Acquiring PCs In Today’s Rapidly Changing Market (01jun97)

June 1, 1997

One of the questions we frequently are asked is whether an organization should purchase new PCs now or wait since performance keeps going up and prices are coming down. Obviously, one answer does not fit all situations. The right solution depends upon the age and configuration of existing hardware and the software you are currently using or would like to use.

In general, however, we believe that architects and engineers should be provided with the latest equipment an organization can afford and that older units be moved to people with less demanding tasks. It is somewhat shocking to find that many technical people have better systems at home than they have at work.

Too many financial managers believe that they are saving their companies money when they hold off upgrading systems that have not yet been fully depreciated. It does not take a large improvement in the productivity of an professional who costs $80,000 per year including benefits to justify a new computer that might be an order of magnitude faster than what is currently being used.

The Price/Performance Explosion

The accompanying table tracks the typical PC one could buy for about $3,000 during the past five years. We have used Gateway 2000 for this data since that company has been very consistent in its product offerings. For the past decade or so, the guideline in the computer industry was that price/performance doubled every two years. Welcome to 1997 where it appears that this ratio is doubling annually. A number of factors have caused this change:

• Intel has significantly improved the performance of its microprocessors to the point where they compete effectively with all except the best RISC processors used in UNIX workstations.
• In order to maintain its market dominance, Intel has aggressively priced its new microprocessors. When the Pentium first came out, a 60-MHz version sold for nearly $1,000. Less than four years later, a 233-MHz Pentium II (see related article in this issue covering this new microprocessor and some of its competitors) sells for just $636 in similar quantities. This is nearly an order of magnitude increase in price/performance during this short period of time.
• The huge volume of PCs sold has resulted in incredible economies of scale. While less than 500,000 UNIX workstations will be sold this year, over 80 million PCs will be shipped worldwide.
• Memory costs have plummeted. Until about 18 months ago we were paying about $50 per megabyte for DRAM memory. Supply caught up with demand and prices dropped to under $10 per megabyte. Machines with 64 MB memories are readily available for less than $3,000. In many cases, a large memory can have a more significant impact on performance than microprocessor speed. Likewise, disk storage costs have also dropped like a rock.
• Graphics accelerator cards have come down in price to the point where the PC manufacturers include them in the base configuration.

Getting The Most For Your Dollar

Having spent a fair amount of time watching the PC evolve, we have a few suggestions on procuring new PCs.

• You are better off buying a system somewhat below the top-of-line and then replacing it more frequently than you would if you bought a more expensive system.
• Install plenty of memory. Most CAD and GIS packages thrive on memory and at $8 to $10 per MB, you can easily afford 64MB or even 128MB.
• Do not ignore a high performance backup device. With 3.2 GB disks commonly used today, we recommend a 4 GB cartridge tape drive.
• Buy the entire system from one source. Your time is too valuable to be spent configuring hardware and software for your computer to work.

It’s Show Time! (01may97)

May 1, 1997

The A/E/C Systems conference and exhibition is this industry’s showcase event for the technologies, products, and personalities that are shaping it today and propelling it toward the future. Historically, the A/E/C Systems show has been the launch venue for a number of very prominent products over the years, and this year will probably prove this true once again.

We are looking forward to attending A/E/C Systems this month in Philadelphia scheduled for June 16-19. This year’s event is expected to draw more than 25,000 attendees and between 400 and 500 exhibitors. This show can be a grueling ordeal, just based on the sheer number of vendors and products, but it does let us see most of the major AEC and GIS players under one roof for objectively evaluating their offerings.

We strongly encourage you to also consider attending so you can evaluate the products and question the vendors as an informed potential buyer, because one product does not a comparison make. To really get a good feel for what different products can really do, you have to see them operate with the same data, constraints, or parameters (all preferably yours) side by side on a level playing field.

Beware, though, that just about any vendor worth its salt can make its product look good -- especially if it’s the only one being evaluated and "verbally compared." Even in this verbal comparison, you must be ready to spar with the tough questions. Try to be defensive and objective, because many vendors will tend toward being offensive and subjective about their products, especially when pressed how their products stack up against the competition.

As much as we would like to think otherwise, and as much as vendors would like you to think otherwise, all software products, AEC or otherwise, are not created equally. Since this is a market that is in a seemingly constant state of flux, many customers often approach vendors with a certain air of skepticism and uncertainty. Unfortunately, these feelings all too often play into the hands of unscrupulous sales people who try to assure potential customers that only they have the solution that the customer before them is seeking. In effect, this all too often opens the door to snake oil marketing ploys by vendors. Of course, it’s always the "other" vendor’s direct sales people and VARs who are at fault as the snake oil purveyors. Surprisingly, though, it is often those finding fault with other vendors that fail to support the claims they are making for their own products.

So, then why does the best product often have few takers? Sadly, in this industry, as in virtually all others, it’s often not the content of the product that sells, but the packaging. Once again, it is not a case of who has the best product, but rather who does the greatest volume and better job of splashy, memorable marketing that comes out the winner in the product sales game.

Jeffrey Rowe, Editor

Digital Signature Software For CAD

May 1, 1997

Computers and software applications have dramatically accelerated the pace of many activities that were previously handled physically. This includes design drawings, 3D visualizations, and document management, but some processes such as the approval of new CAD drawings to manufacturing largely remain in the physical world due to inadequate software functionality.

However, it now appears that at least one company, Silanis Technology, has developed an adequate software solution that is reliably secure, does not require a significant change to a company’s procedures, is easy for people to use, and still dramatically speeds up the process for obtaining approvals with signatures (albeit digital ones).

What’s Common Today

The two key aspects for a document’s approval in the physical world are its originality and the reliability of the handwritten signatures that approve a document to move to the next stage. Any changes made to that drawing afterwards would be easy to spot.

A bitmapped signature pasted onto a CAD file is easy to copy and the file can still be changed later with the approving signature intact. A signature could be input via a digitizer pad and verified against a database, but the file could still be altered afterwards even with the approving signature in place. Neither method effectively replaces the physical method.

Digital signatures based upon the currently unbreakable public-private key software (PGP or pretty good privacy) are secure along with their encrypted documents. However, Silanis correctly points out that the many forms programs (Lotus Notes) that use public-private keys require companies to change their procedures into a totally electronic paradigm without decent provisions for printed copies.

ApproveIT Leads The Way

Silanis’ ApproveIt program mimics the physical paradigm with digitized handwritten signatures. Once a document such as a drawing has been signed—with a person’s captured signature file or signed real-time via a digitizer pad—the ApproveIt software monitors the status of the document. If the document is modified later, the signature will not display on the computer screen in the appropriate place on the document nor will the signature print with the document.

The signature and the approval rated information are embedded in the actual document. As a result, the document carries the signature and security monitoring with it even if the document leaves your computing environment. There are no ties to network operating systems, network protocols, e-mail systems, PDM or EDM systems. All ApproveIt applications are client-based with no server software required.

Signatures are input preferably into the system on a digitizer pad, and the resulting high resolution file (1200 dpi) can be reused. The file is encrypted and can only be used once its password is provided. The system can also require a fresh signature for each approval, although this would require a company to purchase enough digitizing pads to make it convenient.

ApproveIt for CAD 2.1 ($399 per copy) only works with AutoCAD R12 and R13 running under DOS and Windows 3.1/95/NT. AproveIt is also available for Microsoft Word 6.0-7.0 and Excel 5.0-7.0, and WordPerfect 6.1 for $149. Site licensing is also available

Silanis plans to ship a software toolkit to integrate ApproveIt’s electronic signature and encryption capabilities into other applications. This should include other CAD programs such as MicroStation as well as CAD viewers, enterprise document management (EDM) systems, workflow, e-mail, and groupware.

The toolkit is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) bundled in a dynamic link library (DLL) that can be accessed by several programming languages. It sells for $1,995 plus $99 per runtime license, and supports Windows 3.1x, 95, and NT (but not DOS).

Bentley Systems and Netscape recently announced a joint effort to bring digital signature security to large-scale engineering projects on corporate intranets. That effort is focusing on the encryption of the CAD files, but it does not appear to provide the means to completely replace physical routing of paper documents and appropriate sign-offs from key personnel. In the meantime, Silanis appears to be the only game in town.

Contact: Silanis Technology, 888-745-2647, 514-683-3232, http://www.silanis.com

OpenGIS Consortium Making Real Progress Toward A Real GIS Standard (01may97)

May 1, 1997

The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) is a membership organization dedicated to open system approaches to geoprocessing. Through its consensus building and technology development activities, OGC has had a significant impact on the global geodata and geoprocessing standards community, and continues to promote a vision of OpenGIS technologies that integrate geoprocessing with the distributed architectures of the emerging global information infrastructure. OGC recognizes that the evolution of new technologies and new business models are closely related, so by means of an open and formal consensus process, OGC is creating the OpenGIS Specification, an unprecedented computing framework and software interface specification which is a necessary prerequisite for geoprocessing interoperability.

OGC was founded primarily to address the following needs:

• To integrate geographic information contained in heterogeneous data stores whose incompatible formats and data structures have prevented interoperability. Up to now, this interoperability barrier has seriously limited the ultimate usefulness of GIS technology.
• Improved access to public and private geodata sources.
• The ability for agencies and vendors to develop standardized approaches for specification of geoprocessing requirements for information systems.
• With the GIS industry, to incorporate geodata and geoprocessing resources into national information infrastructure initiatives. These geographic resources must have the ability to be found and used as easily as any other network-resident data and processing resources. To accomplish this level of integration, the industry realizes it needs to synchronize geoprocessing technology with emerging information technology standards based on open systems concepts, distributed processing, and object/component-based software frameworks.
• The need to preserve the value of legacy geoprocessing systems and legacy geodata while incorporating new geopksGET http://siteinfo.a9.com/data/6lSv01dRFLI>

In short, OGC acts as the technical catalyst for merging GIS, GPS, CAD, earth imaging, and spatial databases with virtual reality, multimedia, network computing, and non-spatial desktop applications. It is also forging working relationships for delivering geospatial applications to business, government, education, and entertainment.

Heady Aspirations From Humble Beginnings

OpenGIS is defined as transparent access to heterogeneous geodata and geoprocessing resources in a networked environment. From the beginning, the goal of the OpenGIS Project has been to develop a comprehensive open interface specification that lets developers write software that provides open, interoperable capabilities. The OpenGIS Project began in 1993 with limited support from a few federal agencies and commercial organizations who funded meetings to discuss the feasibility and possible scope of the proposed OpenGIS Specification (OGIS) and specification-writing project. After the original participants determined that a useful specification could be developed, OGC was founded in August 1994 to provide a formal structure and process for developing the specification.

Today, OGC manages the OpenGIS Project as a formal consensus process involving key organizations in the commercial, academic, and government sectors of the geographic information community. All members participate in the OGC Technical Committee and its working groups under the supervision of OGC's Management Committee which develops OGC's business plan and makes all final decisions regarding the scope of the specifications and the project.

The participation of these individuals indicates the degree to which OpenGIS technologies are seen by the organizations they represent to be a necessary next step toward creating a global open system geoprocessing architecture.

OGC Technical Committee

The OGC Technical Committee is the primary operational unit of the OpenGIS Project. It is comprised of the technical representatives of all OGC member organizations and is charged with creating the OpenGIS Specification. The Technical Committee does the bulk of its work through its Working Groups.

The OGC Technical Committee has created an abstract specification, a single detailed guide for writing interoperable geoprocessing software. In order for products to emerge, this needs to be implemented on industry-accepted distributed computing platforms (DCPs), such as OLE/COM, CORBA, and the Internet's http and Java standards. While the Technical Committee continues to develop the remaining parts of the abstract specification, it is also working with vendors and research groups through an RFP (request for proposal) process to develop DCP-specific OpenGIS implementation specifications.

Software products that are compliant with an implementation specification will be interoperable within a DCP. In addition, every effort is made to conform the different implementation specifications and to work with the DCP developers to achieve maximum geoprocessing interoperability between DCPs.

At both Management Committee and Technical Committee levels, OGC maintains an Application Integration structure which focuses on coordinating activities designed to help technology providers address application-specific needs that are common to technology users in industry sectors. The goal of this committee structure is to evaluate, test, implement, and extend the OpenGIS Specification to ensure its practical utility in a wide variety of application areas. By inviting the participation of user communities, OGC can provide community-tailored specifications which enable diverse vendors and integrators to build interoperable products and service environments.

Summary Of OpenGIS Technologies

The OpenGIS Specification is a comprehensive software architecture specification that provides a standard way to represent all kinds of geodata in software and a common set of services to support distributed geoprocessing across heterogeneous hardware platforms. Programming interfaces based on this specification will enable true interoperability between applications on the desktop, and they will enable access to heterogeneous geodata and geoprocessing resources across local and wide area networks.

The OpenGIS Specification releases GIS, remote sensing, and other geoprocessing disciplines from the constraints of proprietary and incompatible data formats and isolated applications, and moves into the world of software components and network-based computing. The OpenGIS Specification is like other distributed object-oriented software systems in its basic approach, but it is the first large-scale application of object technology for managing spatial data in the contexts of global and national information infrastructures.

The OpenGIS Specification specifies a well-ordered environment designed to simplify the work of both developers and users. Developers adhering to the specification will create applications able to handle the full range of geodata types and automatically negotiate vast geodata and geoprocessing resources on a network. Users of geodata will be able to share a huge networked data space in which all kinds of spatial data will be usable without difficult and time-consuming batch transfers and conversions, even though the data may have been produced at different times by unrelated groups using different production systems for different purposes.

The OpenGIS Specification architecture provides:

• A single "universal" spatial/temporal data model — the Open Geodata Model (OGM).
• A set of services for manipulating data represented using the OGM — the OGIS Services Architecture.
• A Geographic Information Communities model that addresses the problem of different communities of users using different semantics for the same spatial features. This provides an efficient means for data discovery using catalogs and an efficient means for data integration using semantic translators.

The OGM is the core component of the Specification. It consists of a hierarchical class library of geographic information data types that comprise the shared data environment and unified data programming interface for applications. Every geoprocessing system (GIS, earth imaging, digital cartography, navigation, etc.) has a geodata model where terrestrial objects and events are represented in software. Basically, the OGM provides a means for mapping one geodata model to another.

The OGIS Services Architecture is a consistent open development environment characterized by a reusable object code base and a set of spatial access and spatial processing services. This architecture supports complex query processing and also specifies standard methods for requesting and delivering geospatial transformations and processing tasks. It facilitates transformations between private data and OGM constructs, as well as coordinate conversion and raster/vector conversion. Tools built using these catalog systems will bring to geodata access the same degree of expanded capability that Web browsers and HTML have brought to the much simpler world of text data.

Much of the momentum for the OpenGIS project comes from a need to share geographic information more effectively and to improve the efficiency of communication between individuals and organizations who not only store and manipulate geographic information in different ways on different computer systems, but who think and talk about and visualize geography in very different ways. Undertaking to establish effective data communications within a well defined technical context poses a reasonably limited problem. Undertaking to establish means for sharing information with little or no loss across the technical and human barriers that exist within and among diverse human groups and institutions poses a problem of much greater scope. OGIS must ultimately help solve both the technical and the larger human problem.

The OGC Technical Committee has devised a Geographic Information Communities model to address this problem that provides a framework that uses OpenGIS technologies to dissolve many of the barriers that prevent sharing of digital spatial data and spatial processing services. Some barriers, of course, cannot be overcome by technology. But when semantic translators and other methods become widely used, Geographic Information Communities will be able to see clearly what they might do at the organizational level to overcome such barriers and make their spatial information systems more interoperable with those of other Geographic Information Communities.

Progress Continues Toward Open Geoprocessing

In January, OGC announced that it had received excellent responses to its Requests for Information (RFIs) which are part of the OpenGIS Interoperability Specification effort. The RFIs cover geographic information catalog services and imagery.

Seven organizations submitted information in response to the OpenGIS Catalog Services RFI. These submissions suggest requirements to include in an RFP for standard mechanisms for geographic information in a networked environment of heterogeneous spatial databases. Among the submitters were the ISO (International Standards Organization) Cataloguing Project Team, the US Federal Geographic Data Committee, the US Department of Defense's National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites.

Space Imaging (Thornton, CO), SPOT Image (Reston, VA), TRIFID (St. Louis, MO), and the US DoD National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) responded to OGC's OpenGIS Imagery RFI to ensure completeness of the imagery parts of an RFP for specifications that will define coverages that include images (such as satellite images) and certain maps (such as digital elevation maps) where each point has a distinct value.

David Schell, president of OGC, said, "Geospatial catalog services will work underneath applications that are as easy to use as a Web browser, and the OpenGIS Project's work with coverages will enable all types of geospatial data to be queried with the same user-friendly tools. Our members are dealing with very sophisticated technologies, but they have their eyes on the non-expert user."

Late in 1996, geographic information system (GIS) vendors cooperated to submit proposed OpenGIS Specifications in response to OGC's first Request for Proposals (RFP) which addresses "simple geometry," (points, lines, and areas) and attributes (such as soil type). Compliant products expected later this year will be able to respond to each others' spatial queries.

Diverse Membership Speeds Accomplishments

The total number of OGC members now exceeds 90 with most of the major design/engineering automation and GIS vendors represented, as well as other organizations from the private and public sectors and academia. Even with such a diverse group of members, cooperation between the members is yielding real progress being made on several fronts.

Software and computer vendors, integrators, data suppliers, telcoms, universities, government agencies, and industry associations join OGC primarily for the following reasons:

• To quickly enact distributed geoprocessing standards, which will not happen without their help.
• As technology users, to shape geoprocessing standards to meet their needs; plan intelligently for technology acquisition and technology-induced organizational change; and evaluate and begin working with technology providers.
• As technology providers, to create sound and timely business and development decisions; ensure that the OpenGIS Specification meets their needs; begin development of OpenGIS-compliant products as soon as possible; form relationships that help their businesses during a risky period of change; and solve shared problems.

As an example of progress, earlier this year a group of GIS technology providers including Bentley Systems, demonstrated a CORBA/Java-based method for interoperability of GIS data and systems based on object-oriented technology. The software architecture, was presented to the entire OGC technical membership community in response to their formal request for a CORBA compliant implementation. Bentley’s submission was developed in cooperation with Genasys, Lockheed Martin, Mitre Corp., Oracle, Sedona Graphics, and Sun Microsystems.

David Schell, president of OGC said, "We are pleased that Bentley has been such an active and contributing participant in our specification activity. It was gratifying to see the working prototype of the CORBA-based interface put forward by Bentley."

This implementation is significant because CORBA could well become the preferred communication vehicle for sharing GIS information between systems. Its architecture of multiple platform support is compatible with existing GIS systems and the trend toward data-servers and Internet clients. If accepted by OGC, the implementation will become the industry’s CORBA-based interoperability benchmark to be used between member GIS systems.

The CORBA implementation was based on Bentley’s ProActiveM technology and an objective version of MicroStation GeoGraphics that offers comprehensive interoperability of GIS data and systems.

OGC is creating the Open Geodata Interoperability Specification (OGIS), a set of software specifications for sharing geographic information across tools and organizations. Last summer, OGC issued a request for proposal (RFP) for interface standards in the areas of CORBA, OLE, ODBC, and the Internet. Final decisions on these standards are planned for later in 1997.

In January, Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, WA) became a Principal Member of the Consortium. As a Principal Member, Microsoft has a seat on OGC's Management Committee, which oversees the OGC Technical Committee that plans cooperative industry development programs.

Carl Stephen Smyth, Lead Geographer in Microsoft's Geography Product Unit, said, "We were happy to join the OGC industry effort. The goal of interoperable geo-information is very important to us and we look forward to helping ensure its early commercial success."

Consortium members recently showed cooperation in responding to OGC's first RFP for simple geographic features by creating a draft engineering specification for standard interfaces that will enable diverse OLE/COM-based software systems to access each other's geographic data. Competing GIS vendors Intergraph (Huntsville, AL), Autometric (Alexandria,VA), ESRI (Redlands, CA), Laser-Scan (Cambridge, UK), MapInfo (Troy, NY), Smallworld (Englewood, CO), and integrator Camber Corp. (Huntsville, AL) met several times to merge their proposed specifications into a single submission for Microsoft's OLE/COM platform.

Intergraph led the team that responded to the RFP for OLE/COM. Preetha Pulusani of the Infrastructure Product Center, Intergraph Software Solutions, explained, "Intergraph has been closely associated with and witness to the tremendous growth of 32-bit Windows in our market segments, ever since our early adoption of Windows NT. The significant investment we made on this platform beginning in 1992 has yielded extremely positive returns and user acceptance. Software based on Windows NT is now the fastest growing segment of the GIS market."

"We are excited to have Microsoft in the Consortium. Like all OGC members, Microsoft has a strong interest in network-based computing that involves geographic information," said OGC’s David Schell.

Another prominent GIS/CAD provider, Autodesk, was an early OGC supporter and member that has for some time led an effort to open standards with its own DXF data file transfer format. It has also instituted into its products the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and Guidelines, which were created in conjunction with the Industry Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) within the AEC industry. Autodesk is compelled to support the OGC standards throughout its entire mapping and GIS product family. Because more maps reside in Autodesk’s DWG format than any other, the company’s reason for involvement in OGC goes without saying. "Industry growth has been hampered by competing proprietary technologies, and we are committed to creating an environment where GIS information can be freely shared, regardless of platform," said Joe Astroth, vice president of Autodesk’s GIS Market Group.

This statement is especially noteworthy because until now, proprietary, complex, and incompatible data formats and non-interoperable geographic processing systems severely limited the use of digital geographic information and the growth of the GIS market. OGC is working to ensure that geographic information of all kinds will be able to fulfill its potential role in emerging national and global information infrastructures.

The Importance Of OGC

The continuing work of OGC is extremely important, especially in light of the fact that new GIS products and users are proliferating. It is, therefore, essential that standards be established for data that is interoperable and useful between different users, products, and platforms. The GIS industry itself realizes the importance of the outcome of the OGC and its members are exhibiting unusual behavior toward that end — they are cooperating to meet the needs of users in the currently mixed up world of too-often proprietary GIS data.

Since we feel that the work of the OGC and its implications are of vital importance to many of our readers, we will devote considerable space to this endeavor as the standards for geodata and geoprocessing evolve over the next several months.

In our next installment, we will cover how the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) is developing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) as a standard for ensuring consistency in digital geospatial data.n

Contact: OpenGIS Consortium http://www.opengis.org

Bentley Systems Builds Data Bridge To The 21st Century With Its Geoengineering Strategy (01apr07)

As many of the vendors of GIS and design automation technology look toward the next millennium, many of these same vendors are trying to figure out the best way to get there. This isn’t the case, however, with Bentley Systems. They are poised for the future and are posturing themselves very well with a number of new strategic technologies, products, and alliances — and they are doing it their way.

In many respects, Bentley has always had its own way of looking at things, and GIS is a perfect example of this. What is commonly referred to as a geographic information system (GIS) in most other circles is termed geoengineering in Bentley vernacular, although Bentley’s term seems to be gaining wider acceptance. The company defines geoengineering as the convergence of engineering and planning technologies that integrate the precision and databases of CAD with the spatial analysis and planning capabilities of GIS. In other words, geoengineering is sort of a CAD/GIS hybrid. This broad definition, then, lets Bentley provide a wide range of products that address the entire life cycle of infrastructure and facilities projects, including planning, design, engineering, analysis, construction, operations, management, and maintenance.

Bentley Beginnings

Bentley was founded in 1984, offering Intergraph IGDS users a lower cost method for adding additional seats to their Digital VAX 11/780-based systems. The software provided by Bentley enabled these users to accomplish the same functionality as before, but with lower cost terminals. This software evolved into what we know today as Bentley’s core technology — MicroStation. Intergraph acquired a 50-percent interest in Bentley Systems and by the late 1980s it was the basic graphic system supporting Intergraph’s applications in nearly all the markets in which the company participated. Until the end of 1994, Intergraph was fully responsible for the sales and marketing of MicroStation worldwide.

Since Bentley took over responsibility for the sales and marketing of MicroStation from Intergraph two years ago, the company has quickly matured into a "heavy hitter" developer and marketer of technical solutions for the architecture, engineering, and GIS communities. From less than 200 people on board at the end of 1994, Bentley has grown to be a 700-person organization with over $120 million in annual revenues. Bentley has more than 250,000 users around the world; over 65,000 subscribers to Bentley SELECT, the company's comprehensive service and licensing program; more than 600 independent software developers (ISDs) providing applications for MicroStation; and more than 500 value-added resellers (VARs) for MicroStation worldwide.

Bentley’s goal is to maximize the productivity and collaboration of large-scale geoengineering projects. These projects typically involve complex processes with many users, a multitude of information, and long life cycles. Bentley offers engineering software products and services that uniquely scale to the entire engineering process.

Bentley's MicroStation products offer users high-performance solutions for their specific needs. MicroStation includes a full range of focused products for design, planning, drafting, review, maintenance, and field operations. The unified architecture of MicroStation ensures that all products fully interoperate. Also, Bentley offers engineering-level applications for productivity far beyond traditional tools.

MicroStation and its MicroStation Development Language (MDL) also serve as an integration and development environment. The products can hold and securely manage the full range and diversity of large-scale project data. MicroStation also integrates with enterprise information systems.

The Engineering Back Office

Recently, Bentley has expanded its focus beyond design/engineering to also address the integration of engineering-related software with the rest of an organization’s information technology (IT) infrastructure. This effort really began last November when Bentley announced the start of its Engineering Back Office (EBO). Topping this strategy are a new line of Internet/intranet-enabled middleware products, called ModelServers, as well as agreements with Netscape and Oracle. These moves hold major significance because, for the first time, engineering organizations can unite their desktop systems and data with enterprise IT systems and databases.

The Engineering Back Office taps the emerging IT infrastructure of the Internet and three-tier client/server technology as the basis of connectivity and sharing information. The new server products, including ModelServer Publisher and ModelServer Continuum, allow engineering data to be stored in corporate databases, integrated with enterprise data, and served to enterprise clients, including desktop applications and Web-browsers.

The company demonstrates an excellent understanding of the ongoing transition from traditional mainframe computer solutions, to client/server computing during the past decade, to today’s three-tier client/server approach to system architecture. Software basically can be segmented into three general categories:

• Presentation – What the user works with on the desktop.
• Applications – The software that responds to user inputs and, in some manner, manipulates stored data.
• Storage – File and database management tools.

These three types of software can exist on one or more computer systems. Many contemporary systems use a PC or workstation client for both the Presentation and Application code, with a separate server for Storage. The three-tier concept attempts to reduce the amount of software on the client and creates a new layer called an Application server that sits between the clients and the Storage servers. The software utilized on the Application servers is often referred to as "middleware."

Although this structure seems much more complex than simply networking a bunch of desktop computers together, there are some distinct advantages. These advantages include:

• Many enterprise IT departments are moving to the three-tier architecture. Adapting engineering and GIS software to the same concept will facilitate integrating the two parts of the organization.
• A modular three-tier approach makes it easier to change one element of a computer solution without impacting the rest of the system.
• Database changes can be made transparent to the clients.
• This three-tier approach is a natural concept for Web-related solutions.
• Security is enhanced since the client software does not have direct access to database information.

ModelServer – Bentley’s New Middleware

Bentley’s MicroStation product line will continue to be the company’s primary software for desktop clients. Server-resident products, however, will carry the "ModelServer" designation. The name reflects the fact that this software responds to requests related to engineering models. One major objective is to enable MicroStation users to access data in "foreign" formats and to enable users of other graphic systems to access MicroStation files. This needs to be done without worrying about which release of a particular package created a given file and without the need to overtly translate files from one format to another.

Beginning in the early 1990s a new software architecture, called three-tier client/server, became popular. In the three-tier C/S architecture, portions of the application layer are moved to a new set of server programs, called application servers, also known as middleware servers. As a result, the client programs can be much thinner and more flexible. Rather than directly connecting to data servers, clients communicate with intermediate application servers, which either process requests locally or forward them to other application servers. Application servers, in turn, communicate with data servers for data storage and retrieval.

The three-tier C/S model offers several advantages over the desktop model. Database designers have far greater flexibility in changing the implementation since changes can be totally transparent to the clients. Since key application results can be calculated on servers controlled centrally, clients are not required to understand all of the subtle nuances of such calculations, including proper handling of error conditions. Clients in a three-tier system are designed to be as thin as possible, with much mission-critical application processing and data synchronization performed on application servers. Application developers have more flexibility in optimizing performance and network traffic by distributing the application load between the client and the server.

Internet browsers connected to Internet servers are a perfect example of a three-tier C/S system. The program that responds to a browser's request for a uniform resource locator (URL) is an application server that attempts to locate and potentially reformat data from a data server. Alternatively, it might attempt to create the response locally by executing other server resident programs on behalf of the browser.

The benefits of the three-tier approach are evident in the context of Internet browsers, the ultimate thin client. The same program can be used to execute a virtually unlimited number of application server programs, with very little local configuration dependencies. Almost all Web pages can be accessed from any browser program, regardless of the platform on which it runs. Of course, there are exceptions such as plug-ins that are browser and platform-specific, but for the most part the Web is based on a single, platform-independent standard, HTML.

In the last year or so, however, a new twist has been added to the Internet C/S architecture—Java. Java can be viewed as a portable application layer that moves between application servers and desktop clients on demand. This is one way of overcoming the conflicting goals of keeping clients thin while performing as much appropriate application processing local to the client. However, to accomplish this, Java applications must be portable across all potential client platforms.

The ModelServer Product Line For The Engineering Back Office

ModelServer Publisher — was the first Engineering Back Office product. The server product electronically publishes Bentley’s MicroStation or Autodesk's AutoCAD drawings, maps, and models to any Web browser-based desktop. ModelServer Publisher works on-demand from centrally stored data and guarantees that published information is accurate and up-to-date. Unlike file conversion "plug-ins", ModelServer Publisher has zero cost-of-administration for desktop users.

ModelServer Publisher and Bentley’s Engineering Back Office are based on Internet software server technology from Netscape and engineering software from Bentley. The two companies have agreed on Bentley integrating Netscape's FastTrack Server and Enterprise Server software products into the Engineering Back Office.

ModelServer Publisher server-based software converts engineering data in formats such as MicroStation DGN and AutoCAD DWG files into a Web-based format on demand, enabling these files to be viewed by Web browsers, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Beyond MicroStation and AutoCAD, it also handles many data formats found in CAD and GIS environments, such as SVF, CGM, VRML, and others. It will also include template pages for easy set-up by a Webmaster, and can be extended with Java applets. Using HyperText Markup Language (HTML) techniques, the software links the user to the actual drawing file without the need to install MicroStation or similar software on the client. ModelServer Publisher also converts all the applicable reference files, fonts and symbol libraries to a Web-based format.

We see ModelServer Publisher as a useful tool in moving beyond personal productivity applications to an enterprise workflow solution. It can be used in an internal intranet environment or accessed across the Internet with the same tools. In fact, a user need not know where the data is stored to use this package successfully.

Document security is a growing concern in the technical community. Current collaborative engineering solutions often involve transferring entire source documents across the network to others who need to view the information. Once the drawing file is transmitted, the creator of that file no longer has control over what subsequently happens to it. ModelServer Publisher minimizes this problem by simply providing access to the drawing to a remote browser user, it does not actually transmit the file to that user.

There will initially be two versions of ModelServer Publisher. A single active channel version that incorporates Netscape's FastTrack Server software and a multi-channel version that incorporates Netscape's Enterprise Server. A single active channel means that one person at a time can access the data, but since this takes very little time, many individuals can actually share the system. The multi-channel version provides access to multiple users at the same time.

ModelServer Continuum — is the second major product of the Engineering Back Office. This server product creates a "contiguous" database of engineering and enterprise data by storing engineering maps and drawings in corporate IT databases and "serving up" data to MicroStation application and Web clients.

Because ModelServer Continuum utilizes corporate IT databases, it breaks down the walls between GIS/engineering and enterprise data. Local and federal government agencies, utility companies, plant owners, and large corporations who manage engineering assets will be among the first to create a "total information system." Such a system, which contains engineering, spatial, and enterprise data, will help everyone in those enterprises make far more informed decisions.

ModelServer Continuum also boasts advanced transaction management features to meet the special multi-user workflow demands of large engineering projects. First, it minimizes collisions through record-level locking, an advance over file-level locking. Second, it includes long-transaction management, which coordinates and resolves collisions that inevitably occur in extended work sessions in a multi-user environment. Lastly, it features project branching, which allows users to experiment with new ideas and later synchronize their changes with the project if necessary.

Last month, Bentley began beta shipments of ModelServer Continuum product supporting Release 7.3.3 of Oracle Universal Server Spatial Data Option (SDO). The resulting combination is the first commercial information system that spans enterprise and engineering data. ModelServer Continuum serves as an enterprise-wide engineering information broker connecting engineering client software from Bentley and other suppliers to data stored in Oracle Universal Server using SDO. In other words, Continuum acts as an application server on top of SDO. Supported clients include MicroStation GeoGraphics, MicroStation GeoOutlook, as well as ESRI’s ArcView.

Because ModelServer Continuum interoperates with ModelServer Publisher, it can deliver engineering data on demand to any desktop web browser. Organizations need maintain only one copy of their data. The collective information now including engineering and spatial data can be shared throughout their extended enterprises.

ModelServer Continuum also provides multi-user access to engineering information with short- and long-term transaction management. It includes Bentley’s Open Engineering Connectivity (OEC), an API that makes all server functionality available to other applications.

MicroStation-based clients can use ModelServer Continuum to maintain all graphical and non-graphical data in a standard relational database, rather than in pre-segmented data files. When an edit session is initiated, the applicable data is extracted from the database, and a temporary set of design files is created. The MicroStation applications, such as MicroStation GeoGraphics, are used as they would be today, and when the edit session is completed, ModelServer Continuum places the modified information back in the database.

ModelServer TeamMate — is a server-based implementation of the MicroStation TeamMate product for document and workflow management of file-based information. ModelServer TeamMate is designed to provide uniform control over access, authorization, and revisions to files from both MicroStation-based and Internet browser-based clients. ModelServer TeamMate includes the same workflow coordination tools incorporated in the MicroStation TeamMate program. In fact, existing MicroStation TeamMate clients and projects will work with ModelServer TeamMate without change.

By implementing ModelServer TeamMate as an application-server program, access to all file-based project information can be easily and securely granted for all file types to all clients without requiring complicated client-level programming libraries.

The current Micro-Station TeamMate document management package is file-oriented and is typically installed on all user systems. ModelServer TeamMate is a server-based implementation that provides uniform control over access, authorization, and file revisions from both MicroStation-based and Internet browser-based clients. Like ModelServer Publisher, ModelServer TeamMate transparently handles translations between MicroStation and AutoCAD formats. ModelServer TeamMate supports import and export of DGN, DWG, DXF, IGES, and STEP files. This product is expected to be available around mid-1997.

ModelServer Publisher is priced at US$9950 per server for a single-channel version which serves one client at a time. It includes a copy of Netscape FastTrack Server. The multi-channel version of ModelServer Publisher, for serving any number of concurrent clients, is priced at US$24,500 per server. It includes a copy of Netscape Enterprise Server and is currently available. ModelServer Continuum running under SunOS is in a beta release now and priced at US$37,500 per server and is expected to be available in Q3 1997. Plans also call for the product to integrate with other RDBMS platforms beyond Oracle and a version running under Windows NT starting later this year.

Bentley Expands Geoengineering Line With New Tools

Last month Bentley announced three new geoengineering tools, MicroStation GeoOutlook, MicroStation GeoExchange, and MicroStation GeoCoordinator. These new products represent a continued expansion of the company’s geoengineering product line that increases the value of geoengineering data and boost the productivity of geoengineering activities.

MicroStation GeoExchange — Is a translator that converts geoengineering data between MicroStation GeoGraphics and other industry standard formats, including ESRI and MapInfo. The comprehensive product processes both spatial and attribute information. Because the product is fully configurable, users can provide site-specific rules for more customized translation. Using MicroStation GeoExchange, MicroStation-based projects can employ geoengineering data from virtually any source and can create data for use by virtually any system.

MicroStation GeoOutlook — Is a low-cost, easy-to-use desktop and mobile tool for accessing and analyzing geoengineering data. It is intended for planners, managers, and field-based workers who participate in geoengineering projects but don’t need the data creation abilities or full power of MicroStation GeoGraphics. MicroStation GeoOutlook offers map data querying, basic spatial analysis, graphical presentation, feature management, and reporting. Users can simultaneously view vector and raster data. Also, the tool connects to a variety of desktop or enterprise databases, including Oracle, Informix, and Microsoft Access.

MicroStation GeoCoordinator — Is a projection management system designed exclusively for MicroStation and is based on technology from Mizar Systems Limited (Vancouver, BC). It assigns Coordinate Systems to individual maps, acknowledges coordinates from any assigned projection system, and converts MicroStation data from one Coordinate System to another. In addition, users can generate map grids based on any supported Coordinate System. The product includes a complete library of worldwide projection systems from Mentor Systems, Inc. (Thornton, CO).

All three new geoengineering tools are MDL-based. Each serves as both an end-user tool and a platform for other applications and customizations. MicroStation GeoExchange and MicroStation GeoCoordinator are both priced at US$1,495. MicroStation GeoOutlook is priced at US$995. Special pricing is available for Bentley SELECT subscribers. MicroStation GeoCoordinator is available now as a released product and the other tools are available as beta products.

The Open Engineering Connectivity Specification

To encourage full access to all project services available in the Engineering Back Office from any client program, Bentley will publish a set of API's for each of the ModelServer products. These API's, collectively referred to as the Open Engineering Connectivity (OEC) specification, allow users and third parties to customize, extend, and create new clients of ModelServers. These APIs are network-based and language-independent, allowing client development using various programming environments including Visual Basic, Java, C, C++, ActiveX, etc. For example, the OEC specification for ModelServer Publisher includes all necessary information for creating a client-side application to embed views of any MicroStation DGN or AutoCAD DWG file inside display forms on an HTML page or in a Visual Basic application. When combined with ModelServer TeamMate, these same applications can perform user authorization, check drawing status and location and perform workflow validation.

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Last year, Bentley formed a new affiliation with a company called NetSpace Systems Inc. (Huntsville, AL) that will offer technologies for design and management of facilities networks. The products emerging from NetSpace fully integrate network engineering data with existing corporate information technology (IT) architectures for the gas and electric utilities and telecom industries. NetSpace is a wholly-owned, but independent Strategic Affiliate of Bentley Systems. As a Bentley Strategic Affiliate, NetSpace is well positioned to address the worldwide utilities industry, where Bentley’s MicroStation is already widely used. Geoengineering is the enabling technology for NetSpace.

In March, at the AM/FM International Conference, NetSpace launched ESpace and GSpace, electric and gas automated mapping/facilities management/ geographic information systems (AM/FM/GIS) products for utilities companies. Both products provide out-of-the-box electric or gas utility facility management systems based on MicroStation GeoGraphics and MicroStation 95 running under Windows NT and 95.

ESpace and GSpace are database-driven applications. Symbology and facility/feature rules are defined in industry-standard relational databases, allowing utilities to easily and quickly configure company standards and rules for symbology, network connectivity, attribute definition, attribute constraints and defaults, value lists, and other functionality. This unique approach lets users generate of graphical user interface (GUI) menus on the fly. Both products are delivered with standard models for electric and gas facility networks. The models are supported by fully functional tools for placement, editing, tracing, and analysis. Standard map and engineering work order generation are integral to the applications. ESpace also provides for interfacing to industry-standard network analysis packages such as ABB’s FeederAll.

These NetSpace products represent a significant departure from the approach taken by many existing AM/FM/GIS systems, which traditionally have required pre-definition of the GUI and significant setup time to configure the rules basis for the application.

Both products include an intelligent land base model and associated capture and maintenance tools. The products provide a street centerline model suitable for dispatching applications, along with addressing and service locations that are fully integrated with the gas and electric facility models. By extending the power of MicroStation GeoGraphics with its product offerings, NetSpace offers sophisticated network facility model management and spatial GIS capabilities in a single package. Users can take advantage of the extensive capabilities of MicroStation GeoGraphics, including thematic mapping, spatial analysis, and reporting capabilities.

ESpace and GSpace can be further customized through the Open API provided by NetSpace or through customization and consulting services offered by NetSpace or its service providers. The Open API is the core of the system, providing for customization through Visual Basic, MDL, Visual C++, or C programming languages.

ESpace and GSpace employ MicroStation GeoGraphic’s map management capabilities for data management and are upwardly compatible with ModelServer Continuum for customers who want to take advantage of its ability to manage long transactions. ModelServer Continuum manages the engineering information transactions between a corporate RDBMS warehouse and users, providing seamless online facility management and network analysis and operations. Utilizing Bentley’s Engineering Back Office three-tier client/server architecture, ModelServer Continuum and NetSpace technologies establish collaboration between engineering and the IT infrastructure.

"Today, utilities companies demand better integration of existing engineering, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and corporate information - with easy access," said Andrew Coe, founding president of NetSpace. "NetSpace’s mission is to bring these islands of engineering automation into the corporate mainstream, making engineering information widely available via corporate intranets and the Internet using common browsers."

Greg Bentley, president of Bentley Systems, said, "Of all the industries involved in geoengineering, the utilities sector — where MicroStation is used by over 25,000 users worldwide — arguably has the most critical need for solutions that break barriers between GIS, engineering, and corporate IT data stores."

Russell S. Kauffman, PLS, principal GIS engineer with the Public Service Electric & Gas Company, said, "Utilities are facing a confusing and uncertain future as they transition into a deregulated environment. As a result, the worlds of computer-aided design, GIS, AM/FM, and mapping must unite to address core competencies and processes."

Summing It All Up

Bentley’s geoengineering products accommodate an ever-greater multitude of applications, platforms, operating systems, development tools, and databases. Bentley’s products and services are also appealing to a much bigger community of both geoengineering users and developers, bringing them into the bigger enterprise information technology fold.

It would be easy for Bentley to sit back and rest on its laurels since its products are truly productive and "open" when compared to those of many of its competitors. We feel that a major portion of the company’s focus today should be to more aggressively encourage the user community to implement its currently available technologies and products.

Bentley stands out as a vendor by perceiving that there are needs facing its customers that cannot be met with the traditional software products being sold today by most other vendors. In particular, the current crop of Bentley geoengineering packages should be more heavily aimed at contributing to both an individual practitioner’s or a larger group’s collaborative productivity.

Until recently, concurrent and collaborative engineering techniques were largely confined to manufacturing environments where processes were vastly improved by bringing together diverse team groups to share ideas, information and the resulting successes. As we approach the next millennium, we feel that geoengineering will enjoy comparable results — and Bentley Systems will be benefit from its significant contributions to the field of geoengineering.

HP Speeds Up PC Workstation Performance (01apr97)

April 1, 1997

About three years ago, Hewlett-Packard realized that if the company was to have a significant position in the PC industry, it would have to compete with other vendors by adopting similar business practices. The first step HP took was to drastically reduce the prices for its Vectra systems. These are incredibly well-built PCs but at that time, were overpriced by as much as 50 percent.

The results probably surprised even HP executives. Within a couple of years the company has become a major factor in the PC industry with revenues running nearly $8 billion annually. HP now uses industry-standard components such as graphics accelerators from other vendors, provides a wide range of third-party system productivity tools, and now has a close working relationship with Microsoft. The result is a broad range of PCs that cover everything from low-cost home systems to Windows NT flame-throwers for complex 3D modeling and visualization.

The latter category consists of HP’s Vectra XW Graphics PC Workstation models. The company recently became the first to offer the AccelECLIPSE graphics subsystem from AccelGraphics as an option for the XW PCs. The AccelGraphics subsystem uses the REALimage chipset from Evans & Sutherland which apparently makes it the fastest graphics subsystem currently available for Intel-compatible PCs – over two million shaded triangles per second as well as hardware texture mapping. The subsystem includes 15 MB of frame buffer memory and an additional 16 MB of dedicated texture-mapping memory.

HP has provided us with data that indicates that for PCs equipped with a 200-MHz Pentium Pro processor, 256 MB of memory and a 21-inch display, the AccelECLIPSE outperformed a similar Compaq system fitted with an ELSA Gloria-L graphics card and a Digital system with a Powerstorm 4D40T by 5 to 15 percent. HP also seems to have a price advantage over these other systems.

The new high-end XW Graphics PC Workstation (we really wish HP could come up with more compact product nomenclature) consists of the following:

• 128 MB Error Correcting Code memory (expandable to 512 MB)
• 256 KB or 512 KB Level 2 cache memory
• 200-MHz single or dual Pentium Pro processors
• 10/100Base-T Ethernet adapter
• 2.1 GB or 4.5 GB Ultra SCSI disk
• 16x CD-ROM
• A variety of software, some such as HP’s TopTOOLS PC management software is included while others such as Intergraph’s AccesNFS Toolkit for facilitating UNIX and Windows NT interoperability are provided on a try-and-buy basis.

Prices start $9,378 with a 17-inch monitor and while a 256 MB system with a 21-inch monitor will set you back $12,026. Obviously, you can purchase quality PCs from HP and other vendors for much less than this today but you will not get the overall performance the AccelECLIPSE-equipped machines provide. This is a level of performance that would have cost over $50,000 for a high-end UNIX workstation just a few years ago.

We find it interesting that HP went outside of the company for new graphics subsystems rather than repackaging its own UNIX workstation VISUALIZE graphics boards for the Vectra product line. Perhaps the VISUALIZE equipment is too tightly integrated with the PA-RISC processor architecture used in the UNIX workstations.

Our other concern the lack of interest HP seems to have concerning the AEC market. The press release covering these new PCs talked extensively about supporting mechanical design, simulation and animation. Our observation is that these are also excellent systems for architectural modeling, plant design, facility visualization, and walkthroughs. They are missing an excellent opportunity if they ignore the readers of A-E-C Automation Newsletter.

Vdraft—Edit AutoCAD Drawings Without Translation (01apr97)

April 1, 1997

Ordinarily, we are not impressed with third-party products that tout themselves as being equal or superior to the bigger products they are supposed to be supporting, but we have come across a notable exception — Vdraft from SoftSource — an AutoCAD drawing editor.

Just released, Vdraft 1.0 is a full-featured, AutoCAD (through R12 — more about that later) drawing-based system — the first and only CAD product , other than AutoCAD itself, that can directly edit AutoCAD drawings without translation. There are no format conversion errors because Vdraft uses DWG as its standard native file format. It is also completely compatible with the DXF format. Priced at $495, Vdraft runs only under 32-bit Windows operating systems — NT (3.51 and higher) or 95.

Vdraft works with Paperspace exactly like AutoCAD does and users that know AutoCAD (and we feel that this is a pretty important prerequisite) will feel right at home with Vdraft, because the packages both share a lot in common:

• Commands — Unlike some other third-party applications, Vdraft uses the same commands, conventions, and terminology that AutoCAD does. For example, a block is a block, not a cell. A layer is a layer, not a level. An attribute is an attribute, not a tag. And so on…
• Keystrokes — Function keys in Vdraft perform the same tasks as AutoCAD Release 12 for Windows. Like in AutoCAD, pressing the spacebar or Enter key executes a command and the spacebar repeats the last command. Entering coordinates, distances, and angles is the same as in AutoCAD. Vdraft also has an option for using AutoCAD’s command aliases or creating your own aliases.
• Mouse — As in AutoCAD, the default for the cursor is the Select Mode. AutoCAD’s BOX Selection Mode works in Vdraft and clicking the right mouse button simulates and extends AutoCAD’s right button by displaying a pop-up menu.
• Windows — Vdraft actually uses more Windows-specific capabilities than AutoCAD R12 for Windows. It supports viewing and editing of literally hundreds of drawings at a time where each drawing, including externally referenced ones, opens in its own window. There is full clipboard support — drawing data can be cut, copied, and pasted within Vdraft, and between Vdraft and AutoCAD. Vdraft also supports long file names and ActiveX automation (formerly known as OLE).

Included with the package are Vdraft Internet Tools — plug-ins for viewing and distributing AutoCAD drawings. The plug-ins are compatible with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer for Internet and corporate intranet drawing publishing.

From an ease of use standpoint, many users will probably prefer Vdraft over AutoCAD and its sibling, AutoCAD LT, for editing AutoCAD drawings, owing much to its simplified and streamlined user interface. Since Vdraft has dialog boxes for many of AutoCAD’s change commands, the number of steps required to perform a task is often reduced when compared to AutoCAD. Also, most of these dialog boxes don’t have to be dismissed before continuing with your work.

Vdraft can be customized using Visual Basic and Visual C++. The company welcomes third-party application developers with a policy, including free developers tools, that encourages bundling Vdraft with other packages. The package also comes with several useful add-on applications, including a drawing setup wizard.

SoftSource, the creator of Vdraft, has an interesting history. Founded in 1982, it was an early adopter of AutoCAD. In fact, the company was responsible for the first AutoCAD Release 1.3 installation in the Pacific Northwest in 1984, the same year it began developing third-party products for AutoCAD. Over the years, the company has developed a number of complementary AutoCAD products — digitizer templates, management tools for drawing libraries, drawing viewers, file translators, an Internet CAD publisher, and the DXE read/write application programming interface (API). DXE is widely used as the standard AutoCAD read/write API and is the core technology underlying the Vdraft system.

Wanting to get everything right from the beginning, SoftSource is a conservative company when it comes to releasing products. As an example, the current version of Vdraft and the drawings generated by it are compatible with AutoCAD Releases 2.5 through 12. The company opted to skip Release 13 compatibility due to problems it perceived and didn’t want to deal with. However, R13 is supported by using the AutoCAD "Save As Release 12" command. Vdraft’s next major release will support AutoCAD R14 and, according to the company, will be available some time before the end of 1997.

Admittedly, Vdraft isn’t for everyone. After all it is basically a simplistic version of an older release of AutoCAD, but for users who need to edit AutoCAD drawings quickly, easily, and relatively inexpensively, this package is definitely worth looking into.n

Contact: SoftSource 360-676-0999, http://www.softsource.com

Convergent Group Finalizes Deal With Informatix, Strikes Up Deal With ESRI (01apr07)

April 1, 1997

In the February issue of A-E-C Automation Newsletter, we reported that Convergent Group (Englewood, CO) was consolidating several aspects of its operations to focus on providing large-scale GIS system integration and consulting services. While Convergent Group’s system integration and consulting operations enjoyed continued growth and profitability, the Graphic Data Systems Corp. (GDS Corp.) software product lines did not meet expectations. As a result of this disappointing performance, the firm ceased investing in new GDS Corp. software R&D, including major enhancements to the company’s product lines. It also embarked on a mission to find an interested company to purchase the product line. It didn’t take long to come up with a suitable party.

An agreement with Informatix Inc. (Tokyo, Japan) has been finalized for the purchase of development and marketing rights to Convergent Group’s MicroGDS and Piranesi software product lines. MicroGDS is a suite of Windows-based, 2D and 3D, drafting and design software tools for architects, engineers, facility planners, and interior designers. Piranesi is interactive rendering software that combines the geometric precision of typical 3D rendering with the representational and expressive freedom of a paint program.

With the software acquisition, Informatix has formed a subsidiary company, Informatix Software International Limited, in Cambridge, England. A company spokesman said the newly formed company will build on current global distribution channels for the GDS products, as well as pursue an aggressive development program.

Informatix has been a business partner with Convergent Group for more than 15 years. During this time, Informatix has both distributed GDS Corp. products to a user base of more than 4,000 in Japan, and has developed complementary AEC applications.

"This agreement underscores our commitment to the GDS Corp. customers who were impacted by the company’s January [1997] decision to curtail its investment in new product research and development," said David Stewart, Convergent Group president and CEO.

Convergent Group, the industry’s largest GIS systems integration company, is still committed, however, to fulfilling all GDS Corp. contracts and will continue to provide existing users of GDS Corp. software with support, system maintenance, bug fixes, and operating system and database upgrades for at least three years. The company said it expects that MicroGDS Version 5.1 and GDS Version 5.6 will be released late August 1997. The company said that over time some components of the GDS product line will be merged into the Convergent Group’s suite of systems integration tools. These merged technologies will be incorporated, along with products from other applications developers, into the integrated systems delivered to Convergent Group customers in the future.

As the Informatix deal was being finalized, Convergent Group announced that it had struck up and signed a cooperative business agreement with Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) (Redlands, CA) for strengthening Convergent Group’s ESRI-based software integration. This non-exclusive agreement focuses on delivering client/server, enterprise-wide product and system solutions in the public sector/transportation, telecommunications, and utilities markets.

This new arrangement broadens the relationship between the two companies, which have cooperated in recent years on a number of GIS projects. The agreement enhances Convergent Group’s ability to integrate all components of ESRI’s product line — including ArcView GIS, ARC/INFO, MapObjects, and Spatial Database Engine (SDE). The SDE technology is especially noteworthy because it allows a relational database management system (RDBMS) to manage and use spatial data within other standard and specialized software applications.

The agreement also included merging any future GDS Corp. software development efforts into ESRI’s future releases, along with a cooperative migration strategy for GDS Corp. software customers who want to transfer to ESRI technology. Migration services to be offered by the two companies include database design and development of prepackaged macros that will aid in migrating data to ESRI products.

The Melding Together Of UNIX And Windows (01apr97)

April 1, 1997

Many organizations are moving toward a combination of UNIX, Windows 95, and Windows NT systems. Interoperability requires the ability to manage heterogeneous configurations in an integrated manner, the ability to share data files, and the ability to share application programs. With the proper hardware and software, systems can be linked together in a common network, users can communicate via e-mail, files can be transferred from one system to another, and access can be provided to applications loaded on different types of systems.

None of this occurs today, however, without considerable effort on the part of both the system vendor and the user. Ideally, a vendor should be able to provide both types of systems since this provides the understanding of system idiosyncrasies necessary to make interoperability work. Unfortunately, only a few vendors (Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Digital) provide both types of systems.

The number of UNIX systems being shipped today is up only slightly from a few years ago while Windows NT is starting to take off. As an example, market researcher IDC claims that 725,000 copies of Windows NT Server were shipped in 1996 compared to 602,000 UNIX servers. The ratio of Windows to UNIX desktop systems is probably more like five to one today.

Sharing Files In A Heterogeneous Environment

Interoperability between UNIX and NT is rarely 100 percent transparent, but with the proper tools and procedures, it can be fairly painless. The most serious interoperability problem is providing secure file access across divergent systems. An example of how this is being addressed is Hewlett-Packard’s new Enterprise File System (EFS). This software implements a single file naming convention for workstations, servers and PCs running a variety of operating systems including UNIX and Windows NT.

With EFS, an NT user in Europe with appropriate access rights, can retrieve a file from a UNIX system in California without extensive knowledge about that system. It just requires the proper pathname for this to occur. HP has built security features into EFS that prevent unauthorized users from accessing files that are restricted to certain groups of individuals.

Some readers may feel that they can already do this with NFS (Sun Microsystems’ Network File System), but NFS is basically designed for use on a local area network (LAN). Without getting into the gory details, which only a system administrator would enjoy reading about, this is neat technology that can help organizations work with a blend of UNIX and Microsoft-based systems (3.1, 95, and NT). It is particularly useful in situations where different systems are scattered around the globe.

Microsoft and HP Team Up

An indication of how serious HP is becoming concerning the exploding market for Windows NT systems, was the recent joint announcement HP made with Microsoft. The two companies have agreed to:

• Offer software products and services that will help reduce the total cost of ownership of enterprise information management systems. This will involve HP’s professional services organization which will offer system administration consulting support to user organization. HP will also incorporate Microsoft’s Zero Administration Windows (ZAW) initiative into its system management products:
• Combine HP OpenView network management software with Microsoft’s System Management Server to provide better administration capabilities.
• Promote common messaging standards to facilitate the exchange of e-mail between HP’s UNIX systems and those running Windows NT.
• Provide HP consulting services and system support to NT users.
• Cooperate in many other areas of joint system software development and technical support.

It is obvious to us that HP is preparing itself for the day that UNIX runs out of steam. We feel that this is a significantly better approach than currently being taken by Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics, both of whom respond "NEVER" when asked when they might support Windows NT. This latter attitude works against users who for one reason or another, find themselves in the midst of a transition to NT.

Thoughts From The Summit (01may97)

May 1, 1997

This past month we had the privilege of attending two events prominent in the world of GIS — the Executive GeoEngineering Summit, sponsored by Bentley Systems, and a meeting of the OpenGIS Consortium Technical Committee. We enjoy attending events like these because they present you with a good picture of what is really happening in the industry at large — usually from candid user and vendor perspectives. Through exchanges with colleagues, peers, pundits, proponents, and detractors, you can come away from events such as these energized with new ideas and points to ponder. You can also come away from these events slightly bruised if you get involved in the heated discussions and debates that inevitably occur.

While the two events were quite different in content and nature, we couldn’t help but notice a few recurring undercurrent themes emanating for them both.

GIS Is Not CAD, But They Are Converging Anyway

Although some have made more progress than others, most of the major CAD and GIS vendors are working very hard to develop and market products that bridge the gap typically found between CAD and GIS products. Keep in mind, though, that by their very nature, CAD and GIS are quite different applications with regard to the functions they perform and the roles they are expected to fulfill. To fully appreciate the effort put forth by vendors to converge the two applications, we should briefly discuss why this gap has existed in the first place.

Historically, CAD products have been used to enter and manipulate graphics. CAD typically has all the necessary coordinate geometry, accuracy, and differentiation to provide the best graphic representation of geographic features. GIS, on the other hand, has been used to store and analyze data. GIS leverages the graphics found in CAD data to support problem-solving by supplementing the graphics with spatial data capabilities.

GIS is not a true discipline per se; rather, it is a way to integrate a process across related disciplines through sharing data and application logic.

GIS applications for solving problems typically require complex spatial analysis and customized routines, because they are driven by the need to solve a variety of problems and speculative scenarios. To support "what-if" scenarios and analysis problems, a number of additional abilities are needed beyond the CAD representation of geospatial data. These additional capabilities increase the return on investment in CAD/GIS data by increasing its applicability to a wider variety of problems.

Today, the most prominent positive results in efforts to converge CAD and GIS are coming from Autodesk with AutoCAD Map running on top of AutoCAD, Bentley Systems with MicroStation GeoGraphics running on top of MicroStation 95, and ESRI with ArcCAD running on top of AutoCAD. These CAD-based GIS applications are among the first of the CAD/GIS hybrids that can not only create, edit, and manipulate graphic entities (drawings), but they can also handle topological spatial relationships between those entities.

Now that CAD and GIS are heading toward convergence, users will be faced with the monumental task of evaluating and selecting the products, services, and technologies that best suit their needs for today, while also having to deal with yesterday’s data and tomorrow’s challenges.

Look Out Below

For all the goodwill the OpenGIS Consortium is putting forth and the apparent love-in that is taking place in the spirit of cooperation of its member vendors, there is a strong undertow just below the surface that could threaten to slow down the Consortium’s efforts. This possible rift seems to be coming from Microsoft and Sun.

Let’s look briefly at a couple of examples.

For all the press it receives, ActiveX (formerly OLE), Microsoft’s answer to Sun’s Java, is not a favored technology or environment in a lot of software development circles. This fact alone has Microsoft concerned, nervous, and on the defensive for virtually the first time in its history. Contrary to what Microsoft would like you to think, ActiveX is not truly platform independent — guess which platform it is optimized for. In light of all this, we were surprised, however, to hear from many people (even some Microsoft foes), that contrary to popular opinion, Microsoft is not the primary driving force or main sponsor behind the OpenGIS Consortium and its efforts.

Sun, on the other hand, would like to be the software product development platform of choice for Intel-based PCs, as well the rest of the computing universe with Java and applets.

This platform independence is very popular with most users, but (understandably) something of an unsettling situation for vendors developing products — especially a couple from northern California and Alabama that have literally bet the farm on the fortunes and future of Microsoft’s domination as the desktop operating system.

Oracle Rising

Oracle is charging ahead into new markets and making alliances with new partners, largely in areas that Oracle was not associated with as recently as a year or two ago. The company is increasingly becoming a powerhouse to be reckoned with.

Although relatively new on GIS turf, Oracle is a very intelligent company that is positioning itself to be a major player, if not one of the major players in this arena. The company sees that there are problems, realities, and opportunities in this marketplace. Oracle perceives today’s main problem as the current hybrid CAD/GIS architecture and model that is interfering with enterprise-wide data management. The realities it sees are the fact that we are currently in a third, interactive wave of intra/inter-networking — a "Network Society" that consists of objects, components, and distributed computing. The opportunities include being influential for the new standards and infrastructures evolving for geoinformation and geoprocessing. Oracle is clearly in a position to grasp the problems, deal with the realities, and seize the opportunities.

We overheard an interesting chain of events that may portend Oracle’s future. Just as Microsoft gave Bentley and Intergraph "guidance" with their software products; Netscape is giving Oracle "guidance," but Oracle may ultimately give "guidance" to everybody. This "guidance" chain may come to pass with Oracle becoming a probable big winner in GIS, because even today, many independent software vendor (ISV) products sit on top of Oracle. As these Oracle products continue to proliferate, many proprietary GIS database products from smaller vendors may be rendered obsolete. We, therefore think that GIS vendors that are cozying up to Oracle are doing the right thing for both today and tomorrow.

Much like Sun, Oracle was a very vocal presence at the OpenGIS Technical Committee that we attended. We felt that the significance of this presence was not only the fact that they are among those that have potentially the most to offer, but because they also have potentially the most to gain.n

Jeffrey Rowe, Editor