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 mapping area that Bentley hopes to exploit. At first there has been eliminated some of my doubts in the previous post when I showed the three lines of geospatial area for 2011.

To begin with, rather than a limited version, it has greater capabilities. It is ironic that now costs less than U.S. $ 1.350; that’s why I imagined it would has lower capacities than PowerMap Select Series 1 who walks round U.S. $ 1,495. It is obvious that Bentley seeks to insert this version to the market as an economic tool that includes Bentley Map capabilities and Microstation full power in a single license. It is even cheaper than Microstation alone.

To do this, what has done is to sharpen the differences of the next version (Bentley Map V8i) which includes Cadastre tools and MapScript –it almost goes round U.S. $ 4.000 -. For more smoked cases Bentley Map Enterprise has been left that exceeds U.S. $ 7.000 according to Bentley’s comparative table that has made public.

So that PowerMap Select Series 1 will stagnate there, it will continue for sale with no sense if PowerView Select Series 2 is more robust and costs less. PowerDraft and PowerMap users will be the ones which see more advantages in terms of editing tools,

In the following chart I show a difference between normal Microstation task pane with Bentley PowerView. All Microstation tools for build, edit, and compose layouts are there, in what differs is, seeing the left pane, that it does not include tools to make animations, advanced visualizations, 3D modeling and surfaces; it can be seen 3D but these tools does not come as in the case of full versions that Bentley Map brings.

From Bentley Map includes all analysis tools, except for scripting, spatial analysis and network. If we mention interoperability, it does not include FME extensions also GIS formats’ export is reduced, just Google Earth and CAD formats. It can be sticked to an Oracle database, but only in reading mode, falls outside topology handling inside Oracle or data insertion, it can not generate I-models but can be read.

If improvements are mentioned, it has been included tools for Review and Markup (these exist only in this license) something similar to what was previously done with Redline but with more potential, plus the sum of improvements which involved Select Series 2. At this level of versions, it has incorporated a pin to fix the panel or send it as a tab on the left, such as the Ribbon in AutoCAD.

Bentley Map PowerView Select Series 2 (8.11.07)

Microstation V8i Select Series 1 (8.11.05)

Disadvantages of PowerView V8i

The main disadvantages are that it does not incorporate basic tools for building maps, especially the cleaning topological generator grids and only supports a model (layout) for dgn. I find it outrageous to remove that to ordinary users take who have a PowerMap V8i license and what they want is to purchase one more license without going over to the next level of licensing.

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

For example, it doesn’t let you create more than one model, but does not prevent duplicate an existing one, which resolves this situation by right mouse button click and selecting duplicate.

Then, with the matter of not including topological cleaning, just have to copy from PowerMap V8i necessary files cleanup.dll and cleanup.ma at:

C: Program Files Bentley MapPowerView V8i MapPowerView mdlsys AsNeeded

And to execute, only writes to the command-line of the keyin: CDM SILENTLOAD CLEANUP

So we must not be afraid, because all you need is some inactivated routines from the menu bar and unincorporated mdls. A great gain for everybody is that instead of existing many versions (Map, draft, Field, Cadastre, and Script) now are simplified to three scalable at the geospatial desktop area.

When to migrate

For friends who want to stay with Microstation V8 2004 versions, the suggestion is to migrate. It doesn’t make so much sense to keep a tool for so long even though V8 DGN format remains the same. In the recent BeTogether of May 2011 Bentley announced developments in the interaction with Microsoft but it’s understood and confirmed that will maintain support for these versions until 2014 when Microsoft will remove Windows XP.

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