Bentley’s ProjectWise Dynamic Plot

27 May 2009, 1:55pm

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today announced the immediate release of ProjectWise Dynamic Plot V8i, an innovative software service that brings paper into the digital age. It does this by creating an intelligent link between paper plots and digital models, shrinking the time required to sync written comments and digital data from days to seconds, and sustaining and extending the value of project information plotted to paper. With paper plots and digital models always in sync, markup and review workflows become error-free, mitigating project risk.

Using the advanced publishing capabilities of ProjectWise InterPlot, the new software adds a unique pattern of dots to a drawing as it is plotted. Because this pattern carries with it embedded provenance, it establishes an intelligent link between the paper drawing and the model. The markups are applied to the plot as usual, but with a digital pen, and simultaneously they are captured and stored in memory. Later, the markups are transferred to the ProjectWise managed environment for automatic synchronization and association with the model, thereby ensuring a single source of truth for collaborative teams.

Harry Vitelli, Bentley vice president, MicroStation and ProjectWise, said, “By making paper dynamic (adding provenance and enabling change-management), ProjectWise Dynamic Plot helps users create new value from their preferred review medium. Because paper is portable, recyclable, and scalable, it is perfectly suited for everyone who reviews designs, marks up as-built drawings, inspects facilities, or simply makes notes in the field. Today, those same people can use ProjectWise Dynamic Plot to faithfully and flawlessly capture and instantly sync hand-marked revisions on small to large plots.

“Better still, they can do so knowing that the value they are adding to the project through their reviews will always be connected with the original source data managed by the ProjectWise collaboration system. Since the markup data need not be interpreted and entered manually into ProjectWise, time and money are saved, and hit-or-miss paper-to-computer transfers of critical reviewer improvements are eliminated.”

Vitelli continued, “Given the current state of the global economy and today’s challenging resource constraints, now is the perfect time for organizations to invest in information technology like ProjectWise Dynamic Plot that will yield both immediate and long-term returns on the innovation it affords.”

The ProjectWise Dynamic Plot workflow provides the additional advantage of automatic digital backup for all reviewer markups, which can easily be lost or destroyed in the field in paper form or overlooked during manual transfers to a computer. At the same time, it establishes a markup audit trail for management accountability. As a result, owners are assured that all as-built markups are accurately recorded – increasing quality and improving safety – and never lost, further reducing risk throughout the project lifecycle.

Commenting on the new collaboration software, Kevin van Haaren, ProjectWise administrator, HNTB Corporation, said, “We all thought that the digital age would be the end of paper, but, in reality, the more work we do on computers, the more paper we create! Because these current paper-based drawing review and markup workflows are slow, our digital data and paper markups are usually out of sync.

“ProjectWise Dynamic Plot adds intelligence to the paper that will help us avoid errors and save time. We also believe this new collaboration tool will be extremely easy to implement by using our existing investments in printers, plotters, and ProjectWise, enhancing our workflows with minimal user training.”

Here’s how the ProjectWise Dynamic Plot service works. When plotting a drawing, a unique pattern of dots, along with the design data, is applied to the paper. At the same time, a record is made indicating which design file was used to create the plot. As a result, when markups are retrieved they can be registered to the appropriate design data.

Using a digital pen and employing technology by Anoto (the leader in technology enabling fast and reliable transmission of handwritten text into a digital format), markups can be applied to the patterned plot. Even though the pattern is almost imperceptible, the digital pen can detect it when writing on the plot and track the pen marks on the paper.

After the markups have been applied to one or more drawings, the digital pen is docked to the computer through a USB port. In real time, the marks are then retrieved as vector data, converted to the design format, and stored in ProjectWise as an associated redline file to the original design file. ProjectWise then intrinsically provides, across the entire project team, the provenance and change-management required to successfully implement effective collaborative reviews.

With ProjectWise Dynamic Plot, accurate paper copies of the revised digital drawings can be automatically created using standard color printers or plotters. The highly portable and durable digital pen works for up to seven days on a single charge and can store up to 50 pages of content.

ProjectWise Dynamic Plot

Geo: International