Where Bentley goes with the Civil area

Wow, the subject is too pretentious, I hardly want to reflect on what I can understand. I had started trying Talk about Geopak, But just now that PowerCivil has just arrived, it saves me a world, I'll just have to prove if everything it says is so true.

Bentley before ...

If there is merit that Bentley has, it is the field of Engineering. The history of Integraph is long In this sense, since the 70 years, there were engineering solutions for Main frames, before there was Microstation with that name and before there was Civil3D, nor Bentley nor AutoDesk.

All these engineering products were gradually consolidated in a sancocho More or less summarized as follows:

• InRoads. This came to have six flavors:
  -InRoads Site Suite
  -InRoads Site
  -InRoads
  -InRoads Storm & Sanitary
  -InRoads Survey
  -Power InRoads.
• Geopak. This one had these versions:
  -Geopak Civil Engineering Suite
  -Geopak Site
  -Geopak Survey
  -Power Geopak
• MX. This is an interesting version that had everything, and that was more for the English environment, hence it was implemented mainly by England and India. Always oriented towards road design, running on AutoCAD. It exists even for versions of AutoCAD 2008 -I don't know if that romance will continue- now it exists for Microstation and the recent versions every day it looks more like InRoads. This makes us better understand the post of English friends comparing MX with Civil 3D.

If we want to see how Bentley positioned itself in the Engineering area, we must see this map of the United States. It's about the Transportation Departments: 26 of the states currently use InRoads (52%), 18 Geopak (36%) and 2 MX (4%).

In the case of the Armed Forces Engineering Corps is somewhat similar, 23 states use Inroads, and 4 use MX.

How Bentley came to position itself thus, is a merit of Intergraph, Who was the owner of InRoads until December of the year 2000, when Bentley is bought in full and clear, the user portfolio.

In Integraph times, even InRoads worked on IntelliCADThe other day I found a version running like a charm on Microstation 95, curious that the man says he does not move from there because he is very happy. Good for Bentley, because I don't think I can find such a stubborn user using AutoCAD R12.

At Latin American level, not counting those of Brazil that are another rest, they excel using InRoads:

• Walsh Peru (Lima)
• Catholic University of Lima
• Grana and Montero
• Public Companies of Medellín
• Acueducto of Bogota
• Panama Canal
• Tecnoconsult (Venezuela)
• Inelectra (Venezuela)
• Aguas del Illimani (Bolivia)
• ICA (Mexico)

Bentley in recent times ...

On the AutoDesk side, we have seen interesting developments, although not with the same continuity, by partners that are alive or companies bought by AutoDesk. Such is the case of the Eagle Point line, SoftDesk, CivilCAD, Land Desktop, to name a few. One of the most recent and what I think AutoDesk will stay with is Civil3D, which includes what AutoCAD Map did.

What happens is that AutoDesk has a global positioning in its different platforms, according to a document presented by AutoDesk, 6 million users in the world use something that runs on AutoCAD and of these, 30,000 are Civil3D users. This last data sounds great, perhaps this is why the Bentley guys have no choice but to rejoice when They mention them with the Big bug (Literal phrase watered on Facebook).

Still, it can be said that Bentley has been pleased with its position in the field of Plants and engineering, with customers Soo much big. Its new acquisitions and developments are aimed at strengthening its development towards I-model, XM (In MX), Of which I have been impressed and now I remember: STAAD for structures, Haestad Methods for waters and gINT for geotechnics.

While AutoDesk is getting more involved in the field of animation, it is possible that Bentley intends to consolidate its territory as it updates its technology.

Where Bentley is going ...

You saw it, even for me one day it was difficult for me to understand the flavors of InRoads, which make sense but for one reason or another, one version always falls short of a functionality that is only in the other. Hence, Bentley goes to what it calls PowerCivil, including:

• PowerCivil for USA
• PowerCivil for Spain
• PowerCivil for Latin America.

In my opinion, it's a great idea, especially because in the previous tools, although there was always the PowerInRoads and PowerGeopak version, the rest were licenses that required a Microstation license.

And the future of InRoads?

InRoads will continue to be the mother of the chicks for the old users of this field, also for those who have a Microstation license and only need to acquire InRoads, with the disadvantages of the different flavors (storm & sanitary, Survey). With this the disadvantage is:

InRoads did not have the platform module, well, that neither Vulcan. Platforms everyone uses it, mining, architecture, engineering. It also had no drainage (now included in the InRoads Storm & Sanitary version) and topography (InRoads Survey).

So, what is PowerCivil?

PowerCivil has practically everything that an engineering user occupies. The For Spain and For Latin America versions are the same, with the differences in the regulations they bring, the USA is Another wave for gringos. Thus, if it were necessary to define it:

PowerCivil: It is InRoads with platforms, drainage, topography, MicroStation and in Spanish.

For the price of Microstation.

We will see how I will review its features.