Extends Technology Leadership in Point-cloud Processing for Persistent Point Cloud Benefits in Information Modeling Workflows

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — April 16, 2013 — Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced the immediate availability of Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 4). Based on MicroStation, Bentley’s information modeling environment, it provides a uniquely powerful toolset for processing and integrating point clouds and scalable terrain models, as fundamental data types, persistently throughout architectural, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) workflows.

The point-cloud processing capabilities of Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 4) enable infrastructure professionals to enrich, enhance, and interpret point clouds for “downstream” workflows – increasing the comprehension, usability, and value of point clouds across the infrastructure lifecycle. Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 4) can further purpose point clouds pre-processed in Bentley Pointools V8i, and as a layered application, it uniquely empowers design-time visualization within Bentley’s civil applications, such as InRoads V8i, using OpenRoads technology, and within OpenPlant V8i and AECOsim Building Designer V8i. With ProjectWise Point-cloud Services, point clouds processed and geo-coordinated with Bentley Descartes V8i, rather than being limited to “survey” usefulness, become persistent point clouds managed and streamed for advantageous reuse across collaborative AECO and asset management workflows.

Robert Mankowski, Bentley vice president, product development, said, “Point clouds have become both vital and pervasive in infrastructure design and management use cases. And now Bentley delivers an unprecedented portfolio of software for processing, managing, streaming, and reusing persistent point clouds. To date, point clouds have been technically consigned to merely a ‘disposable’ survey cost. But now, with our fast and powerful Vortex engine extended beyond MicroStation to ProjectWise Point-cloud Services, point-cloud datasets comprising unlimited billions of points, captured from virtually any scanning source and then processed with Bentley Descartes V8i to enhance and enrich their AECO value, can deliver sustained investment returns through unprecedented information mobility, with unimagined performance, securely and with integrity. It’s very exciting and gratifying to see our users daily discovering and advancing beneficial new use cases for persistent point clouds.”

Bentley is committed to making the handling and processing of point clouds seamless, flexible, and as productive as possible. Its cohesive approach has established point clouds as a fundamental data type across its portfolio, enabling Bentley to bring point-cloud benefits to its users comprehensively – for practical scalability from the desktop to the server and the field. New offerings recently delivered include Bentley Pointools V8i and the Pointools View no-charge iWare app for point-cloud viewing. The point-cloud clash detection and point-cloud differencing that are already available in Bentley Pointools V8i will soon be incorporated into SELECTseries releases of MicroStation V8i, Bentley Navigator V8i, and Bentley Descartes V8i.

The new capabilities in Bentley Descartes V8i (SELECTseries 4) include:

• linear feature extraction – Linear feature geometries, such as rail, tunnel, or road feature types, including center lines and road markings, can now be extracted to improve comprehension and focus on the feature or features to be managed. High productivity is achieved by automation, which speeds what is otherwise a fully manual process.
• point-cloud class management – Class management enables users to organize point clouds into standard (LAS) and custom classes. Users can create classes, organize points into these classes, and control which classes are shown or hidden with any presentation style. This adds intelligence to point clouds and speeds their interpretation.
• presentation style manager – Users can configure new presentation styles and save them in a style manager. They also can combine multiple shaders in a single view to improve object recognition.
• clip and clip manager – This new capability allows users to create, save, and manage clips to define areas of work. Regions of interest can be defined and managed efficiently, allowing users to focus on the area of the point cloud that is of concern, speeding workflows.
• sections and section manager – Users can now cut point clouds in cross sections and easily streamline the 3D view configuration process. Sections and section manager extend existing dynamic cross-sectioning capabilities introduced in Bentley Descartes V8 i (SELECT series 3) and provide users with an innovative and comprehensive set of tools to analyze point clouds through user-defined cutting planes.
• geo-coordination for point clouds – With the SELECTseries 4 release of Bentley Descartes V8 i , the integration of point clouds from different coordinate systems is now possible. Users can re-project point clouds using their choice of the physical or on-the-fly re-projection mode. The easy geo-coordination of point clouds speeds their integration into information modeling workflows.
• scalable terrain modeling – The new viewshed tool shows terrain that’s visible from a selected point or along a path to improve the interpretation of terrain models. The selected area can be exported to MicroStation at 1:1 scale.