Bentley Map Mobile Release

Hi Dan.
Could you give us a quick summary of the major changes in the new IOS version? Having a couple of local problems getting it downloaded which should be resolved shortly.
I believe from the Publisher end Bentley was looking at adding some password protections, redlining capabilities and enhancements to allow the edit of feature information in the field and subsequent integration back into Map.
Has this been achieved in the April IOS release you mentioned?

Cheers.
Alan

Greetings Alan,

As Dan indicated, the Bentley Map Mobile for iOS 05.02.01 update was released in the Apple App Store in early April which included the following enhancements:

• Additional Language Support - Added Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Spanish languages.
  
  
• Updated User Interface – Revised user interface design to support the addition of new app tools and functionalities, including Sort and Search capabilities in File Open and Saved View selector screens.
  
  
• Improved Performance – Significant performance improvements have been made for Search, Query and Locate operations, allowing users to work more efficiently with extremely large data sets.
  
  
• Measuring Tools - Measure Area and Measure Distance Tools have been added that include virtual mouse support, providing AccuSnap like capabilities for precise measurements.
  
  
• Expiry Date – Ability to set expiration date of Bentley Map Mobile i-model after which the data can no longer be opened.
  
  
• Text Search by View – Ability to search and locate any text currently displayed in the view.
  
  
• OS Grid - Search / Locate – Ability to enter Ordnance Survey National Grid references and perform locates.
  
  
• Saved View Selectors – Updated user interface to present thumbnails of Saved Views in File Open screen. Once a file has been opened a “Saved View” tab allows easy access to saved views for quick navigation to predetermined locations.
  
  
• XY, LAT/LON and OS Grid - Coordinate Readout – Ability to readout X/Y, Latitude/Longitude and Ordnance Survey National Grid coordinates.
  
  
• Complete Display Updates – Display of mapping data now continues until all map features are visible regardless of size.

Please note that you can always view details of each Bentley Map Mobile app update release using the "Version History" in the Apple App Store.

We are working to add redlining/markup capabilities into Bentley Map Mobile with Bentley Map desktop support later this summer with data editing workflows planned for next year. Ability to password protect published .imodels is under consideration but a timeframe has yet to be determined.

Hi Jeff.

Some useful improvement there. Thanks.

I realize it must be a constant competition for resources/time within Bentley to get new functionality included, but if one small vote counts for anything, I think those last couple of future improvements a) redlining/markup capabilities and b) data editing workflows, would make a HUGE difference to the productivity of Map Mobile and the sooner Bentley can get these to market the better. NB. Another useful addition would be the ability to use high resolution orthophotography as a base within the product without blowing the size of the i-model out(ability to reference raster files already located on the tablet???).

I know we have a number of contractors who have been waiting for the markup/data editing functionality for quite a while and 'next year' will simply mean they may need to find other alternatives.

Thanks for your (as usual) helpful reply and good luck getting those upgrades out sooner rather than later. I think it would very much be in Bentley's interest, as well as ours, to do so.

Cheers.
:-)

I'll add another small vote for the redline/markup capabilities. Its a significant missing feature.
Thanks.

Hi Jeff.

We've started to test the latest version of Map Mobile Publisher and have found a few problems and have a couple of comments that may assist.

1. In the above Product Release Summary you mentioned that an 'Expiry Date' can be set for the i-model. We couldn't immediately see where this is set and intuitively just expected it to be available for selection on a form after selecting publish? Where is this set?

2. For all our sites services we use custom line styles eg. Sewer is a dashed line with the letter 'S' at regular intervals. When we used the previous Publisher software (Ver. 3.00.01.32) the letter 'S' would appear but in the latest version NO text is being published. It appears in the latest version it isn't finding the font (Font 29) and yet if we publish the same files with Ver. 3.00.01.32 it's fine. This doesn't apply to just the custom line styles but all text. None of our other text is being published into the i-model either. Any ideas?

3. When the product was first released we mentioned that it would be beneficial to have the published i-model obey the existing symbology overrides. For example, we have base Detail and Street Furniture files with many layers with individual colours. Because we then overlay many services on these bases it can be very confusing and as with a normal Microstation environment we use level symbology to display the base Detail and Street Furniture files as grey and then have the various services in different colours. eg. Potable Water = Blue, Drainage = Green etc.
The current version still doesn't appear to be obeying symbology overrides so again we request this to be included.

4. In the previous version we noticed when we interrogated some graphics on the ipad some would display the database information correctly and other wouldn't. We narrowed the cause down to the fact that the length of a field had been increased in the database and the same change not made in Map Manager. What seemed to occur at the Map Mobile Publisher stage was it would publish correctly up to the point that caused the problem and then possibly have some type of memory overflow issue and then not publish all the information after this point. This was obviously dangerous as various information could be missing and it wasn't immediately obvious as the i-model was still created. Finding the cause was also a very lengthy process and some type of error trapping would have been beneficial.
In the latest version, after a couple of quick tests, we seem to have this problem again. Any thoughts?

We've only done some very quick testing at this stage but provide the above comments for your initial information.



Cheers.

Alan,

We appreciate your feedback.

For item 1, the expiry date can be defined for Bentley Map Mobile Publisher using one of the following configuration variables:

• MAPMOBILEPUBLISHER_EXPIRY_DATE=3/31/2015 (defines explicit expiry date, default value "None")
• MAPMOBILEPUBLISHER_EXPIRES_IN=28 (computes expiry date equal to today + 28 days)

When both configuration variables are defined the explicit date value defined with MAPMOBILEPUBLISHER_EXPIRY_DATE takes precedence. When neither configuration variable is defined the published Bentley Map Mobile .imodel will have no expiry date. Future Bentley Map Mobile Publisher updates will include the ability to define the expiry date value in the user interface.

For item 2 involving missing text, would it be possible for you to provide me with a copy of a sample design file containing your custom line style with "S" as well as other text that is not being published?

For item 3, as I mentioned in this thread, the current Bentley Map Mobile Publisher release does not support level overrides. We are considering that for a future update.

For item 4 involving business properties, before publishing you may want to enter keyin "map query browse all" and review the discovered business properties in the Data Browser application. Any feature classes which show feature instance rows with a red "!" exclamation point may indicate a schema problem, including cases where field lengths are incorrect. Any feature instance row(s) appearing with the "!" designation will not publish correctly, including any attached business properties. If you continue experiencing this problem, please provide me with a sample data set (e.g. design file and database) which illustrates the problem and I will have a closer look.

Hi Jeff.
With regards to 'Expiry Date', I appreciate it looks like an effort to get the 'functionality' in there ASAP and tidy up the interface when you can. Sounds very practical to me! Thank you.

If you're looking at possibly doing an 'intermediate' release of Map Mobile before the 'big' release next year(which would be much better :-) ), perhaps at least the redlining/mark up functionality could be included sooner? To me the product has two major parts..........firstly to get the information out there in the field but secondly to capture any errors/omissions and feed these back into the system ASAP. The second part seems to be totally missing at the moment and at least the redlining/mark up would give us a start and could be further refined with backend integration as a follow up. Allow an easy export of a redline file with some basic functionality (such as being able to circle some areas and make comments) and allow this file to be imported or referenced in Microstation/Map. Some sites may not even go beyond this functionality so why hold up everything for the Rolls Royce solution?

We'll use the "map query browse all" to see what we can find and do some further testing to see what seems to be causing the other problems.

Thanks again for your help Jeff.



Cheers.
Alan

Hi Jeff.
With regards to 'Expiry Date', I appreciate it looks like an effort to get the 'functionality' in there ASAP and tidy up the interface when you can. Sounds very practical to me! Thank you.

If you're looking at possibly doing an 'intermediate' release of Map Mobile before the 'big' release next year(which would be much better :-) ), perhaps at least the redlining/mark up functionality could be included sooner? To me the product has two major parts..........firstly to get the information out there in the field but secondly to capture any errors/omissions and feed these back into the system ASAP. The second part seems to be totally missing at the moment and at least the redlining/mark up would give us a start and could be further refined with backend integration as a follow up. Allow an easy export of a redline file with some basic functionality (such as being able to circle some areas and make comments) and allow this file to be imported or referenced in Microstation/Map. Some sites may not even go beyond this functionality so why hold up everything for the Rolls Royce solution?

We'll use the "map query browse all" to see what we can find and do some further testing to see what seems to be causing the other problems.

Thanks again for your help Jeff.



Cheers.
Alan

Alan,

We hear you (and many others) on the importance of having redline/markup in Bentley Map Mobile sooner rather than later. I can assure you that the Bentley Map Mobile team along with our core mobile platform architects and software engineers have been working hard towards those objectives. The reality is that we are still a few months away from a public commercial release.

In each of my Bentley Map Mobile related lectures at the Bentley LEARNing Conference last week in Indianapolis, Indiana I provided attendees a "sneak peek" of the progress made on the upcoming redline/markup capabilities. So for now, I offer the following image from one of those presentations.

Ahhhh..........that looks like what we need Jeff. Let us know if you need some early testers.........we seem to be good at finding problems! :-)

Also, is there any way, or will there be a way, of restricting the published i-model to a 'fence' or the like extent? If for example, you have base files made up of quite large areas, you may logically want to restrict certain published i-models to smaller areas for nominated projects without having to create new files. Why publish the entire State for an individual Park contract? I'd think we'd simply need Map Mobile Publisher to obey certain standard limits such as defined by shape, fence etc. It doesn't seem to obey these or existing clipped reference files at present.

This links to the time it takes to create the original i-model. I have (generally) been blown away with how good the performance of the i-model is on the iPad. It is MUCH better than I would have originally expected, however it would also be good if the time it takes to create the original i-model with Map Mobile Publisher could be improved. 25 minutes isn't unusual for us for a 20 Megabyte i-model. Going back to the above, being able to limit published i-models by fence etc. would help with this in some cases.

Finally, while the aerial photography looks good in some of the images, practically we find incorporating orthophotography into the i-model makes it quite large. I'm not sure how this could be balanced. I presume you've looked at trying to 'reference' raster imagery on the tablet into the i-model in some way (if that's even possible?) but being able to use high resolution photography over a reasonably large area with Map Mobile would be the icing on the cake.

Although we regularly mention what improvements we'd like/need to see, this product is potentially one of the most exciting developments we've seen from Bentley for many years. It has huge potential to add productivity to a number of areas.

Thanks Jeff.


Cheers.
Alan

Alan,

Last week during my Bentley Map Mobile related lectures at the Bentley LEARNing Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana I provided a preview of the next generation Bentley Map Mobile Publisher currently under development. In this preview I demonstrated how Bentley Map Mobile Publisher will be integrated as a plug-in for the Interoperability application within Bentley Map, allowing users to "Export" data for Bentley Map Mobile use and at the same time leverage capabilities such as spatial and attribute filters. This will provide users more granular control of what data is exported.

For example users will be able to export only those feature instances that match one or more attribute filters (e.g. poles inspected in the last year) within a given spatial constraint (e.g. view, fence or selection set). In addition this new Bentley Map integration will provide Bentley Map Mobile Publisher the ability to export data leveraging Map Manager defined thematic resymbolization rules. Based upon this new architecture export performance will be "significantly" improved.

Your presumption that we are looking into ways to open/reference high resolution raster imagery loaded on devices is correct. I hope to be able to discuss more regarding that topic in the coming months.

And finally, we appreciate your interest in Bentley Map Mobile and look forward to receiving additional feedback as you evaluate its potential use within your organization.

Sounds fantastic Jeff!

Looks like it has heaps of potential and I just hope it get to market ASAP.