Bentley Users Give Thumbs Up to V8i Updates

20 May 2010, 8:02am

PHILADELPHIA - May 20, 2010 - Be Together: The Be Communities LIVE Conference - Architects, engineers, constructors, geospatial professionals, and CAD managers gathered in Philadelphia this week to connect, communicate, and learn from each other at this interactive user event sponsored by Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world. They also came to get hands-on experience with the newest offerings in Bentley's software portfolio, including the V8i (SELECTseries 2) versions of MicroStation, ProjectWise, and Navigator. V8i
(SELECTseries 2) supports and extends the resilience of today's practitioners, empowering them to move up to information-modeling levels. Bentley's SELECTseries approach to software updates, new to V8i, facilitates such work process improvements without the disruption, cost, and risk of competitors' mandated upgrade policies.

In particular, V8i SELECTseries updates:

* assure compatibility with and across all V8i products and prior SELECTseries updates, easing software administration;
* apply and leverage new horizontal technologies (such as SharePoint 2010 and
touch screens) for infrastructure practitioners;
* serve to mainstream once-specialist technologies (such as Luxology for rendering and Pointools for referencing point cloud datasets) for widespread adoption.

Commenting on V8i (SELECTseries 2), Bhupinder Singh, senior vice president, Bentley Software, said, "With V8i (SELECTseries 2) updates for MicroStation, ProjectWise, and Navigator, our SELECTseries approach is really hitting its stride by delivering valuable innovations to users across all disciplines and project types while streamlining adoption. To take advantage of new computing environments, V8i (SELECTseries 2) provides users with supported implementations for Windows 7 and SharePoint 2010, and is "Citrix Ready" for application virtualization. And, with V8i (SELECTseries 2), our platform now incorporates, for all applications and users, state-of-the-art licensed technologies - introducing the Pointools Vortex engine for referencing point clouds, significant Luxology visualization enhancements, and RealDWG 2010 libraries for increased interoperability."

As attendees at Be Together filled the demo workshops and "LIVE Zone" test drive areas, they quickly discovered that V8i (SELECTseries 2) has much to offer.

Designers working in the context of existing conditions benefit from new point cloud
capabilities in MicroStation V8i (SELECTseries 2). Point cloud datasets captured by 3D laser scanning and comprising billions of points can be referenced and manipulated at super-fast speeds inside Bentley design applications. This means time need no longer be wasted modeling context.

Designers can also take advantage of the new Clash Resolution Visa, applicable to both MicroStation and Navigator, to identify and resolve conflicts in the design phase, before construction starts. This is essential to avoiding costly on-site errors, which requires not merely finding and viewing interferences, but also making and tracking the appropriate design changes.

Project reviewers can now immerse themselves in the virtual model for iterative project review inside Bentley's Navigator. V8i (SELECTseries 2) enables bi-directional dynamic scheduling, so teams can edit the project schedule in either the original scheduling software or Navigator - with changes automatically updated in both environments. And thanks to the step-change performance gains in Navigator V8i (SELECTseries 2), users now enjoy a more "game-like" experience.

Projects with mixed software needs can now apply ProjectWise for data and standards management to Revit models. This solves the big-Revit-file problem faced when changes must be saved over the WAN to the central Revit model in "work-sharing" mode.

Project managers responsible for defining and tracking project requirements can, for the first time, create and manage dependencies between different disciplines and content through the new ProjectWise Dependency Service visual interface. This improves the quality of decisions, mitigates risks associated with change propagation, and reduces the cost of change.

By taking advantage of the SharePoint 2010 integration with ProjectWise, IT directors can connect platforms for business collaboration and AEC project team collaboration. This provides federated search access and streamlines project delivery processes.

IT and CAD managers responsible for software delivery and maintenance will benefit from an Automatic SELECTseries Update Service, announced this week at the conference, that will be available in the near future. This will offer non-disruptive incremental SELECTseries installations that will ensure users always have access to the latest innovations from Bentley.

During the conference's technology keynote, infrastructure practitioners saw
innovations from Bentley that will transform their information modeling experience.
Shown first was model documentation, which leverages dynamic views to place
annotated drawings in real-world locations within models for interactive navigation.
To directly connect the user with his or her work, by supplanting the mouse and
keyboard with human touch, Bentley previewed this groundbreaking technology in a
Windows 7 Multi-Touch environment, truly delivering immersive project review.

For the construction managers tasked with on-time and on-budget project delivery,
V8i (SELECTseries 2) offerings deliver enormous advantage. Radhika Menon, CIO, DPR
Construction, Inc., ranked in the top 50 general contractors in the United States
over the last 10 years, had this to say about the new capabilities included in the
latest version of ProjectWise V8i: "We currently utilize ProjectWise in 32 projects,
across more than 1,300 users, representing $3 billion in construction costs alone.
As most of the design data we currently manage is Revit based, ProjectWise V8i
(SELECTseries 2) with Revit integration, as well as Delta File Transfer, will
further enhance our Revit community by incorporating their workflows with
supercharged network performance. ProjectWise has been tremendous in helping us
collaborate with our business partners."

Laura Handler, director of Virtual Design and Construction, Tocci Building
Corporation, a leader in virtual design and construction and integrated project
delivery, said, "We are so impressed with the capability and potential of
ProjectWise Navigator V8i (SELECTseries 2) that we compare its value-add to
sophisticated model authoring tools, rather than other reviewing tools. It is the
collaborative software we need to push our next generation of BIM and integrated
project delivery projects."

V8i (SELECTseries 2) software

Geo: International