“Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today introduced, during its first Annual Corporate Update conference call, an innovative new “sustainable licensing” business model based on annual Portfolio Balancing. With this industry milestone, users no longer need to settle for software investments that depreciate in value due to changing technology, project mix, or operations needs. Through Portfolio Balancing, new purchasers of Bentley product licenses, along with existing Bentley SELECT subscribers, can annually exchange underutilized Bentley software for software of equal value (based on current list price) that meets existing or upcoming needs.”

It goes on to say…

…With Portfolio Balancing, our users can annually exchange their current combination of applications for a new combination of equal value.”

Read the press release HERE

The Mid Continent MicroStation Community is hosting an event.

Summer Conference
Overland Park, Kansas
August 25-26, 2009
Registration is now open!

Here are just a few reasons to attend this year’s conference:
• Interesting and informative sessions on MicroStation,
• The latest information on the current MicroStation, GEOPAK and InRoads releases
• Building Information Modeling (BIM), one of the hottest topics in architecture and engineering, continues to be a featured track
• User sessions by local and national firms
• Structural Analysis solutions (RAM, STAAD, LEAP, and others) in a dedicated track
• CAD Management tracks, as well as Plotting, Publishing, and Collaboration
• Hands on Workshops using MicroStation and Discipline specific Tools
• The ever-popular giveaway games and “Jeopardy”
• Visit our various exhibitors and browse their offerings
• The ability to network with your peers
• Earn Continuing Education Credits

View the sessions at a glance:
http://www.tmcmcmc.org/meetings/2009/sessions_2009.pdf

Register:
Register at http://www.tmcmcmc.org/modules/confreg/

Free CAD Managers Forum Event:

EatyourCAD (EYC) is holding the first US CAD Managers Forum event at HNTB’s offices in Kansas City, Missouri on Monday August 24th from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. The focus of this round-table, open discussion session will be looking at the developing role of the CAD Manager, with emphasis on the current recession. We will be looking at how BIM is impacting our daily jobs, and how to approach implementation. We will be discussing the expense of training and how we can make the most of what is available to maximize benefits and how CAD Management should support our company’s business aims. Demonstrating success, and justifying the role of CAD Management can be difficult, but it is essential to the long-term success of the CAD Manager’s role. The afternoon sessions are for exchanging ways of managing your priorities, planning projects and monitoring your performance.

Here is the information they provided to me…

Venue/Location: Live and OnDemand Formats
Date: Starting June 23, 2009 through November 30, 2009
Register Now by visiting www.bentley.com/BeConnected

Bentley Systems’ Be Connected online seminar series gives architects, engineers, builders, geospatial professionals, and owner-operators a chance to learn about applying information modelling from some of the world’s leading infrastructure practitioners.

The conference series begins on June 23, is free of charge, in both live and OnDemand formats, and takes the place of this year’s Be Conference.

Be Connected offers two types of online seminars:

1) Best Practices Seminars. Presented by leading infrastructure professionals around the globe, these sessions bring a project perspective on best practices for the design, construction, and operation of specific types of infrastructure projects, including a series of seminars on each of the following: bridges, cadastre and land development, communications, electric and gas utilities, high performance buildings, mining and metals, oil and gas, rail and transit, roads, and water and wastewater.

2) Product Seminars. Presented by Bentley’s product executives and designed for both current and prospective users, these technology-focused sessions demonstrate the latest features and capabilities of Bentley’s comprehensive V8i software portfolio for sustaining infrastructure.

Be Employable provides outplaced infrastructure professionals with no-charge access to Bentley software and training. It also provides online tools to help users develop their own personal learning needs, and the necessary Learning Units to help workers maintain professional qualifications.

Be Employable* includes:

• Access to Bentley’s V8i professional software portfolio for noncommercial use
• Instructor-led online distance learning to eliminate the travel time and cost of traditional training
• OnDemand eLearning for self-paced learning
• Comprehensive learning transcripts to help maintain professional accreditation
• CADsmart skills assessment software to benchmark existing MicroStation skills and focus learning

Find out more here.

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Here you go…

How do you think CAD technology will impact the nation’s infrastructure in 2009? How is Bentley poised to provide this?

Information modeling will still be the means used to design our nation’s infrastructure in 2009, much as it was in 2008. At Bentley, however, we believe that this technology can do a lot more in 2009, thanks to V8i. The result will be better-performing projects, delivering better-performing assets, while consuming the fewest nonrenewable resources.

So, for instance, the V8i products that make up Bentley’s buildings solution will enable designers to use applications not just to draft buildings, but to design the site with civil engineering software, analyze its energy performance and structural integrity, and perform construction scheduling without leaving the V8i environment. This, of course, contributes greatly to better-performing infrastructure.

The V8i portfolio also supports integrated project delivery, in which the deliverable is much more than paper drawings. Information created during the planning and design phases is reused throughout the project and during the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure. A stumbling block to this reuse of data has been that various disciplines in the project lifecycle require data in different formats, scoping, and level of detail. The interoperability platform in V8i lets practitioners of each discipline persist, share, and visualize infrastructure asset data in a common way leading to better-performing projects.

Many of us have been using CAD tools for quite some time. What are the core capabilities of Microstation V8i for your users?

Our comprehensive V8i software portfolio offers infrastructure professionals streamlined workflows among multiple disciplines and across project teams. It provides software products for all of the solution communities Bentley serves, including roads, bridges, rail and transit, campuses, factories, buildings, power generation, mining and metals, oil and gas, water and wastewater, electric and gas utilities, communications, and cadastre and land development. As a result, V8i features the breadth and depth of technology needed for fully integrated project delivery throughout the infrastructure lifecycle.

V8i delivers the most comprehensive suite of software products ever assembled in a single release. It does this by leveraging and extending core capabilities that are available to all of the applications in the portfolio. V8i gives users choices that address the many challenges faced by professionals from multiple disciplines working on a wide range of infrastructure projects.

The core capabilities include intuitive design modeling, which lets users seamlessly transition from conceptual modeling and visualization to fully complete architectural and engineering models in a single environment. Conceptual tools make it easier to intuitively sculpt solids and surfaces. Generative tools make it easier to iterate through many design alternatives.

Through the flexibility of this powerful toolset, infrastructure professionals can explore and embrace innovations in a more timely fashion to improve the performance of the projects and assets their teams deliver.

Additionally, our new Luxology rendering engine incorporated in the MicroStation product and all MicroStation-based applications provides near-real-time rendering in the design application. This saves time and improves the quality of rendered images for stakeholder review and buy-in.

V8i also includes dynamic views that make working in 3D much more interactive and more informative. With interactive dynamic views, V8i leapfrogs current approaches to solving the problem of drawing coordination. It does this by actively supporting the workflows of distributed multidisciplinary teams all working on the same project to deliver concurrent integrated documentation packages.

But V8i goes one step further by helping users simplify the 3D model creation process. Using something called “display sets,” V8i users can easily change the way different parts of the same 3D model are displayed in the same working view to interactively visualize and resymbolize 2D and 3D designs in real time. This means that teams can quickly improve the quality of integrated documentation packages and reduce the time spent creating 3D models and preparing and coordinating 2D documentation.

V8i’s intrinsic geo-coordination capability lets users coordinate information spatially from many sources using common coordinate systems. Users can locate files spatially with real-world context in ProjectWise for content management or in Google Earth for visual review.

By using V8i, infrastructure teams save time coordinating information from many sources, improve the quality and reliability of information leveraged by other practitioners, and reduce the risk of errors on site arising from poorly coordinated data.

V8i’s incredible project performance lets users work faster and collaborate more effectively to make the process of work sharing across multiple, distributed offices easy and efficient, even for the world’s largest infrastructure projects.

With Delta File Transfer (DFT), V8i solves the “big file” problem that traditionally slows productivity across distributed project teams. Transferring only changes to files, DFT makes ProjectWise V8i the killer app for project team collaboration – with 10x performance gains being the norm for average file sizes.

And with full read/write integration between ProjectWise V8i and Microsoft SharePoint, any project team member can quickly find project information stored in many different systems using a single web browser interface.

Lastly, the V8i software portfolio includes an interoperability platform to persist, share, and visualize infrastructure asset data in a common way. This enables practitioners to reuse project and asset information throughout the infrastructure lifecycle while reducing data translation costs, limiting project rework, and creating better-performing assets.

You can see it online now…   click on the link below

From their press release:

Bentley Publishes Digital and Print Versions of ‘The Year in Infrastructure 2008’

Annual Publication Features More Than 250 of the World’s Most Extraordinary Projects

Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today announced that “The Year in Infrastructure 2008” is available in digital and print versions. This 192-page yearbook highlights the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world’s infrastructure and the quality of life for us all. It features descriptions and color illustrations of the more than 250 project nominations recognized and 23 winners honored in the professional and academic portions of the 2008 Be Awards of Excellence competition. New this year are two categories – “Sustaining Our Society” and “Sustaining Our Environment” – that emphasize the world’s ever-increasing sustainability challenges.

Previous years are access here

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Read more about it

What’s Left for 2008: Bentley Reveals All (Almost)

By Rita Stange, ConnectPress Senior Editor

In this morning’s welcome ceremony Bentley Chief Marketing Officer Edward Mueller announced that this year’s BE Conference here in Baltimore, Maryland soared with over 2,000 registrations representing 50 different countries. In addition there were more than 70 journalists, 179 industry speakers and 26 exhibitors.

The full story

Live From Baltimore: BE Conference Welcome Reception

By Rita Stange, ConnectPress Senior Editor

The streets of Baltimore were flooded with baseball fans and hot dog vendors as I made my way to the convention center to attend the Bentley Systems welcome reception at the Baltimore Convention Center here in Maryland. Right across the street is the Camden Yards stadium where the Baltimore Orioles played the New York Yankees.

The full story

Bentley Acquires Common Point to Mainstream Construction Simulation

Acquisition Will Enable Bentley to Accelerate Integrated Project Delivery for Infrastructure Projects by Closing Gaps Between Design, Construction, and Operations

BALTIMORE – BE Conference 2008 – May 28, 2008 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated today announced that it has acquired the global business of Common Point, Incorporated, the pioneer and market leader in software products for construction simulation (ConstructSim) and operations simulation (OpSim). ConstructSim has become widely established in plant projects, has been successfully deployed on building projects, and, along with OpSim, can also be applied in civil infrastructure projects. The integration of Common Point’s technology with Bentley’s ProjectWise Navigator platform and comprehensive portfolio of applications and collaboration servers will enable Bentley to accelerate integrated project delivery for infrastructure projects by closing gaps between design, construction, and operations.

See the full press release.

WOW – The impressive list of software offerings from Bentley continues to grow. Take a look at the list. Gee – I remember when it was only Microstation PC.