Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced the immediate availability of the Bentley Pointools V8i application and two new iWare apps: Bentley Pointools View for point-cloud data visualization and sharing and Bentley Pointools PODcreator for converting laser scans to the POD file format. These offerings provide powerful, intuitive, and seamless preprocessing of point clouds for distribution, facilitating information mobility across the entire infrastructure lifecycle. New Bentley Pointools V8i features include point-cloud differencing and clash detection functionality that makes differences and clashes easy to detect and visualize. This same capability will also soon be available through a Clash Resolution Visa for Bentley’s information modeling, review, and analysis applications, including MicroStation and Bentley Navigator. The new functionality further extends Bentley’s leadership in point-cloud innovations, which also include the ProjectWise Point-cloud Services for on-demand access to point-cloud data.

Nearly all infrastructure projects today require the manipulation of point clouds, and Bentley’s point-cloud products make this task easy. They empower users to leverage the value of point-cloud data in a cost-effective and timely manner for applications ranging from GIS and mapping to surveying, construction status and sequencing, precise "as-builts," manufacturing, utilities, mining, forensics, heritage, and more. Moreover, they lower the barriers to taking best advantage of point clouds by preparing the data once and enabling its reuse anytime.

Jiri Blazek, co-founder, Czech Republic-based BW Precision Systems, said, “Using Bentley’s Pointools we can work with huge point clouds without loss of software performance or data quality. We can work in a number of CAD environments and can create high-resolution orthographic point-cloud images and high-quality videos for presentation purposes. That’s why Pointools has become an integral and essential part of our scan data processing workflow.”

Bruno Van Bastelaere, co-owner, Belgium-based Teccon, said, “The speed at which Bentley’s Pointools is able to render these huge point clouds is amazing. In fact, we sometimes find ourselves panning through a new data set just for the fun of it! Before, good point-cloud software was expensive and limited in the number of points we could handle – a maximum of 50 million on a workstation. Using the free Bentley Pointools View, we can load and visualize a billion plus points on a standard laptop. This has unlocked the potential of laser scanners for us and for our clients, and we are proud to act as resellers for this industry-leading software.”

Bentley Pointools provides the following key advantages:

• increases productivity – Bentley Pointools’ high-performance point-cloud engine with level-of-detail management provides a fluid user experience, even with large data sets. It doesn’t require the decimation of point clouds and enables the visualization of every single point, reducing the time required to work with large point-cloud data sets.
• saves times and enhances data quality – Reuse of the Pointools POD format across the Bentley product portfolio eliminates the need for time-consuming data conversion, thereby streamlining project workflows and reducing the potential for data corruption.
• speeds editing process – Level-of-detail, layer-based editing reduces the time required for editing and segmenting point-cloud data.
• improves visual quality and adds value to point-cloud data – Bentley Pointools’ motion blur and anti-aliasing features produce high-quality final output with little or no aliasing or moiré effects, and the products can be effectively employed with minimum training. This enables users to achieve higher-quality deliverables with no extra effort. Moreover, powerful visualization capabilities, including fly-through movies, model shading capabilities, and high-resolution orthographic and perspective images, further extend the value of point-cloud models.
• speeds clash detection and enhances quality – The point-cloud differencing and clash detection functionality in Bentley Pointools enhances the visual representation of clash results, improving the quality of reporting. This reduces the time users need to interpret results and increases their confidence when checking complex interferences between objects.

The Bentley Pointools View iWare app, offered for no charge at www.bentley.com/iWare, enables the visualization of point-cloud models with billions of points, annotations, and distance measurements, and the production of compelling orthographic and perspective images. This facilitates the sharing of rich point-cloud data with all project stakeholders and makes this process more cost effective.

The Bentley Pointools PODcreator iWare app, also offered for no charge at www.bentley.com/iWare, facilitates the batch processing and conversion of a range of laser scan formats to the POD file format. This enables the one-time creation of POD models for distribution and reuse, reducing the time required for data conversion.

Faraz Ravi, Bentley director, product management, said, “With the release of Bentley Pointools V8i, infrastructure professionals and owner-operators gain substantial new value that comes from the increased mobility of point-cloud data throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. Moreover, existing Pointools Edit and Pointools Suite users can benefit from this added value by upgrading to Bentley Pointools V8i through our SELECT subscription program, which includes maintenance and technical support. This immediately gives them access, at no additional product cost, to the differencing and clash detection functionality supported by this release, as well as all the innovative features coming in future releases of Bentley Pointools.”

For additional information about Bentley Pointools, Bentley Pointools View, and Bentley Pointools PODcreator, visit www.bentley.com/Pointools.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,000 colleagues in 50 countries, more than $500 million in annual revenues, and since 2003 has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities.

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Bentley, the “B” Bentley logo, Be, Pointools, SELECT, MicroStation, and ProjectWise are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.