December 21, 2014 – Road agencies and DOTs around the world rely on Bentley civil products as their design standard for transportation project delivery. As their long standing transportation technology partner, Bentley understands that providing new innovations for its products must be non-disruptive, an evolution and not a revolution.
OpenRoads represents the common technical capabilities underpinning the Bentley civil product lines of InRoads, GEOPAK, MXROAD, and PowerCivil. These capabilities include: data acquisition for surveying, GPS, and LiDAR; associative and dynamic geometry with persisted design intent; and intelligent, 3D corridor modeling built upon and inheriting the common technology core in data acquisition, geometry, and terrain modeling. One of the most unique and innovative capabilities of OpenRoads is Civil Cells, which provide repeatable dynamic, parametric modeling of common roadway features like intersections. Civil Cells can be stored in a library, then recalled for reuse in the current design or saved as standards for future projects.
OpenRoads technology was further extended with the release of Bentley Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) this past June. SUE provides integrated engineering management of underground utility networks for water, storm water, gas, and electric services. SUE enables immersive modeling by empowering users to combine plan, profile, and cross-section views with innovative 3D modeling technology. SUE’s additional provision of parametric design features includes fully dynamic rules, relationships, and constraints built into the modeling workflow. The net result is improved design quality with unique “optioneering” capabilities that allow users to readily create and compare design alternatives.
In early 2015, Bentley will release the newest developments in OpenRoads. One of the primary new capabilities is a further extension of SUE into subsurface utility design and analysis (SUDA). Combining hydraulic and hydrology design and analysis with the 3D modeling capabilities of the OpenRoads brands fully integrates the design and analysis of drainage systems with the road network design. SUDA is built from the same technology as the proven analysis and design of the Bentley hydraulics and hydrology (Haestad) product line. Additionally, OpenRoads users will now be able to easily move their drainage designs into tools such as CivilStorm for more sophisticated and time dependent analysis providing civil engineers with a total, integrated solution.