At an Oct. 14 conference in Charlotte, N.C., for power-users of 3-D design technology, executives and developers from Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., unveiled a tool they call an i-model, which they described as both an “elaboration” of a DGN file and as a “container” for encapsulating, circulating and re-incorporating 3-D design information and other project data of any format involved in a workflow of review and collaboration.
Unlike other 3-D model combining, viewing and reviewing tools, an i-model’s components retain their original geometric precision and “provenance,” or self-describing information about their formats, standards and sources, say Bentley officials. They can be created in a stand-alone environment, but if exported from, and later returned to the new release of Bentley’s ProjectWise Navigator V8i (Select Series 1), a collaboration server-based file management system, that provenance can be used to automatically return proposed adjustments and notations made by reviewers working disconnected from the model, back to the original features in the model under review. An audit trail of commentors is included.