bentleyuser.org - BCUKI Winter Conference Report

BCUKI Winter Conference Report
by Len Greetham - 27 April 2008

Our winter conference at Heathrow Sheraton Hotel lived up to the reputation our events enjoy. What it sadly may have lacked in numbers it most certainly made up for in both content and commitment by the presenters. Some presenters were making their debut at a BC(UKI) event, and having a big impact. The enthusiastic support of our members ensured that conference was a huge success.

Our thanks to everybody who contributed in any way. Regrettably those who did not make it missed a truly coordinated conference

Independently of other speakers JOE CROSER's keynote set a theme that conference quite naturally followed. Project team collaboration was the keynote theme and data sharing a prominent thread throughout other presentations.

The importance of data was paramount in each of the presentations that I attended. Between them they covered creation, sharing, storing, retrieving, and publishing design data. There was great emphasis on clarity, accuracy, simplicity, efficiency, and cost saving in each of these data operations.

The keynote was quite clear that concentrating on protecting data in this manner throughout its life cycle, made a positive contribution to ROI, (return on investment). Joe gave several documented examples of this.

ROBERT KLASCHKA who is a confident presenter embarked on a topic that is growing in both importance and use.

Robert began by expounding the virtues of using PDF in its 3D format. The ease of creation, publishing and viewing 3D design in the pdf format. He gave some advice on using saved views and clip volumes. Techiniques that are very familiar to MicroStation users. He made comparison to 3d controls within MicroStation. Especially the treatment of reference files and manipulation of levels.

The creation of plan and vertical sections was impressive in its interactive manipulation. I certainly agree that this is an invaluable tool during client presentation and reviews. Robert has obviously found it useful in winning projects by conveying simple scheme models to clients. Finally we saw how specific intricate parts of a design model could be interactive explored with those concerned with its execution.

PETER TAYLOR, another seasoned presenter showed how data could easily be collected together and managed.

He focused on the ease of making it accessible to the authority's designers, and the general public by using GEO WEB PUBLISHER. He explained that by assigning data to designated levels, and then controlling these levels appropriate data could be 'Published' in intranet form to internal users. Similarly using the internet it could be available for public use.

The use of GEO WEB PUBLISHER made considerable savings over using alternative software. Perhaps even more important. Publisher allows others to access the data without the need for installing costly software.

COLIN OMAN continued talking about GEO WEB PUBLISHER but in respect of the CROSSRAIL project and its huge infrastructure of data creation and usage.

The Crossrail project has a massive 20 years worth of data. Among it’s statistics are 10,000 Ordnance Survey tiles which cover the 90k track route. The project has also assembled data in dedicated layers. This can be recalled as survey, streets, addresses, and other information, from the database. This includes photographs, design files and much more.

Using a series of dedicated layers to depict specific information, data can be managed in respect of its creation, recall and usage. Obviously the success of this relies on the discipline of the project team. In addition specific layers are created for specialist design data, such as geotechnics. Levels can be selected / deselected according to the topic and level of detail required. The level of detail can also be controlled through levels as the viewer zooms in / out interactively on screen.

Currently the data is available to the participating project teams, but eventually the intention publish appropriate data into the public domain.

TED STEPHENS making his debut as a BC(UKI) speaker gave us a tremendous insight in the development and use of BENTLEY RAIL.

This was a presentation from someone who knows their subject thoroughly and was very absorbing. If any presenter can show their passion for their subject, then the listener gets completely captivated. So it was with this session. We all now realise just now complex rail design is and how it is intrinsically different from road design.

Ted and his team are taking the development and application of their product very seriously. The minute detail to which they are going includes searching other Bentley software for suitable features. To me it epitomizes the philosophy of Bentley to produce comprehensive software.

MARC THOMAS and WILLEM KOK

told us of some of their early thoughts and experiences after opening up MICOSTATION ATHENS, (the next version after V8 XM).

These included

· improvements to task navigation, additions to render views

· abilty to add standard MicroStation tools to sketching tools using the mouse

· introducing 3d tools normally associated with other modeling packages - expand capabilities

· more intuitive lighting tools and controls

For a fuller and more detailed look at 'ATHENS' we must wait for the launch roadshow. Watch this space!

It is evident to me that Bentley are continuing to build a suite of software that allows data to be created, shared, published, reviewed and developed without having to translate, rebuild or re-import. This must make the design workflow more efficient and raise the value of the data throughout all phases of our projects.

If you unfortunately missed this conference, well make an extra effort to be at the next event. Make a mental note that we are ready planning post 'Baltimore BE' events. Also the Autumn conference and the Visualisation event.

If you would like to be involved in any of these, or have any comments and suggestions, please contact us.