GEC NEWS WIRESoftware’s BIM Advancements Extend Information Mobility Across Engineering and Operations
Bentley Systems has announced the immediate availability of its WaterCAD, WaterGEMS, and HAMMER V8i (SELECTseries 5) information modeling software for the analysis and design of water distribution systems. The software’s BIM advancements will supposedly extend information mobility across water system planning, design, and operations – improving collaboration within and between these phases of the infrastructure lifecycle and facilitating better decision making for enhanced project and system performance.
Gregg Herrin, Bentley Systems director, product management, hydraulics and hydrology, explained, “For over 10 years, engineers have used the SCADAConnect capabilities within WaterCAD and WaterGEMS to leverage valuable field information by integrating a utility’s SCADA system with our hydraulic models. With the SELECTseries 5 releases of these products, as well as of HAMMER, we have further enhanced information mobility across engineering and operations. Thus, model results can now be published to the utility’s existing SCADA system control screen using the industry-standard OPC communication protocol. This ‘asset performance modeling’ enables system operators to benefit from optioneering as they evaluate and visualize model predictions directly in the user interface they regularly employ.”
The SELECTseries 5 releases enable users to view both real-time and historical SCADA data, and to compare data between SCADA and model results – including the display of alarms within the hydraulic model. Strong visualization tools empower hydraulic modelers to monitor SCADA signals as they change in response to real-time events. Unlike software that aggregates water usage data from multiple water customers to a single spatial location, the SELECTseries 5 software explicitly models water demands for individual water customers in their correct physical locations, hence providing modelers with better visibility and control over where demands are allocated, helping them manage those demands with finer granularity.
