Geospatial
Infrastructure Software
Dr. Satyaprakash,Ananya Ghosh
Infrastructure designing has come a long way
since the initial years, when the designing was
done on drawing boards. Presently, software are
used not only for designing but also for generating
alternative scenarios and calculating the cost.
In this article, we have compiled a list of geospatial solutions
being offered by some of the software companies. The compilation
has been done from their respective websites and the view
points presented by two major companies viz., Bentley and
Autodesk.
BENTLEY
The mission statement for Bentley is to provide “Software for
the World's Infrastructure” and to “Advance GIS for infrastructure”.
All the GIS and engineering solutions are built upon their
core product-MicroStation. It has four verticals viz., Building,
Civil, Geospatial and Plant, which provide a wide breadth of
solutions for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC)
content. It takes a two-tier approach towards enterprise solution
based on the Bentley Geospatial Server, taking full advantage
of Oracle Spatial. The Geospatial solutions are based on
integrated AEC-GIS capabilities and allow users to create a spatially
enabled managed environment.
Bentley Geospatial addresses a number of markets with specific
industry applications including electric and gas utilities,
multi-utilities, communications companies, water and wastewater
utilities, local government and federal government.
The Bentley products are divided into two main categories:
Microstation and ProjectWise. MicroStation is for the design,
construction and operation of infrastructure, while ProjectWise
is used for the managed environment for AEC IT.
Some of the other software used in geospatial and infrastructure
verticals are listed below.
In the Geospatial Engineering for Communications, apart from
MicroStation, other products used are Bentley Structural - for
building information modeling (BIM) application, Bentley Coax
- for RF design engineering solution, Bentley Copper - for managing
copper telephony networks, Bentley Descartes - an imaging
solution integrated with MicroStation for visualization,
mapping, and raster-to-vector conversion, Bentley I/RAS-B - a
tool for working with black/white scanned drawings and
records, raster editing, clean-up, and raster-to-vector conversion,
Bentley Fiber - a solution for designing, documenting, and
maintaining outside plant fiber networks, Bentley Inside Plant -
meant for designing and documenting the inside plant for communications
networks, PowerMap Field for Communications -
for Field data collection and as-built reporting for communications
and Bentley View - a CAD file viewing application that can
open, view, and print DGN, DWG and DXF file formats.
In the Geospatial Engineering for Electric and Gas some of the
products apart from MicroStation and Bentley Descartes, Bentley
I/RAS-B and Bentlry View, there are Bentley Expert Designer
- for geospatial facility design and Bentley OnSite - an electronic
field book for Stakeout and Inspection.
In the Geospatial Engineering for Water Resources, the specific
products are Bentley Wastewater - a product for Wastewater
Networks used to perform detailed wastewater modeling,
analysis, and planning with SewerGEMS, Bentley Water -
meant for water networks to perform detailed water modeling,
analysis, and planning with WaterGEMS, CivilStorm - a
stormwater modeling and analysis product for modeling
stormwater system e.g., rainfall, runoff, inlet capture and
bypass, gravity and pressure piping, detention ponds, outlet
structures, open channels, culverts, and more, CulvertMaster -
for culvert hydraulic analysis and design, Darwin Calibrator - for
automated model calibration for water distribution systems,
Microstation V8 XM : MicroStation is a CAD platform used by teams of architects, engineers, contractors, and
GIS professionals to integrate work on buildings, civil engineering projects, power plants, and geospatial information.
This has the inter operable capability directly from the AutoCAD DWG files and also allows the users
to customise using VBA. Its three derivative CAD platform products are PowerDraft – used for 2D/3D production
design and drafting, Bentley Redline – to review, comment and print 2D/3D CAD files and Bentley View –
to view and print 2D/3D DGN/ DWG files and also to create PDFs.
ProjectWise: This is the scalable system used to manage, find, and share CAD and geospatial content, project
data, and Office documents. The ProjectWise system includes desktop clients, and servers for connecting people
and information. This has different version for different type of applications viz., ProjectWise Navigator
which delivers visual collaboration for immersive design review and analysis, ProjectWise StartPoint extends
the Microsoft Office SharePoint to enable collaboration for MicroStation and AutoCAD® users. ProjectWise
Integration Server delivers federated engineering content management, connects to servers for caching data,
for automating and managing plotting, and for connection to Microsoft SharePoint.
Darwin Designer - for optimized design
and rehabilitation of water distribution
systems, FlowMaster - for performing
hydraulic analysis for open channels,
pipes, weirs, and orifices, HAMMER - useful
for Water hammer and transient
analysis and can interface directly with
WaterCAD and WaterGEMS, HEC-Pack -
used for floodplain hydrology and river
analysis, PondPack - used for detention
pond analysis and design, SCADAConnect
- used for Seamless integration of
SCADA and hydraulic modeling, Sewer-
CAD - for wastewater collection modeling
and design, SewerGEMS - for urban sanitary
and combined sewer modeling and
management, Skelebrator - used for network
simplification for water distribution
systems, StormCAD - used for storm
sewer design and modeling software,
WaterCAD - for water distribution modeling
and management, WaterGEMS - a
water distribution modeling and management
software which can also be integrated
with ArcGIS, WaterSAFE - for infrastructure
security and vulnerability
analysis for water distribution systems.
Under the Mapping section, some
important products used are, Bentley
CADscript - used for presentation and
publishing maps, Bentley MAPscript -
used for distributed Map Publishing and
Plotting, Bentley PowerDraft - used for
2D/3D production drafting solution, Bentley
PowerMap - used for data access and
decision support application for geospa-
“The future of geospatial tools in Infrastructure lies in integration”
Styli Camateros
Richard Zambuni Bentley Systems Inc.
Global trends
People have started realising that “Geospatial is not GIS” and
that a lot of design documentation is needed to create assets. .
Hence there needs to be a strategic information approach to
solve data management problems for the infrastructure projects.
People have also realised that there is an artificial boundary
between GIS and engineering and that is why Bentley has
introduced engineering aspect of infrastructure in creation
and management of assets. Users have understood the value
of a specific format for created data so that it can be accessible
for another 20-30 years in the future. Therefore, this has given
rise to the importance of standards for databases.
Products
Bentley has more than hundred products for infrastructure
and all are aimed at designing, building and management of
infrastructure. Two products which are aimed at all the sectors
are, MicroStation and ProjectWise (more details provided in
the article). All the Bentley products are built on these two
products, that cover the life cycle of an asset that includes
design, build and operate.
Clientele
Major customers of Bentley are Enterprise License Customers
who use the products in one way or the other. A partial list of
the users in different sectors are listed in the table (organisation
in red are the Indian users).
Future
From the technology point of view, it is all about integration
which means every data needs to be interoperable. In the next
five years, there will be increasing amount of innovation in
building information management (BIM), building infrastructure
design, 3D civil models, 3D plant design and 3D power
models. The innovations would lead to fully functional assets
which can be put to different uses to do the task at hand
whether it is construction or operation. This will be the major
deciding factor in the coming five years.