Announces Innovations in Project Team Collaboration, Immersive Review, Workface Planning, and Hypermodels, plus New Partnerships

PHILADELPHIA – Be Together: The Bentley User Conference – May 24, 2011 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced at this annual gathering of infrastructure professionals that it is extending its leadership in design/build and integrated projects with its introduction of breakthrough V8i software innovations that bring continuity to the “hand-off” between design and construction – making it a “hands-on” process. Bentley’s design/build credentials include its unique experience gained among EPCs as the leading software platform provider for plant creation, project collaboration, and construction simulation; and its long-standing commitment to interoperability endeavors such as its leading participation in the iRING consortium for “virtualizing construction,” and new partnerships it is announcing today. As building and civil integrated projects have increasingly gained marketplace momentum, Bentley’s offerings have become a major enabler.

The Bentley innovations being introduced help construction enterprises benefit from information modeling and well-managed access to project information across distributed teams by providing:

• dynamic collaboration, design synchronization, and iterative project review empowered by ProjectWise for Construction and ProjectWise for Revit Users packaged offerings that include Bentley Navigator V8i;
• construction workface planning with open interfaces to the major plant engineering applications, now fully leveraging ProjectWise V8i and Bentley Navigator V8i, through the newly released ConstructSim V8i;
• hypermodels – the revolutionary innovation to interact with required drawings in their appropriate 3D context, navigating callout links to enhance and clarify the 3D model, which serves as a spatial index;
• apps for mobile devices (such as the iPad) to immersively access – now from anywhere – design and construction model information, and to provide synchronized feedback of markups and field status;
• integrated fabrication workflows enabled by Bentley’s newly released ProConcrete software and Integrated Structural Modeling (ISM) apps;
• demonstrations of real-time standards-based information exchange, including manufacturers’ content from specifications and construction through commissioning, across systems achieving the ISO 15926 requirements of the iRING user community, such as Bentley’s OpenPlant V8i products;
• tighter “hands-on” workflows among design, engineering, and construction through new partner agreements with Norconsult, Motion Computing, SMART Technologies, Synchro, Tekla, Vela, and Vico.

Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley said, “Owner demands for improved project performance continue to increase reliance on integrated projects and resulting design/build approaches to delivery that improve project economics. At Be Together, we are presenting innovations furthering the ‘V8i advantage,’ that transform the traditional ‘hand-off’ between design and construction into the ‘hands-on’ immersive process integrated projects were meant to be.”

He continued, “Consider the disappointing state of practice in building and civil projects, where constructors routinely accept the need to create new 3D models themselves, because the design team’s work has been fragmented between incomplete ‘information models’ and the disconnected digital legacy of legally prescribed paper drawings. The early adopters of our hypermodel innovation (and anyone else who sees it!) have hailed it as the breakthrough they’ve been waiting for – so that the design team’s full and best work can finally be delivered and relied upon by contractors and owners. Incidentally, hypermodels offer these integrated-project benefits regardless of the project delivery method. Accordingly, the construction ‘hand-off’ can now be ‘hands-on!’ And for ‘immersive review’ anywhere, our users will soon have job site ‘cloud’ access to ProjectWise managed, synchronized, and secure content through our new iPad apps.”

The V8i advantage that enables Bentley and its users to work smarter together is inherited by Bentley’s broad portfolio of products from the MicroStation V8i desktop platform and ProjectWise collaboration and work-sharing platform. The V8i advantage includes intuitive modeling, immersive design, intrinsic 3D, and incredible performance, along with interoperability that supports software choice, data reuse, and Bentley’s compatibility commitment to its users.

Dynamic Collaboration and Immersive Review

ProjectWise for Construction and ProjectWise for Revit Users are new packaged offerings from Bentley that help construction teams and users of Revit software quickly, easily, and cost-effectively take full advantage of ProjectWise V8i, as well as Bentley Navigator V8i dynamic collaboration software for iterative and immersive project review. Navigator V8i can be used by construction teams to interactively view, analyze, mark up, and augment project information on multiple devices with ensured continuity. These devices can include the newest intelligent devices such as SMART Boards, laptops (including web viewing via the Navigator web part), Motion Computing tablet PCs, and soon, the iPad. Among Bentley Navigator V8i’s newest innovations is markup synchronization, which enables every markup to be timely, reviewed, and tracked.

ProjectWise for Construction and ProjectWise for Revit Users provide affordable, standard pricing for either the on-site or online turnkey installation of ProjectWise V8i and Bentley Navigator V8i. In addition to software, setup and configuration services are provided by Bentley’s professional services team, as are live on-site or online training and 24/7/365 support by phone, email, and web.

Huw Roberts, Bentley global marketing director, said, “These packaged offerings are priced to accommodate today’s tight budgets and keep software administration quick and easy. For example, the Bentley Navigator component provides much greater capabilities at as much as a 75 percent cost savings over other review software, such as Autodesk Navisworks. Bentley Navigator V8i was first released in October 2009 and has already been adopted by 21 of the ENR Top 25 Design/Build Firms.”

Workface Planning

ConstructSim V8i is the leader in virtual construction simulation for detailed and automated workface planning. It provides for the development and management of installation work packages, automatically generating a detailed work task database for all construction activities. The benefits include reduced project risks, increased project control and safety, site management time savings, increased on-site productivity, reduced wait time, and fewer cost and schedule overruns.

The new release leverages i-models (containers for open infrastructure information exchange), the ProjectWise project team collaboration platform that empowers construction teams to reuse broader design content and gain new business value, and SQL Server processing that lets users work with even the largest models while providing exceptional performance.

Specific new features of ConstructSim V8i include:

• the ability to coordinate across multiple 3D models using i-models with Bentley Navigator V8i enabling large-scale dynamic review;
• the ability to publish i-models from ConstructSim; enables dynamic collaboration between engineering and construction, facilitates the review of construction status and priorities in engineering, and leverages shared markups, notes, and annotations in the 3D model;
• more flexible management-by-exception reporting tools;
• support for a broader range of disciplines, including civil engineering, electrical and instrumentation, as well as piping structural and equipment.

Integrated Fabrication Workflows

Bentley’s ProConcrete is ideally suited for modeling, detailing, and scheduling reinforced cast-in-place (in situ) and precast concrete structures. It delivers 3D data to seamlessly integrate and connect engineering design data all the way through to fabrication. This, in turn, provides the ability to link all design data into one integrated model in which data can be cohesively shared among not only CAD platforms, but also other engineering disciplines.

iRING: “Virtualizing Construction”

ISO 15926-based interoperability achieving the requirements of the iRING user community is now provided in a number of Bentley’s V8i plant information modeling products. Through the iRING, project participants, including control system and other equipment vendors, can benefit from semantically rich information exchange, enabling globally “virtual” sourcing. Beyond sequential “EPC” workflows, both engineering and construction can be intelligently procured.

Bentley is presenting a demonstration of this at Be Together this week (in the “Collaboration” LIVE Zone). It shows the ease with which component data and information, including manufacturers’ content, can be shared with systems deployed by iRING user community members Bechtel, Hatch, and Emerson Process Management, and among Bentley’s AXSYS.Process V8 i conceptual design application, OpenPlant PowerPID V8 i application, and Instrumentation & Wiring V8 i design software.