Archive for the ‘Bentley Systems’ Category
Monday, May 14th, 2012
In an interview with Richard Zambuni, Bentley’s Global Marketing Director, Geospatial & Utilities, Benoit Fredericque, Product Manager II (Responsible for Bentley MicroStation/Descartes Point Cloud Product Management and 3D City GIS), and Faraz Ravi, Director of Product Management (Responsible for Pointools), Bentley Descartes 8i new functionality was discussed.
According to the press release, Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 3) offers 3D modeling that combines point clouds, raster imagery, and geometry. The resulting models enhance the usability of point clouds by supporting hybrid design workflows that deliver “as-operated” 3D models to serve the operations and maintenance needs of owner-operators. By uniquely enabling hypermodeling – the intuitive navigation of as-operated models in 3D context that includes engineering information in any form – Bentley is committed to enhancing infrastructure safety and resilience while increasing owner-operators’ returns on their engineering investments.
Zambuni said that point cloud data is becoming ubiquitous, as gathering data is becoming more cost effective. “ The challenge has been to bring data into workflows in an efficient way,” Zambuni said. Those who make use of this data include infrastructure engineering workflows, design, construction, operation or planning and designing.
“Initially, we licensed the Vortex engine from Pointools to allow us to visualize, animate and view point clouds in MicroStation, but then we wanted to make point clouds a fundamental data type which means we can manage them alongside raster and vector.” The questions remained, how do we support visualization, animation in MicroStation and how do we deliver the advanced processing of point clouds that people need which we are going to support in Descartes and Pointools? What do you do in extended and enterprise workflows?
“That’s where ProjectWise streaming services come in, where you can literally isolate the elements of the point clouds you want to work with and stream them into a desktop session,” said Zambuni. “This allows you to get all the advantages you want with ProjectWise and workflow management and getting files aligned with projects. You can really bring point clouds into extended workflows rather than have them sit on thumb drives or hard drives somewhere or fedexing them around, it starts making them manageable in the way you manage DWG and DGN or any other engineering documentation.”
This is not just about individual products, he cautions, but rather about workflows and supporting point clouds in a very connected way across a range of products.
Scalable terrain models (STMs) are slightly different from point clouds as they are so huge and people must slice and dice them to bring them into projects. Often a very large STM can’t be used because it is unmanageable.
“We have made technology that allows you to to bring an STM in, even if it’s billions of points and to view that, you can work with that single scalable STM at city, regional or country level and you do it quickly and effectively,” said Zambuni.
Fredericque said that with the adoption and growth of our aerial lidar sensors, more and more people use aeril lidar and ask for STMs with a large number of points, increasing the need for this data type. Most products cannot cope with the sheer size of these files. Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems, says this is part of the big data problem solving for users – the way Bentley can manipulate and process point clouds and bring STMs into engineering worfklows.
“It also is a big plus for geospatial workflows for national mapping agencies where you want to manage large scale geospatial projects,” said Fredericque.
Ravi said that Pointools engine was integrated into MicroStation in 2009 which by extension made it a part of the Bentley platform. Descartes has extra layers of Pointools functionality on top of the engine.
Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 3) running on MicroStation V8i (SELECTseries 3) advances information modeling, in particular for infrastructure assets and 3D cities, through:
- advanced point-cloud processing
- the ability to handle extremely large scalable terrain models
- 3D model texturing functionality
Tags: 3D Cities, AEC, Bentley Descartes V8i, Bentley Systems, geospatial, point clouds, processing, STM, utilities
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Monday, January 30th, 2012
· The growth areas for use of bridge information modeling (BrIM) practices and technologies will continue to be Design/Build and PPP projects.
· Use of BrIM will bring measurable improvements in constructability analysis (and ultimately, in operations).
· 2012 will see greater adoption of BrIM at the Contractor level, for value engineering and cost mitigation.
· More organizations will change how they fund IT investments based on planning a shift to cloud computing.
· The practical realities of how enterprises are implementing sustainable business practices will continue to evolve rapidly, resulting in changes to organizational processes and the nature of sustainable business system solutions.
Commentary: Bentley’s BrIM solutions will continue to leverage Bentley platform technologies in readiness to support the shift to cloud computing.
The BrIM solutions for 2012 are well positioned to support sustainability and the changes to organizational systems and processes that will be required.
– Jackie Cissell, Bentley’s Product Marketing Manager, Civil & Transportation for BrIM (Bridge Information Modeling)
Tags: AEC, Bentley Systems, BIM, Bridge Information Modeling, BrIM, CAD, civil, cloud computing, contractor, platform technologies, sustainability, transportation
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Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Anne-Marie Walters, Bentley’s global marketing director, Plant, shared with us her predictions for that industry for 2012:
“Process Industry Owners demanding data handover in ISO 15926 format for
operations – Owners for many years have been demanding their projects be done in some 3D plant design system to deliver the benefits of 3D modeling for their projects and generate their isometrics drawings.
Typically they have then had to receive their P&IDs and datasheets as dumb drawings and deliverables and entered data manually into their maintenance and operations systems, not seeing the benefits of improved data handover into operations. Today, however, I am seeing an increasing trend to request a data handover for operations in ISO 15926 format as owners in the process industry are gaining confidence in both their EPC contractors’ ability to deliver data (rather than traditional drawings) and in the ISO 15926 format as a format that contains all the information they need for operations.
Focus on managing change across the project lifecycle and dashboards tracking progress – with so many ways to collaborate electronically there has been an explosion in dashboards that track the progress of every aspect of the project and with that the growing focus on how change is managed across all
participants. From the initial requirements set out by the owner, through the multi-discipline engineering phases into procurement, fabrication and construction, tracking progress and managing change across the multitude of systems and applications has everyone talking about Information Management. Especially I see the traditional PLM vendors from the manufacturing sector making overtures into the AEC industry believing this industry to be behind the curve. But don’t underestimate the complexity of the projects and the unique
understanding that infrastructure professionals have in the world of AEC
that enables the software vendors, lead by Bentley, to offer pragmatic solutions for information management at an affordable cost.”
Tags: 3D plant design, Bentley Systems, P&ID, Plant
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Monday, November 21st, 2011
Bentley i-models are being used greatly by many of the finalists for the Be Inspired Awards. I thought it would be a good idea to do a refresh on Bentley i-models.
Bentley i-models are a container that can hold an entire 3D model, a revision history and where the information comes from, and can be exported to those who need to see this information or series of files. The author can embed access rights into the model, support digital signatures and take measurements or extract information from this information. It cannot be changed, but notes can be attached to it. It is a .dgn file, but it has the capability of bringing in other material such as Revit files using the previously released Revit plug-in. It honors all file formats and standards such as ISO 15926, IFCs, XML.
The i-model is not really another format, it’s another way to share information with team members or other stakeholders. Similar to a zip file, when you open it you can see its contents. It will be particularly useful for plant and process and other large-scope projects with multiple and diverse processes.
A big question is, how big is it? In comparison with a regular model file, perhaps a BIM file, the i-Model would be at a ratio of 10 to 1.
Tags: Be Inspired, Bentley Systems, container, dgn file, extract, i-models, revision history
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Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
At Bentley Be Inspired last week, one of the most profound announcements was that of the company’s acquisition of Pointools Ltd. in order to integrate point cloud processing into its entire product portfolio. Bentley plans to merge their code streams with those of Pointools to create a new fundamental data type. Up until now, Bentley has embedded the Pointools Vortex engine into MicroStation, but now they plan to incorporate point cloud processing in their ProjectWise and AssetWise platforms.
This signals an acknowledgement of the importance of Lidar data for various applications, not only for retrofit projects but also for planning and presentation value. The technology has been circling around the AEC industry for awhile but has been hampered until recently by the inability to efficiently get the large amounts of 3D data processed accurately. With great advancements in point cloud processing, it is now being integrated into mainstream CAD products like Bentley’s.
At Be Inspired, many of the winners and finalists were using 3D laser scanning in innovative ways in their projects, for example in the areas of multimedia, water and wastewater, and process manufacturing.
The Pointools/Bentley relationship is not the only evidence of this trend – Autodesk also has announced rather quietly the acquisition of technology assets and and hiring of individuals associated with the Alice Labs technology, according to Michael Oldenburg, manager, Corporate Communications, Autodesk.
The announcement of what Autodesk plans to do with this new acquisition is most likely being saved for Autodesk University, to be held December 28 in Las Vegas.
Another company that has just acquired 3D laser point cloud software is AVEVA, with its recent acquisition of LFM Software. This addition to the AVEVA portfolio offers a comprehensive range of technologies exploiting the power of 3D laser surveying. This technology is said to allow users to import 3D data from various 3D laser scanning formats and export them to plant design systems.
On the path of point cloud processing is ClearEdge 3D, a company that has developed algorithms to identify and extract pipes, walls, structures and other complex building and plant features from point clouds. Their Automated Feature Extraction algorithms are designed to reduce modeling time and eliminate a lot of the manual production associated with 3D models.
This is a topic we will be hearing more about in the near future.
Tags: 3D laser scanning, 3D laser surveying, AEC, Alice Labs, AssetWise, Autodesk, AVEVA, Be Inspired, Bentley Systems, CAD, ClearEdge 3D, LFM Software, point cloud processing, Pointools, ProjectWise
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