Bentley Systems offers the MicroStation application and product family as a 3D and 2D modeling and computer-aided design (CAD) solution for engineers and designers.
$250
Per User Per Month
OpenRoads Designer
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Bentley Systems offers OpenRoads Designer, their civil engineering and design platform which replaces the former GEOPAK Civil Engineering Suite, InRoads, MX, and PowerCivil.
MicroStation is well suited for environments where animation and 3D modelling is required for designs. It perfectly fits into scenarios where Building Information Modelling (BIM) is used. One should avoid this platform if the budget is low and the overall length of the project is not huge.
Integration with other disciplines. If one uses Bentley's companion products like OpenBridge Modeler or OpenSite Designer, there is no need to export any design information to other disciplines as the .dgn files can be directly referenced into other applications.
Visualisation - ORD comes bundled with a free version of LumenRT which produces amazing engineering and architectural renderings and can even be used in VR applications.
Design Environment. Being based on the DGN file format is brilliant - being able to have multiple models within a single file has so many advantages over the DWG file format.
Creating data. Currently will need to create data tag (e.g. volume, length, material type, material engineering criteria etc.) of component manually. Some of the commonly use data in AECOsim should be preset in OpenRoads.
Ability to link geometric data values to geometric properties. Currently not linked (e.g. volume value, length value etc.) and had to be keyed in and/or changed manually.
Opening (eg. for MEP interface) creation and modification still manual. There should be a smart opening creation that would create openings at interface location and auto enclose the mesh opening so that the volume will take into account the opening(s) created.
MicroStation is very hard to use for our newest employees. It is not intuitive, and you need to know where to find the buttons to perform the commands you would like to perform instead of typing in the commands like other similar modeling programs. Also, it has no good traffic turning add-ins. We continue to run ALL our turning in Autoturn, since this is not a usable feature with MicroStation.
Microstation is not intuitive. It is almost impossible for our newest employees to use effectively, and I strongly prefer to start them with Civil 3D, where possible. With MicroStation, you really need to be an intermediate to advanced user to use the program and know where the buttons to do what you want are located. They need to make their program more command based. Things like snapping to a near point or correcting text size universally are not intuitive like they are in Civil 3D or SOLIDWORKS. For other programs you can just type in commands like "LINE" and draw a line. In Microstation, you need to select between a polyline or smartline from the tools>geometry menu. Why does it need to be so complicated? We ONLY use this program, because we are required to deliver our models in the DGN format to our client. Otherwise, we would use Civil 3D for everything.
ORD is a lot faster and a lot more modern than Civil 3D even though they're essentially the same product under different names (in terms of workflows). I find that the DGN file format used by ORD is far better than the DWG file format used by C3D because DGNs can contain much more information and multiple models per file. C3D is very heavy on memorizing keyboard inputs while ORD is a much more modern interface that relies mostly on using the mouse for inputs.
