Dgn Replication ?

Is there a way replicate a dgn file as an i.dgn or i.model?

What we are finding is that a lot of project partners use non-Bentley formats like dwg or Revit (Yes, it does happen!)

We can give them access to PW but the files need to be converted, making life difficult as they will have to convert the dgns. This makes PW access as a service pointless and zero value added. They might as well be using Dropbox to interface with the rest of the team.

What would be good is if there was a way to replicate the dgn's as dwg's or ifc's etc so that the AutoCAD/dwg driver (Yes, still 6m of them out there!) can actually see the same files as a dgn user.

Maybe, something similar to the way you can publish to an ism would be useful. Even staying within the Bentley family or formats, it will be good to be able to automatically sync previously published i.dgns and i.models.

i.models would be especially useful. At the moment we have to have Navisworks open side by side with Mstn when we work. Navigating large coordination models is much faster than using Navigator or Mstn. The project models are so large that we constantly work with only a portion of the models loaded, and rely on Navis to see, find and orient ourselves.

I hope this will change when Navigator Connect comes out, but it will still be useful to automate the conversion process.

UK BIM has this concept called Common Data Environment (CDE) which is a requirement for Level 2 BIM. At the moment, I feel like we are more like Level -2 BIM.