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MicroStation 2026: Smarter CAD for Infrastructure Engineering

Infrastructure professionals across transportation, energy, water, and cities need modern CAD software to design, model, and deliver projects faster, smarter, and with greater context. Meeting these demands requires smarter, more connected ways of thinking about design, data, and delivery. With MicroStation 2026, Bentley introduces new features and enhancements that address modern productivity gaps by combining 3D geospatial visualization, automation, and efficiency. When infrastructure is designed with outdated assumptions, fragmented data, or limited real‑world insight, the consequences are costly and long‑lasting. Cost overruns, construction delays, safety risks, and underperforming assets don’t just affect projects—they impact communities through service disruptions, reduced climate resilience, higher lifecycle costs, and erosion of public trust. For engineers, owners, and operators, the cost of poor decisions is not only technical, but economic and reputational. With MicroStation’s intelligent design tools, teams can make better decisions from the start. These design decisions shape the resilience, sustainability, and performance across the entire infrastructure lifecycle—directly influencing quality of life for the communities it serves. MicroStation 2026 is built for this reality. It combines intelligent automation, immersive 3D geospatial context, and performance enhancements to help infrastructure professionals design, model, and manage complex systems with greater confidence and speed. MicroStation remains the only

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How PBOT Builds Sustainable City Infrastructure in Portland

Portland, Oregon: A City with a Vision of Creating a Sustainable Future Portland, Oregon is commonly known for its rainy weather, outdoor activities like hiking and biking, and its quirky charm showcased in the popular TV show Portlandia, but there’s much more to this lively city. Portland is widely regarded for its sustainability and innovation, earning its green city reputation through an unwavering commitment to eco-friendly practices. From its extensive network of bike lanes to its pioneering public transportation system, Portland is at the forefront of the movement towards a cleaner, greener future. Portland’s vibrant community, passionate about environmental stewardship, is transforming urban living and proving that sustainability isn’t just a goal – it’s a way of life. Portland’s sustainable infrastructure evolution: Sustainable city infrastructure design Community-first planning and public input Meeting sustainability goals with the help of OpenRoads and MicroStation Addressing Urban Infrastructure Challenges in Portland But as the city continues to grow, so do the challenges of maintaining an environmentally friendly and community-focused urban environment. Portland faces unique difficulties including frequent rain events and a diverse landscape with steep roadways and cross slopes that challenge traditional infrastructure design. This is where the City of Portland and Portland Bureau

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How CAD and BIM have changed, and how I changed with them.

A draughtsman’s journey. Nanette Dorando describes her 30-year transition, from the days of ink and paper to the world of 3D and data masks. Was it all worth it? It’s a question we’ve all come up against: how do you get that great idea in your head out into the world where everyone can see it and use it? When I started my apprenticeship as a draughtsman in 1988, it was the traditional way of producing plans and drawings, using ink pens on transparent paper to bring that idea to life. This required not only a good spatial sense, but also a certain amount of imagination and understanding of technical contexts, especially when it came to producing 2D plans, sections, views, and details in enlarged scale from the hand-drawn sketches. There was no “erase function.” Anything that needed to be changed had to be carefully and sensitively removed, layer by layer, from the transparent paper using a razor blade. Today, in the world of CAD and BIM, your ideas take a very different route. Instead of being hand drawn, they are entered into the respective data masks when creating, say, a floor plan. The invaluable advantage is that you can

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What’s New in MicroStation 2024

What’s new in MicroStation 2024: Enhancing Infrastructure Design Workflows In the world of infrastructure design, efficiency and collaboration are essential. The release of MicroStation 2024 brings a powerhouse of transformative features aimed at empowering infrastructure professionals like you to streamline your design workflows, enhance collaboration, and elevate project visibility. Here’s what MicroStation 2024 brings to the table: Python Integration for Customization and Automation In a move towards extended customization and automation capabilities, MicroStation 2024 offers integration with Python, the renowned scripting language, natively through MicroStation’s API. This integration offers an abundance of customization options, enabling you to tailor MicroStation to your specific needs. From automating repetitive tasks to creating customized tools and workflows to extend MicroStation’s functionality, Python integration fosters innovation and efficiency within your design process. Check out Bentley Communities to learn more about MicroStation’s Python integration. Enhanced GIS Data Integration MicroStation 2024 bolsters its GIS data integration capabilities by bringing additional live data sources into the design environment, allowing you to access a wide variety of contextual data natively in MicroStation. By harnessing surrounding information and contextual data, you gain invaluable insights during the design phase, mitigating costly reworks and design delays. Seamlessly integrating GIS data sources enhances

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