Geospatial - GISMicrostation-Bentley

Bentley Map PowerView V8i, First impression

I have received a version of PowerView V8i Select Series 2 (Version 8.11.07), the economic line in the mapping area that Bentley hopes to exploit. Initially, some of my doubts have been eliminated at the entrance Above when I showed The three lines of the geospatial area for 2011.

BentleyMap_Image2 For starters, instead of being a limited version, it has more capabilities. It is paradoxical that now it costs less than US $ 1,350; which is why I imagined it would have lower capacities than PowerMap Select Series 1 which was around US $ 1,495. It is obvious that Bentley seeks to bring this version to the market as an inexpensive tool, which includes Bentley Map capabilities and all the power of Microstation in a single license. It is even cheaper than Microstation alone.

To do this, it has done a great deal to extenuate the differences of the following version (Bentley Map V8i) that includes the Tools Register and MapScript -This is going to almost US $ 4,000-. For more smoked cases, Bentley Map Enterprise has been left, which exceeds US $ 7,000 according to the comparison chart that Bentley has made public.

So that PowerMap Select Series 1 will stagnate there, it will continue to sell meaningless if PowerView Select Series 2 is more robust and costs less. PowerMap Field and PowerDraft users will see the most benefit in terms of editing tools,

In the following graphic I show a difference between the normal Microstation task pane with Bentley PowerView. All Microstation tools to build, edit and compose layouts are; where it differs is -Watching the left panel- that tools for making animations, advanced visualizations, 3D modeling and surfaces are not included; You can see 3D but these tools do not come as in the case of the full versions that Bentley Map does.

Bentley Map includes all analysis tools, with the exception of scripting, spatial and network analysis. Regarding interoperability, it does not include extensions FME, also the export to GIS formats is reduced, only to Google Earth and CAD formats. It can stick to an Oracle database, but only in reading, the handling of topologies within Oracle or data insertion is left out; neither can generate I-models Although he can read them.

In terms of improvements, tools have been included to make Review and Markup (these only exist in this license) something similar to what was done before with Redline but with more potential, plus the sum of improvements in general that Select Series 2 implied At this level of versions, a thumbtack has already been incorporated to fix the panel or send it as a tab on the left, such as the AutoCAD Ribbon.

Bentley Map PowerView Select Series 2 (8.11.07)
Bentley power view microstation

Microstation V8i Select Series 1 (8.11.05)
Bentley power view microstation

Disadvantages of PowerView V8i

The biggest disadvantages are that it does not incorporate elementary tools for the construction of maps, especially the topological cleaning, the generator of reticles and that only supports a Model  (layout) by dgn. I find it outrageous to take this away from ordinary users who have a PowerMap V8i license and who want to buy one more license without going to the next level of licensing.

However, nothing that can not be solved by someone who knows Microspas guts:

For example, you can not create more than one Model, But does not prevent duplicating an existing one, which solves that situation by right clicking and choosing to duplicate.

Then, to not include the topological cleaning, just copy from a PowerMap V8i the necessary files cleanup.ma and cleanup.dll at the address:

C: \ Program Files \ Bentley \ MapPowerView V8i \ MapPowerView \ mdlsys \ asneeded

And to execute it, it is only written in the command line of the keyin: MDL SILENTLOAD CLEANUP

So do not be afraid, because all it has is some inactivated routines from the menu bar and unincorporated mdls. A big win for all is that instead of existing many versions (Map, Draft, Field, Cadastre, Script) now it is simplified to three scalable in the geospatial area at the desktop level.

When to Migrate

For friends who want to keep Microstation V8 2004 versions, the suggestion is to migrate. It does not make much sense to stay with a tool for so long even though the dgn V8 format remains the same. In the recent BeTogether of May 2011 Bentley announced news in the interaction with Microsoft but between the lines ratified that it will maintain support for these versions until 2014, the year that Microsoft will remove it for Windows XP.

It seems to me that this version will be one of the most used by Catastros that have had a preference for Microstation, who prefer a CAD that does GIS, its price as and potential XFM. However, the challenge for Bentley remains the same in this line: Create friendly panels for the Geospatial Administrator, the best I have seen to build XML nodes for mapping projects but with a barrier that makes it unattractive for users who did not know Geographics .

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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2 Comments

  1. Hello, good evening, I have been working in the land register for 5 for years, we have been trained by the Spanish Cooperation, I have the Bentley PowerMapV81 map design software but it is only compatible with Windows and I use the free operating system in this case it is Linux with the version of Ubuntu I need if there is a version compatible with this free operating system, thank you very much.

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