At BE Inspired in Amsterdam last month Bentley headlined several new developments across their product range. For more information read the full version of this BE Inspired report published in Building Design today.

Clearly a higher level of development effort has lately been applied to their BIM tools. Having mentioned BIM let’s not forget that the highly portable pencil/paper combo is also an effective BIM tool! But if pencil and paper is too retro then you will want to try Bentley’s iPad apps. In a live display, a welcome departure from the ubiquitous pre-recorded demos, CEO Greg Bentley, called up various project documents using Bentley Navigator for the iPad, closing with a walk around inside a point cloud survey of Paddington Station. Once inside a 3D model, you just move the iPad around like a window into the model. The app is free and available now.

Everyone is talking about ‘The Cloud’. Taking an intelligent and honest approach demonstrating a clear understanding of their clients needs, Bentley’s cloud strategy will always be a hybrid between cloud and office systems, offering the flexibility to access project information on mobile devices, backed up by the security of retaining office based systems and data storage.

Backing up this Cloud strategy is Bentley’s new collaboration with Adobe to package i-models within PDF files. What’s an i-model? Think Russian dolls! It is a very smart container that packages up a MicroStation file and all attached data. Now this container will be packaged up within Adobe’s PDF container meaning that data from a wide range of formats, including MicroStation, Rhino, Revit, Autocad and SketchUp can all be published together to anyone with Acrobat Reader. This will be available early in 2012.

Bentley’s Applied Research team were demonstrating current projects some of which will be on show at our Visualisation Event next week.

Looking at the nuts and bolts, of immediate interest to everyone is confirmation that the MicroStation and PowerDraft will be updated by the SelectSeries 3 (SS3) release early in 2012, probably February/March, followed closely by AECOsim Building Designer (ABD), the upgrade to Bentley Architecture.

The Bentley Community are pleased to announce a day long Generative Components workshop at Bentley HQ London in Gracechurch Street. Some of the highlights of the day include access to a late build of the new SS3 version of GC produced by the development team especially for this event. This features GC's new highly intuitive interface and improved work-flow. In the morning we have a series of primers for new and improving users with the option to break out and have one to one discussion with our other tutors if you feel you already know what is being covered.

The day is broken into 4 hour and a half learning sessions presented by our tutors from PLP and Ian Simpson Architects punctuated by half hour presentations where the tutors will show both practical and experimental examples of their practices and their personal work.
During a working lunch there will be a live video-link with the GC development team in the US at which you can give your feedback and comments on the new interface.
If you haven't had enough by the end of the day we're going to head to a local pub where we can continue the discussion.

The full agenda is available here.

Price £75+VAT includes lunch and refreshments. Places on a first come first serve basis. Please register and pay using the PayPal button:

Location:
Bentley HQ London
9th Floor
20 Gracechurch Street
London
EC3V 9BH

To end his presentation at tonight's opening of Bentley's new BDP designed London office, Greg Bentley went hands-on with Bentley Navigator for the iPad.

With the iPad hooked up to the presentation screen (via a totally last century VGA adapter and cable, c'mon Apple, surely you can do this by wireless!) Greg went through the spec and product data documents for a ceiling hung projector for the meeting room that we were sitting in. He then switched to the 3D model, pointed the iPad at the ceiling and showed us the services above, highlighting the clash between the Projector support bracket and some ductwork.

Altogether very impressive. The model was provided by BDP containing real-world data from the office refurbishment, not just a fictional demo model, giving us a real insight into the potential for change that portable technologies can offer.

The iPad app previewed at Bentley's BE Together conference is available from today in Apple's app store: Bentley Navigator for the iPad

Bentley Navigator for the iPad will open i-model packages that can contain a host of document types and formats enabling the design team, clients, construction teams and FM teams to view relevant documents and model data in any location. When used on site, geolocation places the iPad's position inside the model so the user can pan around seeing both the model and real world.

Augmented Reality solutions superimposing model data on the devices camera view are currently in the experimental phase.

Demonstrated at BE Together 2011, the Bentley DGN Reader for Windows extends Windows DGN integration enabling Preview functions in Windows 7 applications, shown here in Outlook 2010. The rotate tool operates identically to MicroStation, drag the white cross and snap it to the point around which you want to rotate the view. This is one of several new downloads on the Bentley iWare site.

Now In its eighth year, SmartGeometry 2011, took place over six days this Spring, hosted in Copenhagen by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture’s Centre for IT and Architecture (CITA). Marc Thomas reported for AEC Magazine.

Gadgetry was to the fore this year. Shown here a Microsoft Kinect sensor mounted overhead alongside a projector detects hand gestures allowing the virtual model to be moved or modified interactively. The way in which software agents within the virtual environment move can also be altered by gesture.

While here at bentleyuser we think Bentley should give away all their primary applications free to students to catch 'em young, there is at least one free and easy to access option.

MicroStation PowerDraft V8i is available for free download to students and teachers.

PowerDraft is identical in look and operation to MicroStation. The missing functions are:
- 3D modelling, solids, surfaces and meshes
- Luxology Visualisation
- batch conversion and batch processing
PowerDraft will still create and open 3D files, reference all of the 3D file formats available in MicroStation and display and create 3D Dynamic Views. Every 2D creation and editing tool is included so it is a very powerful drawing tool and ideal for use in preparation for working with MicroStation based practices.

Of course the standalone GenerativeComponents preview is also free to download.

A 2 year Academic licence is available for a relatively modest sum that includes full MicroStation and several other products, contact becareers@bentley.com for more details.

The transformation of the SmartGeometry Group from a collective intent on software tools, to a collective intent on what those tools allow us to do is now obvious.

Not only is the range of software tools much larger, but the linking into diverse devices means that design can now begin to explore the next frontier of design – the interface to the world. Last year in Barcelona the focus was essentially on output, how digital manufacturing will change all our preconceptions of architecture. How you make and put together buildings will change.

But architecture also needs to be responsive – to design methodologies, to public inputs, to inputs from the internet, to mobile phones. This year these techniques were explored in depth and the raw energy of taking new approaches and investigating them is the essence of the SG experience.

The groups varied extraordinarily, from weaving fabrics with response mechanisms to environmental mapping in real time, and the weird agent-based growth patterns.

The Conference day brings back a sense of reality, with old favourites such as Chuck Hoberman’s work, as well as local important talent from BIG.

The event is also a network opportunity par excellence – the great crash dispersed many teams, but the group provides a continuing narrative which will resume at RPI (Troy, NY) next year, as well as with the new enhanced website (http://smartgeometry.org).

As a SG Director I must congratulate the whole team on an incredible amount of work and a wonderful experience.

Thank you to our presenters who delighted our audience at a well attended event, to BDP London for their provision of venue and to Optoma for their stereoscopic 3D projector and LCD shutter glasses.

Presentations available to download are:

Visualisation Hints and Tips.

The Art of Stereoscopic 3D.