildings using photos and creates automated reports.
Straintest ‘s customers include the first major companies: SBB and, more recently, the Swiss Federal Armaments Office armasuisse. According to a report by startupticker.ch, they are working with the Zurich-based start-up, which was founded in August 2024, in pilot projects to explore the benefits they can derive from its technology for the simple measurement and observation of cracks in facades and infrastructure structures such as bridges.
Unlike time and energy-intensive sensor methods, Straintest only requires a photo that can also be taken with a smartphone camera. A small metal plate is attached to the left and right of the crack as a reference point. The images are uploaded to the Straintest platform. There, the software records and measures even the finest hairline cracks and automatically issues a report.
“Our solution is particularly suitable for short deployments, for example on houses next to a construction site, or for monitoring over a longer period of time when only a few data points – once a month, for example – are required,” Straintest co-founder Matteo Pariset is quoted as saying in the report. In such cases, it can be worthwhile to dispense with sensor methods that are more expensive to install and require a constant power supply and battery changes. The proptech start-up, which has so far been financed exclusively from its own funds, now wants to find suitable sales partners and then concentrate more on the further development of the product.