As a rail owner-operator or as an authority for a light-rail or metro system you face numerous challenges including increased safety targets, aging infrastructure, limited financial resources, managing information across multiple systems, and regulatory compliance. One of those regulatory challenges is the mandated implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) systems.

In this webinar Wednesday September 28th, you will hear from Bentley Systems experts George Castle and Leif Johnson how AssetWise helps enable PTC deployment. AssetWise provides best practice configuration management capabilities that address the problem of information integrity in a changing environment. Configuration management ensures information integrity through closed-loop change management, ensuring consistency between all aspects of operational information and the requirements related to the asset being described.

Learn more and register today:

The HoloLens is an amazing device.  It is, by far, the best Augmented Reality device I have ever used. Last spring, we were luck enough to get one to play with.  Here are 3 little experiments that we did with it, and hints about a bigger one to be revealed soon.

Building construction planning - in a context

The first one was the simplest – an example of the typical “model on a table” demo. Building design and construction planning can be a little abstract on a computer screen. The concept was to visualize the steps of the construction process within a real world context – which could facilitate the planning of construction work, transportation of material, and traffic disruptions. We displayed the building model inside a Bentley Context Capture mesh of a city, and provided a simple user interface to iterate through the construction steps. Our schedule for producing the demo was extremely tight, so the result is a little rough, yet when wearing the Hololens it was quite convincing. Well, at least for a first try…

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Understanding Piping Diagrams

Our second experiment was related with P&IDs. For those not familiar with P&ID, “Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams” are drawings that illustrate the logic of a pipe circuit. They are not only used for designing a plant, but also for maintaining it (“how can I drain this circuit to fix that pump”), and as a tool for emergency situations (“what valves should I shut to stop this chemical spill”).

One of the difficulties when using P&ID drawings is they do not represent the geometry of the plant. A short line in a drawing could be implemented as a 60 cm long pipe in a plant, or as a 300 m long one. Consequently, P&ID drawings cannot be used as is for Augmented Reality, because they cannot properly be aligned with reality.

One of the consequences is the difficulty of finding assets. Say you want to find the location of the physical pump that corresponds to a given pump symbol in a P&ID. You may have to search a little, first finding the portion of the plant to which the drawing corresponds, then reading equipment codes and comparing those to the drawing’s info, etc. Finding the 2 valves that you should close to isolate that pump from the circuit will also require some search. We thought we could improve this process.

So we worked on a HoloLens application that highlights the correspondence between P&ID elements and physical assets. This is shown in the video below: you want to find what physical pipe a P&ID line represents? You just tap it, and the corresponding 3D pipe is highlighted in the model. 

(Please visit the site to view this video)

X-Ray Vision for Building Maintenance

The most recent experiment that we did is about giving building maintenance workers some X-ray vision. The video demo speaks by itself:

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Such technology could save building maintenance teams a lot of time, as they could quickly identify the location of the equipment, and the tools that will be required for the task, without moving any tile.

Is that all we did? Of course not… those 3 projects were just quick experiments. We did another, much more extended project during the summer, related with facility maintenance. It is about giving workers with the necessary assistance to access the data that they need at the right time and the right place, enabling them to take better decisions. We will be showing a demo of it during the Year In Infrastructure event in London, Nov 1-3  #YII2016, and attendees will be given the possibility to try it…

We are already seeing demos of all sorts of experiments that innovation teams are doing all around the world with the HoloLens. This is just the beginning - in the future, I believe Everything will be Augmented Everywhere, by Everyone. We are not there yet, but devices like the HoloLens certainly take us one step (much) closer…

STAAD.Pro SS6 v8i 20.07.11.82 简体中文语言包正式发布到 Fulfillment Center/SELECT。有关详情，请参考产品自述和安装指南。

• STAAD.Pro SS6 (v20.07.11.82) 自述文件
• STAAD.Pro SS6 (v20.07.11.82) 安装指南

请首先安装英文软件，然后再安装简体中文语言包。

AutoPIPE Vessel CONNECT Edition 40.02.00.08 简体中文版正式发布到 Fulfillment Center/SELECT。有关详细情，请参考以下文档。 

• AutoPIPE Vessel CONNECT Edition Update 2 (v40.02.00.08) 自述文件  
• AutoPIPE Vessel CONNECT Edition Update 2 (v40.02.00.08) 快速入门指南
• AutoPIPE Vessel CONNECT Edition Update 2 (v40.02.00.08) 教程

ContextCapture、ContextCapture Center x64 04.02.00.940 简体中文语言包已发布到 Fulfillment Center/SELECT。在扫除语言障碍后，中国用户如今也可以享用这款近年来最火热的实景建模软件了。

喜讯：v4.3 简体中文包和文档正在大踏步赶来！

There is still time to register for an Instructor Led course. Please view the schedule to find a class that meets your learning needs.

http://pages.info.bentley.com/learning/

Be part of this conversation with Georgina Maldonado, MOSES Product Manager, on taking into account the two assets of importance in the loadout process; the cargo being moved and the vessel being loaded.

Key Points

• Separating analysis into cargo supports and ballast arrangement
• Getting  loads needed to design ballast sequence
• Input data needed to calculate cargo support stages
• Input data needed to design ballast sequence

Click to register

October 11, 2016 (Middle East, Europe, India and SE Asia)

Mark your calendar for Tuesday, October 4, at 2 p.m. EDT for the next AssetWise Special Interest Group (SIG) workshop. Register today!

SIG one-hour workshops are live, complimentary, and benefit Owner Operators who used eB Insight, eB Information Manager, or AssetWise ECM previously. You will:

• Hear the latest in AssetWise and related technology

• Learn how to best apply AssetWise capabilities to your workflows

• Network with industry colleagues and connect with Bentley experts

One PDH will be applied to each attendee’s Bentley Transcript for self-reporting.

RM Bridge CONNECT Edition V10 Update 2 contains enhancements and several error corrections. The following is the list of major enhancements:

• Wind buffeting in time domain
• Visualization of loads
• Export tendons to OpenBridge Modeler (OBM)

Descartes CONNECT Edition x64 10.00.00.48简体中文安装包和语言包已发布到Fulfillment Center。有关详情，请参考产品自述。

To assess how calculated results like pressure and tank levels change over time, one must set up and manage multiple Graphs, right? Actually, with Sparklines, you can do this right in a flextable, for all elements at once. To learn more, watch this short video and check out the additional resources in the "See Also" section. The video covers the following:

• Enabling and configuring Sparklines for Flow in a pipe flextable
• Showing Sparklines for multiple result fields at once

Applicable products/versions:

• WaterCAD and WaterGEMS: V8i SELECTseries 4 (08.11.04.50) and greater
• SewerGEMS, SewerCAD and CivilStorm V8i SELECTseries 4 (08.11.04.54) and greater

(Please visit the site to view this video)

This video is part of a growing library of useful information designed to provide effective tips and information about time-saving product features within Bentley’s Hydraulics and Hydrology products. Be sure to check back frequently to view the latest video. Better yet, subscribe to this blog by turning Notifications On.

Mark Pachlhofer
Senior Technical Support Engineer
Bentley Systems, Inc.

See Also

What's new in WaterCAD and WaterGEMS V8i SELECTSeries 4?

Using Sparklines (Help topic)

I’m a senior support engineer for product success and I’ve been working with ArcGIS software for about 10 years. I started with some courses in grad school at the University of New Haven and quickly developed an affinity with the products. After a year of working with the software I was asked to become a teacher’s assistant (TA) for the ArcGIS courses. In the months leading up to my graduation I realized that I wanted to pursue a career oriented around using ESRI’s ArcGIS product. I was fortunate enough to find a job right before school ended as a cartographer for company a few towns away that produced maps for telephone books, brochures, magazines, etc…

There I learned how to use and edit scripts to update maps with Python and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which I have somewhat forgotten. I also learned how to use a few products in the Adobe suite (Photoshop and Illustrator mostly) and help construct color palettes for the maps that were being produced. I also had the opportunity to learn documentation processes for my work and learned how to write instructions for others in case I was out of the office. It was a small company and deadlines had to be met, so if I was out for some reason at least one person needed to know the work flow for producing the maps.

Unfortunately, I was not with the company for very long because of the state of the economy in 2008. I was very fortunate, however, to get a job at Bentley Systems in 2009 with the hydraulics and hydrology (Haestad) team shortly after being let go, which allowed me to learn new software while applying my existing knowledge of the ArcGIS software. I’m the expert on team for ArcGIS questions and have helped to write or edit many of the wiki articles on the WaterGEMS and SewerGEMS integration with ArcMap. Some of my daily activities for the team include answering technical questions about the water and storm water product line on the forums, through email, and over the phone. I have since tried to keep up with my use of the ArcGIS software and I would be lying if I said that I haven’t forgotten a lot of things since I no longer use it every day, but I still very much enjoy using it alongside the hydraulics and hydrology products that have brought me towhere I am today.

I’ll be using this blog as a way to introduce new concepts and previously documented tricks and tips to the Bentley hydraulics and hydrology water and storm-sewer users that are interested in the integration of the products with the ArcGIS, specifically with ArcMap. I also plan to discuss ArcCatalog and other tools like ArcGIS online mapping and how they can be used to better facilitate your water and storm sewer modeling. I don’t plan to focus solely on ArcGIS and I don’t plan to focus solely on the hydraulics and hydrology line of products, but strive to find a balance of a median on both subjects in each post. If you are interested in Advanced ArcGIS topic or in ArcGIS integration with Bentley’s water, storm and sewer software, I hope you enjoy my posts. Your feedback in the comments area is much appreciated. If you have questions about ArcGIS integration with Bentley software, myself or one of my colleagues would be happy to assist you on our forum  and you can also find answers to many ArcGIS integration questions on our Wiki.

Thanks,

Mark

One concept that I’ve had a lot of users ask about is how they can get WaterGEMS or SewerGEMS for ArcMap to use the same element symbology that we have in standalone. Normally, when you load a model file in WaterGEMS or SewerGEMS for ArcMap the pipes, pumps, junctions, valves, tanks, etc… come in with default ArcMap symbology, such as a 12 point size purple circle to represent junctions or a 2 point width blue line for pipes, which tends to look generic and boring. In ArcMap, cartographers or most users want a way to distinguish points so they can be visually identified for what they represent in reality. In the WaterGEMS and SewerGEMS products we give you a way to do that by utilizing previously created ArcMap style files that are located in the program files folder for each application (ex. “C:\Program Files (x86)\Bentley\WaterGEMS”). There is a process that can be applied to have the style files autopopulate the WaterGEMS or SewerGEMS layers that populate the table of contents when a new file or existing file is opened.  The concept behind having the layers autopopulate when you open a file is simple. All that needs to be done is when you create your style in the style manager you make sure to give the style layer the same name thelayer will have in the table of contents. For WaterGEMs and SewerGEMS these names or labels are already pre-determined because they are named in the product’s database file.

If you don’t like the styles that we offer though you can make your own file. A Google search using “create a style file in ArcGIS” will return results. For me the fun part comes next when you have to find the picture that you’d like to use for the symbology, choose a program to create the icon in, then import the icon into ArcMap to size and construct the layer’s style. One free program that I’ve personally tried is a web tool called ico convert (http://icoconvert.com/). It’s 5 simple steps and the icon is created for you. If you’re looking for something more advanced you use one of the Adobe products like Illustrator or Photoshop or try a freeware product like GIMP, which is similar to Adobe Photoshop.  There are a few ideas that immediately come to my mind here like using an actual image from the field to represent a tank or manufacturers pictures to represent valves. You could get as creative as you like here, but this is concept that can be applied to make a good piece for a presentation that can be presented to a client or submitted to at a conference, such as Bentley’s Annual “Year in Infrastructure”, which this year happens to be hosted in London from November 1-3^rd. (That was an easy plug for our conference, which I couldn’t resist.) I hope this helps with your future water modeling and if you have any comments on the article please feel free to post them in the comments section below. If you have a topic for discussion, please create a new post on our forum and I’ll be glad to discuss it in more detail there.

The screen shot below is an example of a stylized WaterGEMS model using the style file located in the WaterGEMS program files folder.

For the ninth consecutive year, Bentley is pleased to co-sponsor the ASCE/AISC Student Steel Bridge Competition. This yearly challenge gives students an opportunity to work as part of a design team directly applying engineering principles, and to test their skills in steel design, fabrication, scheduling, and project management. Students really savor the chance to prove their school’s engineering excellence, and this applied learning project gives ample opportunity for their competitive spirit!

Along with our continuing financial support of the National competition, Bentley is pleased to once again offer steel bridge teams from participating ASCE student chaptersfree software and training.

For the 2017 competition, we offer the following:

• Free software (STAAD.Pro V8i) for the duration of the 2017 competition.

  We will contact your student chapter’s Faculty Advisor with more information. If you don’t hear from your faculty advisor within the next few weeks, then participating ASCE student chapters can contact us at academic@bentley.com. Please use a Subject line of Student Steel Bridge Competition Request, and provide the following information:

• School Name & Location

• Name & Email address of team’s Faculty Advisor

• Name & Email address of Steel Bridge Team Captain(s)

• Name & Email address of each steel bridge team member wanting access to software & training

• Supporting tutorial materials to help teams to use the software to design, and then analyze, their steel bridge. These useful guides can be used by anyone interested in an example of using STAAD.Pro V8i for modeling steel bridge structures, applying load tests, and performing an analysis.

  Please Note: Refer to the Official 2017 Student Steel Bridge Competition Rules, when following the tutorial examples—since several aspects have changed since last year!

  The free learning materials for the ASCE/AISC Student Steel Bridge Competition are available here(simply sign in or register!) divided into two sections:

• Model Generation (short videos & accompanying practice workbook)

• Loading and Analysis (short videos & accompanying practice workbook with Dataset)

       You can also take advantage of these additional on-demand learning materials (again, simply sign in or register!):

• • • QuickStart for Structural Engineers Using STAAD.Pro V8i

• • • Academic Webinar - Introduction to Bridge Modeling using STAAD (SS6)

Of course, if your school has Bentley’s Academic SELECT Subscription, then your student team already has access to this software (and a far more!), via STUDENTserver. You can use your normal login for STUDENTserver to access both the software and the training materials (the latter via the links above).

The 2016 national finals (marking the 25^th anniversary) were exciting, and we look forward to meeting the finalists at the 2017 National Student Steel Bridge Competition at Oregon State University May 26-27, 2017.

Best of luck to all the participating teams!

The Bentley Institute Student Ambassador Program bridges the gap between academic learning and the technology skills needed by industry, by creating a global network of students acting as liaisons between Bentley and their colleges or universities.

 Bentley Institute Student Ambassadors help students and educators become familiar with Bentley software and supporting learning resources, through fun and informative activities and seminars. They act as leaders on their campus and inspire fellow students, by sharing examples of amazing infrastructure projects and information about key trends in industries that are advancing infrastructure.

This month we wish to recognize Xi Zhang, a Bentley Institute Student Ambassador studying at Heilongjiang Institute of Technology, Harbin Heilongjiang Province, China. Xi Zhang is a second year road and bridge engineering student, who is actively spreading his interest in—and knowledge about—Bentley software among his peers.

Within a month of his appointment as a Student Ambassador on his campus, he organized an event to educate his peers about how they can advance their career prospects by using several of the applications in Bentley’s academic software suite in their studies. He helped arrange training sessions for students and faculty members, in coordination with the professors, and distributed learning material among his peers to further support their learning.

Xi Zhang also actively guided his peers during these training sessions, which included introductions to MicroStation, ContextCapture and LumenRT. These workshops helped open the door for 60 students at Heilongjiang Institute of Technology, to discover the possibilities of Reality Modeling.

Xi Zhang says he is excited to take advantage of the array of solutions provided by Bentley’s Academic Program, and can definitely benefit from its comprehensive suite of infrastructural software. Having familiarized himself with Bentley’s solutions, he feels like he has a sea of opportunities in front of him to explore and better prepare for his future career. He next plans to better understanding the concepts of BIM and take that interest further.

We thank Xi Zhang for his accomplishments so far, in support of his fellow students, and cannot wait to see what he does next in his role as a Bentley Institute Student Ambassador!

Get started with your AECOsim Building Designer training. Are you an architect, mechanical, electrical, or structural engineer? Have you wanted to learn about all the things you can do with Bentley’s multi-discipline building design application, AECOsim Building Designer. For a limited time, all courses in October and November are complimentary. So take advantage of this offer, and start learning how you can improve your workflow and become more productive. 

Which course is right for you? Start by taking one of the 3D and BIM Essentials courses.

• If you are/were a Revit User, don’t miss this limited time complimentary course. Learning Consultant Paul Wagner will walk you through what you need to know to model in AECOsim Building Designer, relating each tool and feature to the comparable tool and feature in Revit.
  • • October 11-13, 10:00 am EST - 3D and BIM Essentials for Revit Users, Paul Wagner
• If you are a New User, moving from 2D Cad to the 3D world of BIM then this is the course for you. Paul Wagner will walk you through everything you need to know to navigate the 3D environment and add intelligence to the 3D model.
  • • October 19-21, 10:00 am EST - 3D and BIM Essentials for New Users, Paul Wagner
• Next, in the Floors and Grids course Paul will help you get your project set up and organized with a structural grid system and floor elevations.
  • • October 24, 10:00 am EST - Floors and Grid Systems, Paul Wagner
• Once you have completed the 3D and BIM Essentials course and the Floors and Grid Systems course move on to one of the discipline specific QuickStarts and learn to model and create drawings for a simple building project.

• October 25-27, 10:00 am EST -QuickStart for Structural Designers Using AECOsim Building Designer. The instructor, Ahmed Fahmy,
  is a structural engineer and will help you get started with your next structural project.
• November 1-3, 10:00 am EST - QuickStart for Mechanical Designers Using AECOsim Building Designer. Paul Wagner, BIM Consultant
  for Bentley Systems LEARN Services, will have you modeling your duct work and mechanical systems in no time.
• November 8-10, 10:00 am EST - QuickStart for Architects Using AECOsim Building Designer. Mary Chib, an architect at
  heart, will teach you how to use AECOsim Building Designer to model anything you can imagine.

This article is a follow-up to the  Important Information for Civil 3d Users article on the Bentley Communities  Project Delivery: Content Management Forum. It is written to address the need to process a large number of DWG files at a time, due to an issue with an AutoCAD Civil 3d. But it could be used to script process any kind of file.

Summary of the Civil 3d Issue

• Civil 3d users are encountering slowness opening files. This is due to the delivery of an Autodesk file AeccNetwork.dbx, that bloats any files opened with it in place.
  
  
• This can happen in all versions. It happens in Civil 3d or any vertical using the Civil 3d object enablers, which does include vanilla AutoCAD.
  
  
• File open will still be slow until all the files are repaired. Every file opened with the bad AeccNetwork.dbx must be repaired. This can include blocks, templates and other DWG based resources.
  
  
• The script needs to run from the command line, that means outside ProjectWise.

NOTE:
Autodesk provides explicit instructions in the “Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D Performance Enhancement Tool (2014-2017).pdf.” There is a link to this file on Bentley Communities in the Important Information for Civil 3d Users article. The instructions for using the update script start on page 4 of the PDF. The link to the version specific file information is on page 2 of the PDF. 

Thoughts on Cleaning the DWG Files That Are in ProjectWise

There are several ways to clean the files. They all have pros and cons. It is critical that every file get cleaned in a way that tells ProjectWise a new local copy is needed That’s the only way to be sure that the next time a user opens a master file, every distributed file will get updated in the working folders.

 Here are my thoughts on the different methods. Please feel free to propose a better solution if you think of one.

• Cleaning Files on the server (storage areas):  You cannot clean the files directly in the storage area, because the distributed local copies would not be updated. ProjectWise has no record of the change. Users will still have slow refs. You will have to run the bat file on every folder because there is no easy way to tell which of the folders in the storage area are affected.
  
  
• Checkout, clean and check back in:  You can check files out, clean them in the working folders and check them back in. However, there is not an easy way to tell the copied out files from the checked out files.  So once again you wouldn’t guarantee all the files would get clean.
   
• Clean all the files manually with Civil 3d. This is a straight forward solution. You could assign folders to project team members. They would check them all out. (Locking them) Then they would open them one at a time, save them and check them in to the project. On a small project this would work. The larger the project the more production time would be lost.
  
  
• Bulk clean files using managed export from a search. One of the best options to bulk clean the files is to use managed export for an entire project’s files at a one time and then import them back in after resaving them. It is still possible that files from different projects would not get updated. But the number would be much smaller because most projects try to limit outside XRef’s. This script would only need to run on a single folder. But you can only import them back in from one folder at a time.   (See instructions below)
  
  
• Bulk Clean Files using the Export\Import Excel Tool. The best option to clean the files. You get a list of the files that are exported.  You can import them back in using one step.  I am in the process of testing this method. (Instructions will be added once testing is done)

Mass Clean-Up Steps Using Managed Export

1. Create a search to find the DWG Files and save it. This is an example search I used:
   
   For my saved search I selected the Project Root as the location to search, turned on sub-directories and set Application to AutoCAD.
   
   
2. Run the search and select all the files.
   
   
3. Right-Click and select Export
   
   
4. When the Dialog Opens:
   
   Be sure and select Export not Send to Folder
   
   
5. Set the export folder to a location that you can easily find from the command prompt:
   
   Select Next
   
   
6. Select Export
   
   
   
7. As the files Export you may encounter reference files that have already been exported and a dialog will ask how to handle them:
   
   It is safe to say No as you only need one copy and overwriting will take longer.
   
   
8. Once the export is done it is time to clean the files.
   
   
9. Follow the Autodesk instructions in the pdf Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D Performance Enhancement Tool (2014-2017).
   
   
10. I had an access issue with the bat file and script.
    The bat file copies the new AeccNetwork.dbx to the root directory of the AutoCAD version the bat file is written for, meaning you will need rights to write to this directory. I got around it by running the command prompt as Local Administrator.
    
    
11. Make sure you have execute rights from the location of the bat file and script. Again resolved by running as admin.
    
    
12. The Autodesk script file is very simple. Don’t give in to the temptation of complicating it with additional clean up steps.
    Although, In my testing, I did add one line to do an audit. (AU Y )
    If I have to open every file it is a good opportunity to make sure there are no major file structure issues.
    However; I didn’t add purge. It can be complicated to script and once the files are clean it only make 5 to 10 seconds difference to open. Adding purge more than doubled my processing time for the script.
    
    
13. The Autodesk script doesn’t write output to a text file, you may want to add that.
    
    
14. Once your script is running in ProjectWise rerun your search and look for files that didn’t export. There may be one or two that were checked out or otherwise locked. You can open these files and save them to manually clean them.
    
    
    
15. Once the AutoCAD script is done running you will have a .bak file for every one that processed. On my test project there was one bad file that wouldn’t open. I cleaned that one manually with recover.
    
    
    
    
16. Also while the script file is running is a good time to clean the templates and common references located outside of the structure that you searched.
    
    
17. Once the script has run you will need to import the files into ProjectWise. It is not possible to import all the files at once from a search.
    
    
    Sort your search results by folder. Select a folder at a time and Import.

Mass Clean-Up Steps Using the Export \ Import from Excel Tool

COMING SOON

What could be better than getting a book that is the collective effort of thousands of engineering professionals who dedicate their careers to managing wastewater and providing basic sanitation services to ensure public safety?

How about a special price of only $75 (rather than $195), for students only!

Bentley Systems has been serving wastewater engineers around the world for years, and the discussions with that community have provided the inspiration for this book.

Hydraulic modeling has become an integral part of wastewater collection system design and operation. While the mechanics of the software are easy to learn and most programs are well documented, making the connection between real pipes and manholes and their mathematical representation in the computer often is a challenge for modelers.

Wastewater Collection System Modeling and Design , authored by Thomas Walski, Thomas Barnard, Eric Harold, LaVere Merritt, Noah Walker, and Brian Whitman, helps budding engineers apply models to solve day-to-day problems. It bridges the gap between the model and the real world. This book considers the range of wastewater collection system types, from strictly sanitary sewer systems to combined systems. 

Click here to grab a copy!

Exor fixes released in October 2016 are: