Power Civil 08.11.06.06

Neil, please note that there are several editions of PowerCivil on the Bentley SELECT download site. PowerCivil, PowerCivil for North America, PowerCivil for Spain, PowerCivil for DACH, PowerCivil for Latin America, etc.

PowerCivil is the product you are familiar with and if you are looking to upgrade your current PowerCivil software this is the product you will want to download.

PowerCivil for "Country" is a new product developed with varying levels of functionally to meet the specific and sometimes unique requirements of a Country, geographic region or functional market segment. PowerCivil for North America is the most recent of these "designer" products. As you pointed out, the interface is different from the PowerCivil you are familiar with.

For more information on PowerCivil for North America please visit www.bentley.com/ydb . More detailed information and functional specifications will be available from the Bentley Web site in the very near future.

Stan,  You indicate that if we are looking to upgrade our current Powercivil this is the product we should download.  From what I can see if we are not familiar with inroads we will have a hard time using this new version with out some documentation.

More detailed information and functional specification in the near future doesn't really cut it as to what and where bentley is headed with Powercivil.  I had to unload the previous version to load this version.  I am a little lost on where to go for the same tools I was using in the previous version. 

"Bump" is forum speak for moving a thread to the top of a given forum due to not getting any response. (I had to google it as well last week.)

So can you please help us with answers?

1- (from Chad) How much longer until the GEOPAK-based PowerCivil version will be retired?
2- (from Neil) Can we have both in the interim?
3- (from caddcop) I think the answer is search for *.gsf in the install directory - it's usually in the "samples" folder and then "site" folder.

Thanks in advance for your guidance and answers.

Hey Dan, Neil, Chad, CaddCop, et al:  Good day to you all.

To reiterate some which has gone before:

• PowerCivil (no qualifiers) is the Geopak based PowerCivil most of you guys are accustomed to.
• PowerCivil for North America is an Inroads version of PowerCivil which contains most of the tools available in Inroads Suite plus the Site Modeler engine from Geopak.
• PowerCivil for country is the generic designation for the Inroads variety of PowerCivil.  The product is localized for many different global markets and "country" gets replaced by the repsective country or region name in the product name.  Hence PowerCivil for North America, Italy, Poland, etc. etc.

Can you run Geopak and Inroads versions on same machine? Yes, if you have the appropriate licenses.

Is there any benefit to doing so?  Maybe not.  They contain essentially the same functionality but with different interface and workflows of course.  But you may have market or client reasons to be proficient in both.

Data Sharing between the two?  I would anticipate similar data sharing workflows as currently exist between Geopak and Inroads Suites. 

Samples?  There should be some in the install directory as Dan suggests.  Also, check the learn server.  You can also find occasional webinars on the Bentley web site.

Robert:

"Can you run Geopak and Inroads versions on same machine? Yes, if you have the appropriate licenses."

Can you verify this? The installer for the Inroads version would not install over the Geopak version. I had to uninstall the Geopak version first.

"Data Sharing between the two?  I would anticipate similar data sharing workflows as currently exist between Geopak and Inroads Suites."

I could not find any way to import my GPK data into the Inroads version. Is there any documentation on how to share data between the 2 versions?

"Is there any benefit to doing so?  Maybe not.  They contain essentially the same functionality but with different interface and workflows of course.  But you may have market or client reasons to be proficient in both."

From what I was told in a private email there are some significant features lacking in the Inraods versoin vs. Geopak..namely: No road network tool, drainage, sewer and water tools do not read site modler surfaces, no super elevation capabilities and no geotechnical tools.

When you say most of the tools in InRoads Suite which ones are left out? Will Powercivil become bigger than InRoads? Or will InRoads Suite keeping growing and merging into the "Civil Platform" and include the Site Modeler and other key features of the other Bentley civil products? Any new timetables since the BE2008 conference video where I watched a lot of nice features being developed?

When you say most of the tools in InRoads Suite which ones are left out? Will Powercivil become bigger than InRoads? Or will InRoads Suite keeping growing and merging into the "Civil Platform" and include the Site Modeler and other key features of the other Bentley civil products? Any new timetables since the BE2008 conference video where I watched a lot of nice features being developed?

You can get more information here

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Community/eSeminars/Civil/Introducing+PowerCivil+for+North+America.htm

All

I will try to be as clear as possible much Robert has allready mentioned most of this.

1. There are basically 2 PowerCivil versions available in North America. (one based on GEOPAK and another based on Inroads)

2. the Inroads based version "PowerCivil for North America"is basically Inroads site suite and the GEOPAK site modeleing tools integrated (using an Inroads interface) running on a built in Microstation based platform.

3. The GEOPAK version of "PowerCivil" is the original version and contains the GEOPAK Site, Drainage, Watersewer, PLD, Survey, Landscape.

It is no secret Bentley is developing, new civil tools (Civil Platform). To date Civil Accudraw and Roundabouts are delivered with all our Civil Design Products. For a list of what is coming take a look at the conference video mentioned above.

As for a timetable, I would suggest getting current on your select subscription to take advantage of these "new" tools as they become available. You could also plan on attending the upcoming Road and Bridges conference for a more detailed view of the tools and a better timeframe.

Also please keep in mind that PowerCivil wether the IR or GEOPAK version does have limitations compared to the complete GEOPAK Suite and Inroads Suite (and Mx). Most notable is the fact that complete Highway design is best accomplished using the full versions of these programs. These both contain the cooridor Modeler (uses virtually the same interface in either Inroads or GEOPAK), that is the top of the line roadway design tool on the market today.

Mike Barkasi

Bentley Systems

Professional Services

Regards

I have PowerCivil for North America, but I also do work for clients in Poland and Romania.  Do I need to buy PowerCivil for Poland and PowerCivil for Romania in order to do the work, or will they be compatible through various import/export commands, or does everything get set to read-only, or will they need to buy PowerCivil for North America?

Can I take my version of PowerCivil for North America overseas, and can they bring their versions here?

You should certainly be able to install both. I haven't tried recently because I don't use Geopak. Do not try to install one over or within another. Install each to it's own path. They should install.

I suspect that LandXML is your translation tool for now until the Civil Platform matures.