At the Year in Infrastructure 2015 conference, Bentley Systems announced its OpenRoads CONNECT Edition software. Until now, OpenRoads has been a technology that Bentley has been incorporating into the current line of civil products—InRoads, GEOPAK and MX. OpenRoads will be in limited release to select customers early next year, but is scheduled for general release by December 2016.
According to Bentley:
OpenRoads, Bentley’s successor to its InRoads, GEOPAK and MX offerings, continues to push the envelope in road design, construction and operations. Meeting the needs of multi-discipline civil engineering projects, OpenRoads’ industry-leading “BIM advancements” empower users through immersive modeling, design-time visualization, design intent capture and persistence, hypermodeling, model interoperability and construction-driven engineering.
Simply put, OpenRoads will replace all three of Bentley’s current civil products. As a new product, OpenRoads will combine the best parts of each into a single product featuring:
- A new user interface based on Microsoft Ribbon interface.
- Performance and modeling gains due to a new 64-bit architecture.
- Functional components that allow the placement of intelligent, modifiable compound elements at the push of a single button.
- A documentation center to meet the challenging and changing deliverable requirements associated with models and drawings for submittals, construction, mobile and scheduling.
- Conceptual design integration with Concept Station, Navigator CONNECT, OpenBridge Modeler, LumenRT and other Bentley products.
In addition to the above new features, OpenRoads’ capabilities include:
- Ability to use data from almost any source linked with any design object.
- Plan, profile and cross-section creation workflows integrated with 3D modeling.
- Integrated hydraulic storm water modeling, design and analysis.
- On-demand visualization for project approval.
- Information mobility for enhanced collaboration and project ROI.
- BIM advancements for civil infrastructure projects.
The announcement of OpenRoads is both exciting and terrifying to Bentley's current users. Exciting because of OpenRoads’ new powerful features, data integration and performance enhancements, which should lead to better and quicker designs. Terrifying because users will have to learn not only a new interface, but also a new workflow—they will be leaving software that they have been comfortable with for many years.
OpenRoads CONNECT edition release schedule:
- Limited Access, March 2016.
- Early Access, June 2016.
- General Access, December 2016.
Let the transition to the Bentley “connected” world begin.
About the Author
Randall (Rande) Robinson is a part-time blogger, tweeter, author and “journalist” who, during the day, works for the North Carolina Department of Transportation as an advanced technology support specialist. Robinson has been a Bentley/Intergraph user his entire career, starting on an Intergraph VAX and progressing through today’s suite of Bentley Systems PC design tools.