CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

29 January 2007

Product News

Bentley Unveils ProjectWise Navigator

Bentley Systems, Incorporated unveiled ProjectWise Navigator , the first visual collaboration client for design review and analysis plus work packaging that fully supports iterative workflows and reuse of all content throughout the process. This new desktop tool complements the ProjectWise system of collaboration servers, which is already used by nine of the top ten ENR 500 design firms to connect people and information across their distributed enterprises.

Commenting on the new release, Buddy Cleveland, senior vice president, Bentley Software, said, "Many users complain that ordinary design review tools limit the use of their content through conversion prior to review and analysis. This results in a scattering of design snapshots that can't be put together and content reused.

"With ProjectWise Navigator, project team members can review and enrich original 2D and 3D design content assembled from their choice of hundreds of applications and file stores. This promotes full design collaboration within an iterative workflow and always cycles the enriched content back to the design team."

ProjectWise Navigator provides powerful collaboration and enrichment capabilities across all lifecycle stages, including:

1. Reviewing projects and designs in an immersive and visual environment

2. Analyzing and simulating construction schedules and assessing buildability

3. Producing intelligent, portable, and linked work packages for construction and operations

ProjectWise Navigator can also operate in a managed environment in conjunction with ProjectWise collaboration servers. The result is an integrated, connected, secure, and versatile visual collaboration system for successfully reviewing design iteratively across distributed enterprises. Additional capabilities this provides include:

1. Check-in/check-out transactions for secure work share

2. Audit trail creation for insight into who did what and when

3. Full text and component indexing for cross-enterprise searching

4. Local Caching Servers for rapid LAN-like content access

5. Automated and scheduled processing for printing and publishing

Cleveland added, "Up to now, reviewing project content has been difficult because there was no single tool available to assemble it all in one place. With the release of ProjectWise Navigator, Bentley brings such a tool to market. Now, everyone involved in infrastructure projects can easily assemble, review, enrich, and analyze original design content for visual collaboration and can produce work packages in support of critical construction and operations activities."

ProjectWise Navigator includes many innovations by MicroStation to provide support for a broad range of applications, industry standards, and file formats. Some of the 2D/3D file formats and supported applications include DGN, DWG, PDF, AutoPLANT, TriForma, PlantSpace, PDS, Google SketchUp, Google EarthT, IGES, STEP, JPEG, TIFF, and 3DS. In total, ProjectWise Navigator can access 2D and 3D project content from hundreds of AEC and infrastructure design applications.

ProjectWise Navigator is licensed with a ProjectWise Named User license. The ProjectWise Named User license also grants the same user client-side access to all other ProjectWise clients, to ProjectWise StartPoint, and to all server-licensed instances of ProjectWise Integration Server and ProjectWise Plot Server.

A demonstration being featured this week at daratechPLANT shows how ProjectWise Navigator allows disparate parts of the overall design - in this demo, a site mainly modeled in PlantSpace, a skid unit modeled in PDS, and a power plant section modeled in AutoPLANT - to be assembled and visually reviewed for fit, clashes, and constructability. The assembled view also allows work that involves the entire plant - for example, inspection and maintenance operations, reviewing site security, or placing scaffolding throughout the site - to be efficiently packaged for bidding by contractors. Also during the demonstration, a ruggedized tablet PC, connected to the workstation by wireless networking, is shown accessing a live video camera through a link in ProjectWise Navigator, highlighting its flexibility and portability.

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