New App Empowers Infrastructure Professionals to Share Bentley Map Geospatial Information With Field Technicians via Android-based Mobile Devices

EXTON, Pa. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — July 11, 2013 — Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced the immediate availability of Bentley Map Mobile, empowering users to view and act upon Bentley Map geospatial information through mobile devices. With this powerful new Bentley App, infrastructure professionals can readily share geospatial data with non-GIS specialists in the field, including installation and maintenance teams, construction and engineering technicians, and inspectors. This enhanced information mobility provides these specialists with continuous, real-time access to up-to-date geospatial information about the landbase; utility, telecommunications, and transportation networks; and other spatially managed infrastructure that they support in the field. The first release of Bentley Map Mobile runs on Android-based devices.

Commenting on why the Philadelphia Water Department is looking forward to employing Bentley Map Mobile, Thomas Kaufmann, PWD’s engineering plans design supervisor, said, “We will have the ability to take our infrastructure geospatial data out in the field, with all the attribution attached and searchable. The map is geocoded so it uses the tablet’s GPS capabilities to move the map to where you are located – all without WiFi or a data plan!”

Harry Vitelli, Bentley vice president, construction and field, said, “A few years ago even we at Bentley couldn’t have imagined having a tablet device in the field that contains the full landbase for an entire country and that offers lightning-fast queries in an easy-to-use form factor. Bentley Map Mobile supports our mission of sustaining infrastructure by ensuring that field professionals need not sacrifice even a small level of performance for the sake of information mobility that enables them to find and improve infrastructure assets, anytime, anywhere – whether or not they are connected.”

Bentley Map Mobile works with Bentley’s next generation of i-models (containers for open infrastructure information exchange) that can now package geospatial information for use on mobile devices. The new i-models use the SQLite software library to deliver unmatched performance on virtually all mobile devices. Representative applications that can publish i-models include Bentley Map Enterprise, Bentley Utilities Designer, and Bentley’s communications products, including Bentley Coax, Bentley Copper, Bentley Fiber, and Bentley Inside Plant.

Bentley Map Mobile provides the following functionality:

• fast access to large geospatial data sets;
• easy-to-use, standard tablet-based gestures such as pinch to zoom, swipe to drag, point to select features, etc.;
• simple query mechanism to look up features quickly;
• GPS integration for fast location in the field;
• Google Maps integration for directions to located features (with network connection);
• disconnected, view-only operation for access anywhere, without a network connection;
• raster and vector display.

The advantages of Bentley Map Mobile include:

• improving the quality of decisions made by field personnel by providing quick access to accurate, up-to-date asset information;
• increasing worker safety by having access to current information as well as information on adjacent utilities that might have an impact on the work they are completing;
• increasing the return on investment in geospatial data by making this valuable data available to an entirely new group of users.

Bentley Map Mobile empowers field technicians by giving them untethered access to the most recent geospatial asset information on their mobile devices. It also helps them respond to emergencies and maintenance issues more quickly, reducing disruptions and increasing uptime for utilities and other infrastructure assets.

Bentley Map Mobile is available to all Bentley Passport holders at no additional charge and can be accessed at www.bentley.com/BentleyMapMobile.

About Bentley Apps

Bentley Apps are a portfolio of offerings fully enabled by Bentley Passports that facilitate information mobility among multi-discipline project and operations teams and across the infrastructure lifecycle. They serve the widely varying needs of targeted infrastructure professionals (from architects, engineers, and constructors to geospatial professionals, inspectors, and operations and maintenance teams), can be used on a selection of mobile device platforms, including iOS and Android, and can be tried for free using sample data. Bentley Apps leverage the company’s next generation of i-models (containers for open infrastructure information exchange), which can package 3D models with associated documents, such as drawings and PDFs aggregated across data sources, and related business properties for use on mobile devices. They are fully integrated with the ProjectWise system of collaboration servers and services, enabling them to provide information mobility with integrity. In addition to delivering off-the-shelf apps, Bentley offers its Mobile App Development Toolkit through the Bentley Developer Network.