Traveling to Pinehaven – An Examination Into
Effective Transportation Solutions
Named Top Project in “Civil: Visualization” Category
Exton, Pa. – The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), which serves a state and local highway system that annually handles more than 100 billion vehicle miles, has won a 2006 BE Award for its project Traveling to Pinehaven – An Examination Into Effective Transportation Solutions. The award category was “Civil: Visualization.”
The BE Awards of Excellence, which are selected by an independent jury of industry experts and presented at an evening ceremony during the annual BE Conference (www.be.org), honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world’s infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks for their industries, and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.
NYSDOT’s project focused on regulatory signs and pavement markings for entering and exiting roundabouts. To fulfill the test procedures required by the Federal Highway Administration, NYSDOT installed new “fish-hook” symbology in several constructed roundabouts to evaluate its effectiveness. In addition, the department created an interactive multimedia simulation to evaluate driver response in a controlled environment. All of the 3D modeling, material assignments, scripting, and frame generation was done directly in MicroStation.
Commenting on the department’s use of MicroStation in the project, Thomas Fischer, a visualization technician at NYSDOT, said, “MicroStation can produce much more than traditional line drawings. Having the ability to create a 3D model, assign photorealistic materials, create simple or complex animation scripts, and generate high-quality animation frames, all from within one software package, is quite convenient. It eliminates the need to go back and forth between multiple software packages to produce multimedia content.”
Continued Fischer, “I’ve repeatedly seen how renderings and animation more quickly communicate project goals and objectives than conventional CAD drawings. Visualization brings a project to life long before the construction process begins. It can add vision and value to virtually any project. Imagination is one’s only limitation.”
The majority of participants in the simulation favored the new symbology over the old. As a result, it has been approved for inclusion in the updated “Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices” slated for publication in 2008.
For more information on NYSDOT’s winning project and all of the other 2006 BE Award projects, visit www.be.org/awards. For more information on the Bentley products used in this project, visit www.bentley.com/civil.
About New York State Department of Transportation
New York State Department of Transportation was formed to deal with the state’s complex transportation system and the ever-increasing need to coordinate the development of transportation, with each mode serving its best purpose. Its mission is to ensure that its customers – those who live, work, and travel in New York State – have a safe, efficient, balanced, and environmentally sound transportation system.
Today, the New York State transportation network includes:
• A state and local highway system that annually handles more than 100 billion vehicle miles. This total system encompasses over 110,000 highway miles and 17,000 bridges.
• An extensive 5000-mile rail network over which 42 million tons of equipment, raw materials, manufactured goods, and produce are shipped each year.
• Four hundred fifty-six public and private aviation facilities through which more than 31 million people travel each year.
• Five major ports, which annually handle 50 million tons of freight.
• Over 130 public transit operators, serving over 5.2 million passengers each day.
• Twelve major public and private ports, which handle more than 110 million tons of freight annually.
For more information, visit www.nysdot.gov.
About the BE Conference
The BE Conference, which consistently scores a 99 percent attendee satisfaction rating, is a once-a-year learning opportunity for Bentley users and their managers offering professional training, technology updates, keynotes, and best practice sharing. At these sessions, attendees better themselves, better their organizations, and better the ways they can improve the world’s infrastructure.
About Bentley
Bentley Systems, Incorporated provides software for the lifecycle of the world’s infrastructure. The company’s comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial verticals spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With 2005 revenues of $336 million and more than 2000 colleagues around the world, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Top 500 Design Firms and major owner-operators and was named the world’s No. 2 provider of GIS/geospatial software solutions in a recent Daratech research study.
To receive Bentley press releases as they are issued, visit www.bentley.com/bentleywire. For more information, visit www.bentley.com. To view a copy of Bentley’s May 2006 Annual Report online, go to www.bentley.com/annualreport.
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