Bentley Systems redoubled its emphasis on open data standards and the design and construction of data lakes during the Year in Infrastructure conference, held October 8-9 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
“Openness is essential for infrastructure,” Bentley CEO Nicholas Cumins told attendees. “If you think about infrastructure projects, they involve so many organizations and there’s no way they’re using software from a single vendor.”
Cumins said that whether it was the recent acquisition of Cesium, the company’s new data partnership with Google for Google Maps data or the two products announced at the conference, OpenSite+ for civil design or ‘carbon analysis at iTwin, all of this was a reaffirmation of the company’s emphasis on open standards and data sharing.
“Our iTwin platform is open. Our iTwin platform was from the ground up, designed to be open. The core of iTwin is open source. It supports over 2,030 file formats,” said Cumins. “From a technology standpoint, we didn’t announce anything new in terms of the corporate trajectory.”
Here comes generative design
OpenSite+ leverages generative artificial intelligence for civil site design. The software uses a copilot experience that leverages project information stored in documents, known specifications, and 3D site models using natural and spoken language.
“This is the first [product] of its kind in industry to use generative AI,” said Francois Valois, vice president of civil infrastructure at Bentley. “With a severe shortage of engineers and the problem of climate change, the answer is AI.”
OpenSite+ can import design changes directly into an iModel without the need for an intermediary file format such as DGN or DWG, unlike other generative design products. OpenSite+ can also answer questions such as “can I build a residential high-rise in this area” or how many parking spaces could be made from this site to meet local requirements. Drawing is automated using OpenSite Designer, an existing platform product based on MicroStation.
Bentley CTO Julian Motte said there is an instance of Microsoft Copilot in OpenSite+ that handles the Q&A processing, but the project data that drives the big language model that actually creates layouts of the layouts is sourced open
Valois emphasized that OpenSite+ can reduce the time engineers spend on lower-value drafting tasks, such as placing text or printing and signing documents.
Many civil projects use a 2D aerial view of the overall infrastructure asset while detailing individual buildings, roads and road sections in 3D, leaving aesthetic considerations for later in the design process. OpenSite+ can generate 2D and 3D views from scratch, while critical site decisions are still being made. Using generative AI at this stage allows engineers to better explore alternatives to find the best and cost-optimizing alternatives while meeting engineering requirements, he said.
Valois and Bentley product manager Mike Campbell said future versions of OpenSite+ will have an option to allow customers to train the generative AI model on their own data. They said the current data used to train it is licensed from existing open source libraries. OpenSite+ is in beta testing and will be available next year. Valois encouraged the hundreds of attendees to join his technology preview.
Pulling from Google Maps
Bentley also announced, on October 9, a new asset partnership with Google. Bentley software users and developers can now use Google Maps geospatial content, including Google’s photorealistic 3D tiles, for real-world geospatial context and immersive 3D experiences in Bentley digital workflows. The partnership is not surprising given Bentley’s recent acquisition of Cesium, a leading platform for building 3D geospatial applications and also the creator of the 3D Tiles open standard used by Google.
Esri, ArcGIS pro, Esri Location Services can be built into Cesium JS, Cesium’s open development platform. Cesium can also import 3D parametric data from Revit or IFC files into a Cesium 3D tile. The conference featured a digital twin of the Delaware Memorial Bridge work created by Philadelphia-based engineering consulting firm Pennoni.
Pennoni is using information from Google Maps, in the form of Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles, and Cesium for Unreal, a plug-in that takes advantage of the capabilities and renderings produced by the Unreal Engine. “Instead of waiting years for a project to be completed and then capturing and publishing photos, we can show visualizations immediately, in the present,” said Joe Spadea, Pennoni’s associate vice president. Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi was presented with his new title of Platform Director at Bentley, explaining that these types of uses of Cesium’s display technology would be a key part of the iTwin platform going forward .
“With the Cesium acquisition we are effectively changing the engineering model from a stand-alone iTwin product to a geospatial model with information about subsurface conditions, soil conditions and local context,” said Cumins. He added that Cesium aligns with Bentley’s beliefs about open standards while allowing data to flow from GIS to BIM.
Integration of incorporated carbon analysis
Bentley also announced carbon analysis capabilities in the iTwin. A user’s design data can be analyzed on an iTwin using one of two popular built-in COs2 calculators, EC3 or One-Click LCA. This can be done in the conceptual design phase or throughout the design process, allowing for more informed decision-making from the outset.
Designers can view embedded carbon output as cloud-based heatmaps in a live 3D digital twin model powered by Cesium visualization technology. Bentley Vice President of Sustainability Chris Bradshaw said this allows users to explore sustainable design and material alternatives to create higher quality designs during the design and construction phase.
One of Bentley’s oldest and best-known products, the MicroStation desktop layout creation tool, also received an update with the new iTwin integration.
Motte said that bringing Microstation to the iTwin platform did not require rewriting or changing its code. MicroStation is still a desktop application, but its data can now be more easily moved from design to construction and eventually to operations through the iTwin platform. Motte explained that an advantage of this is that Microstation 2024 can now integrate real-time GIS information like any other design created in an iTwin.