Hello,
I have been managing CAD for MicroStation and ProejctWise systems at the Utilitiy I work for, and now am assisting with a review of bringing our old PowerMap up to date with Bentley Map. We use Smallworld GIS and the distribution team have requested that I ask some questions on their behalf.
Five years ago, Bentley had provided MDL and Macro customisations so that we could integrate with Smallworld via shapefiles I believe. My expectation today is that over five years any mechanism for interfacing to GIS systems would have vastely improved, negating the requirement for such customisations. We are particularily intersted in what import/extract functionality with smallworld is available.
Q. Do we have anyone here who has experience with exploring on the fly extracts from smallworld which will give better up to date data and streamline current tasks?
Some of the questions we will need to find answers to are;
We would greatly appreciate any feedback to these enquiries :)
Cheers, Colin Weber
IMHO I would check what both Bentley and Smallworld have done to support www.opengeospatial.org/standards
Like WFS or WMS, my favourites. Then you will find a future proven concept for an interface for both GIS systems.
Regards
Frank
since 1985: GIS, CAD, Engineering (Civil) Senior Consultant : [Autodesk Civil 3D , Esri ArcGIS, VertiGIS: in previous days : Bentley MS V4 - V8i, GeoGraphics, Bentley Map V8i, InRoads, HHK Geograf, IBr DAVID] : Dev: [C, C++, .NET, Java, SQL, FORTRAN, UML][direct quote by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Schmidt]: "Wer Kritik übel nimmt, hat etwas zu verbergen"Wer Grammatik- und/oder Rechtschreibfehler findet, der darf sie behalten :-)
isn't Oracel Spatial not one of both lowest common denominator
We do support both MapInfo files and ESRI shapefiles out of the box. We also support standard Oracle Spatial and SQL Server Spatial, out of the box. Each of these interfaces comes with their own rules. As for the WFS / WMS configurations, we also support those in a read mode, through Map and MicroStation ( WMS -> Raster Manager).
We also provide interfaces in Map, to accommodate FME from SafeSoft, that opens up other GIS interfaces.
As far as I know we do not support SmallWorld directly.
Answer Verified By: cweber
Colin,
The base products that Jerry and Frank mention provide support for the common formats, but as this 2010 Press Release indicates, the Bentley Utility products provide ...better versioning support for Smallworld GIS data in import and export workflows. Let's see if we can get one of the Utility analysts to further explain this for you.
Hi Colin,
You may want to take a look at Bentley Utilities Designer (www.bentley.com/.../Bentley+Utilities+Designer), which includes Bentley Map functionality, but also provides utility specific functions. In particular, it has the ability to export and import features, properties, relationships, and connectivity to and from Smallworld.
What kind of workflow are you trying to support? Do you want to do design work in the DGN file, or just view data from Smallworld?
Both Bentley Utilities Designer and Bentley Map have the capability to import and export a number of different file formats, including shapefiles and FME, but you will not be able to exchange network connectivity or relationships through them.
Certainly for Bentley Utilities Designer, and I think also for Bentley Map, there would be no requirement to run on Citrix.
Hope that helps,
Mike