Bentley-ESRI Interoperability
Bentley and ESRI are both GIS providers. Bentley also provides AEC applications based on MicroStation. All these applications are often used within organizations served by both Bentley and ESRI. The need for interoperability is recognized and supported by both Bentley and ESRI.
Interoperability is at its best when it is implemented to support real world workflows. Each environment must extract or reference only the specific data that it needs to support a particular workflow, and then present it in a form natural to the user of the solution. Bentley provides interoperability with ESRI in several ways, both at the client and server level.
Client Interoperability
Bentley Map and its derivatives such as PowerMap can import and export ESRI file formats. Additionally, Bentley GIS applications can natively reference ESRI file formats such as SHP and MXD without conversion. This means the data is referenced directly with no setup required. It provides an intelligent backdrop for working in MicroStation and allows for review of ESRI attributes and independent layer control for MXD file attachments.
Server Interoperability
Integration, to be effective, must not only address workflows that support information creation, but also span enterprise solutions designed to manage, share, and publish created information. Bentley’s Geospatial Server supports a federated approach to information management that spatially indexes many different types of information ranging from files based information to databases and allows for spatial query across the many types of information..
To facilitate better interoperability, ESRI file formats are readily recognized by the Geospatial Server. The ArcGIS desktop applications, including including ArcCatalog® and ArcMap®, can interoperate with the Geospatial Server. This means that ESRI data can be managed and queried by the Geospatial Server along with many other types of information. The Geospatial Server recognizes MXD intelligence for navigation of ESRI structures and a user can launch an ArcMap editing from the Geospatial Server environment. The resultant new version of the file is versioned appropriately by the Geospatial Server and an audit trail of the activity is created. All the Security and Workflow features of the Geospatial Server can be applied to the ESRI files. To learn more, watch this video:
Managing ESRI files with Bentley Geospatial Server
Enterprise Interoperability
Now, consider the interoperability requirements of ArcGIS professionals who have implemented the ArcGIS geodatabase capabilities for a continuous GIS database. Interoperability in this case is achieved through an “enterprise connector” between the Bentley Geospatial Server environment and ArcSDE. The ProjectWise Connector for ArcGIS enables direct population and updating of an ArcSDE geodatabase of content created by Bentley GIS Applications. This connector enables automated synchronization based on the state of the files and components managed by the Bentley solution. The connector can be used to extract or post information to support the creation or update of landbase and infrastructure networks, among other things.
This integration also enables MicroStation users to automatically generate DGN representations of land bases from the geodatabase. These representations can be used as background information in creating and editing infrastructure with any of Bentley’s integrated discipline specific application solutions.
Learn more about how the Bentley GIS Architecture and ESRI