Feb 20 2010
Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today announced breakthroughs in 3D geospatial information systems (GIS) software to support the design and operation of intelligent cities.
Intelligent cities, and the intelligent infrastructure they incorporate, take full advantage of information modeling best practices. As a result, they are able to provide better performance with respect to safety, energy, lifecycle costing, and operational efficiency. Bentley's intra-operable portfolio of software features lifecycle support across all classes of intelligent infrastructure, including land management, power generation and energy delivery, water and wastewater networks, roads, bridges, rail, communications networks, and buildings. The just-released V8i (SELECTseries 1) versions of Bentley Map, Bentley Descartes, Bentley Geospatial Server, and Bentley Geo Web Publisher further extend this portfolio to include new 3D City GIS capabilities.
Commenting on Bentley's new software, Richard Zambuni, Bentley global marketing director, said, "All around the world, city governments are looking for ways to improve the sustainability of their intelligent city infrastructure to deliver a better quality of life to their citizens. Bentley's newly released 3D City GIS products enable them to adopt information modeling best practices that enhance their ability to perform urban planning, noise simulation, shadow analysis, natural disaster mitigation, public relationship management, and 3D analysis and design.
"Moreover, through the deployment of Bentley's ProjectWise collaboration services, multidisciplinary, distributed municipal project teams will be better able to connect people with information, enabling streamlined, collaborative workflows. In addition, they'll benefit from improved change management to sustain the value of information throughout the infrastructure lifecycle."
Bentley Map V8i is at the core of the Bentley 3D City GIS product portfolio. Bentley Map V8i (SELECTseries 1) now allows advanced visualization of smart 3D models; creates thematic maps; captures smart 3D features of buildings, roads, and other infrastructure; integrates 3D data from different sources; performs smart 3D object editing and quality control on the 3D data model; and creates realistic renderings and animations. Moreover, its spatial database capabilities have been enhanced through the introduction of Oracle Spatial 11g 3D object support, enabling new and unmatched enterprise workflows.
The product's standard integration with Safe Software's FME Desktop technology enables the use of multiple 3D formats such as CityGML and introduces a number of new extract, transform, and load (ETL) capabilities to the Bentley Map workflow. Bentley Map V8i (SELECTseries 1) also offers an extensive and well-documented API to allow rapid enhancement of the new functionality.
Bentley Map V8i (SELECTseries 1) in combination with Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 1) offers raster digital elevation model support and the editing of 3D raster images. By providing raster 3D editing capabilities, Bentley Descartes can be used to improve building textures.
Andre Tanguay, technical lead, Department of Design, Architecture and the Environment, Quebec City, commented, "In Quebec City, we have been using Bentley products for many years to execute our 3D City projects because of the benefits these products bring to both our city planning workflows and to our citizens. In workflow terms, it makes processes such as the advanced rendering of 3D City models or 3D design superimposition more efficient. Moreover, outcomes can be shared easily with various stakeholders. Nontechnical stakeholders like the richness and reality of 3D - it makes it easier for them to reach decisions with confidence. We look forward to taking advantage of the new 3D capabilities of Bentley Map V8i (SELECTseries 1)."
Bentley Geospatial Server V8i (SELECTseries 1) plays a major role in the Bentley 3D City GIS product portfolio by managing 3D models, textures, and workflows. It complements Bentley Map V8i's Oracle Spatial 11g 3D object support by adding disconnected editing, long transactions, and support for Oracle Database's time components. Bentley Geospatial Server V8i (SELECTseries 1) provides a unique way to combine 3D GIS and 3D engineering/Building Information Modeling information by leveraging Bentley innovations such as i-models for semantically rich and secure file-based information sharing. An i-model is a container for open infrastructure information exchange featuring provenance (that is, knowledge of its origin and evolution).
Bentley Geo Web Publisher V8i (SELECTseries 1) supports users with the ability to quickly and easily create Web 2.0 3D GIS applications by publishing 3D models to KML/Collada-compliant clients. The software publishes 3D City models in a highly-optimized multi-resolution data structure suitable for web data streaming.
Bentley's 3D City GIS product portfolio is an integrated suite of products allowing the creation of smart 3D City models and the management of these models across the lifecycle. It also provides a rich set of tools to use the 3D City model in a variety of activities. GIS professionals, urban planners, designers, project managers, engineers, and citizens alike will benefit from going beyond traditional 2D GIS technology and using Bentley's newest 3D City GIS products.