The transmittal service is available now for on-site installation in AssetWise and in an early-adopter mode for on-site use with ProjectWise. The Azure integration is promised for 2012.
Related to that, Bentley also announced it has an agreement with Adobe Systems Inc., a vendor of PDF authoring, sharing, markup and editing products, to give users the ability to add high-level security to transmittals by integrating Adobe's digital rights-management (DRM) service as an option in ProjectWise and AssettWise. The DRM service gives PDF authors the ability to embed protections in PDFs, models, documents, photos and other digital creations, including controls on the ability to share, print or copy, as well as to revoke outdated items and set dates for automatic expiration and deletion.
"Users will have the same levels of intellectual property protection and rights-management features found in health care, financial services and other highly regulated industries," explained John Landwehr, senior director of Enterprise Security Solutions at Adobe, in a comment within the release announcing the agreement.
In a related development, Bentley also announced an agreement with Bluebeam Software to integrate its PDF markup and management tools with ProjectWise.
The agreements with Bluebeam and Adobe will let PDF authors, through plug-ins available by the end of the year for Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader, embed Bentley's "i-model containers" for the exchange of selections made from building and infrastructure information models—or entire models if desired—into PDF files. Another plug-in, also under development and promised for year's end, will support those PDFs for mark-up and use in Bluebeam's PDF Revu.
The plug-ins will extend Revu's interoperability with ProjectWise. In comments quoted in the announcement release, Richard Lee, president and CEO of Bluebeam Software, said, “Revu users will soon be able to synchronize their redlines through ProjectWise directly back to the information source." He said Bentley’s i-model-enabled PDFs will make it possible to interact with project-scale models in PDFs.
More Apps and Plug-ins
Bentley says free i-model viewing and manipulation plug-ins for Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader will be available at its "iWare" site before the end of the year. The site already has 20 other apps and plug-ins for viewing, manipulating and marking up models, improving workflows and exchanging information. Many of them are designed to improve interoperability with various devices as well as non-Bentley software.
Enhanced data mobility potential enters the picture again with the recent release of a free Adobe Reader app for the iPad and the impending release of a Bentley Structural Synchronizer View app, which is awaiting Apple certification, for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Structural Synchronizer is a tool for capturing and coordinating changes in structural models in projects managed through ProjectWise, using Bentley's Integrated Structural Models system and methodology. It also is built around i-model technology.
