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Appwardly mobile

Editorial Type: Events     Date: 11-2013    Views: 7783   





With many of the world's construction press assembled in one location, Bentley used its Year in Infrastructure 2013 Conference, held at the end of October in London, to unveil a host of new applications

There were three themes predominantly running through my mind after the extended press briefing at Bentley's Year in Infrastructure 2013 Conference, held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in London at the end of October, namely Mobile Apps, Hypermodelling and Asset Painter. Although they represented just a few of the topics presented they encapsulated some of the most important trends within the industry.

Bentley's Year in Infrastructure Conference, incorporating the Be Inspired Awards ceremony, is an annual event highlighting the achievement of Bentley users worldwide in a host of construction, civil engineering and other infrastructure industries. In fact 'The Year in Infrastructure' is the subtext to the entire event, highlighting the impact that the industry has had on the environment and the world we live in.

With press attending from around the world, Bentley took the opportunity to host a media day with presentations from Greg Bentley and other senior Bentley people, admirably conducted by VP of Marketing, Huw Roberts. In acknowledgement, perhaps, that the amount of information being released was beginning to reach startling proportions, Bentley provided a 'Keynote News Reference Kit' to accompany the copious literature we are normally supplied with. In a similar vein, I thought I'd try and provide an overview of the most significant announcements (for more on the conference you’ll find a case study on one of the Be Inspired Award winners on page 24 of this issue).

MOBILE APPS
Mobile applications now play a much larger role on building sites, with the spread of building site information - both as BIM and Project Management - becoming more widely available. Foremost among the Bentley mobile apps featured was the Field Supervisor app, which provides construction workers in the field with access to project information held within ProjectWise and eB Insight, as well as applications such as SharePoint. Released this year, the app has now been enhanced with a new geospatial interface, roundtrip workflows and support for iPhones.

The Navigator app, released in Spring 2013, lets field workers navigate through 3D architecture, engineering and construction models using Bentley's i-nodels, and to browse project documents in various formats. It also includes model data visualisation using colour coding to isolate and find objects within a model. New capabilities announed for this app include hyperlinking - accessing associated documents through hyperlinks in the model, and sectioning for creating more precise views of sections of a model.

Bentley Map Mobile gives field technicians access to the most recent Bentley Map geospatial asset information. It provides full GIS functionality, with a simple query mechanism to look up features quickly. Being GPS enabled, it also simplifies the location of assets in the field.

The APM Supervisor Dashboard app provides maintenance management using asset health key performance indicators on Android devices. It assists maintenance supervisors in keeping plant and other assets in good order, to respond to alarms and to approve work. A similar app is InspecTech Collector Mobile, used to streamline the process of planning inspections, manage inspection data and ensure compliance with government reporting requirements.

BENTLEY CONNECT
All of Bentley's mobile apps can look forward to the introduction of Bentley Connect, which will synchronise data from relevant sources, ensuring it is kept fully up-to-date. This will include i-models, through Bentley Connect's i-model validation services. The Bentley Connections Passport will come into force once Bentley Connect is available, updating ProjectWise and AssetWise Passports, enabling the licensing holders of either to use of all Bentley apps, as well as ProjectWise or AssetWise.

HYPERMODELLING
The wide adoption of BIM hasn't entirely eliminated the need for separate 2D drawings and other project documentation, as they can provide additional information to constructors not available to them from the model. However, 2D drawings are abstractions from a 3D model and are sometimes hard to interpret, especially when depicting detailed sections of the model. In 2011, Bentley found a way of integrating detailed project documentation within the context of the 3D model through hypermodelling. This allowed drawings, specifications, point clouds, images and other data to be presented within the 3D model, making 2D drawings more understandable when they could be viewed in situ, on the model. Whilst not a new announcement, Bentley unveiled new features and highlighted the growing use of hypermodelling across all industries - in particular infrastructure industries, bridges, roads, rail and others.



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