Bentley's Next Big Thing - GenerativeComponents

LONDON (BE Conference Europe), June 13, 2007 - A degree from an architectural school might just entitle you for toilet detail in a big architectural firm for your first few years. One way to accelerate your career, says Robert Aish, director of research at Bentley Systems, is to have studied parametric design technology. Firms are hiring those students to do conceptual design.

Supposedly the distinctive Bishopsgate Tower in London's financial district was created using GenerativeCcomponents, Bentley's name for parametric design technology as used in its building products. The ease with which parameters could be changed allowed for over a hundred design iterations during the massing study, something that would have take forever with conventional CAD.

What are GenerativeComponents exactly? GCs, as they are being called, are ways to make the CAD geometry used for architecture behave parametrically*. In a simple example, lengths of columns can be assigned parametrically so that if the parameter changes, all the column lengths change. In a more complex example, the radius of a curved exterior of an office high rise can be modified, and the façade window panels (if the model is created with GenerativeComponents) will change in size so the glass won't suffer from too much bending.

GenerativeComponents are created from conventional CAD geometry. When this is initiated, a table is shown where values (or parameters) can be placed. Parameters can be simple and self explanatory (like length), formulas, or complex to the point of calling data from files or even running programs written with high level programming languages.

Bentley recommends a user take a course before attempting to use GenerativeComponents. When shipped, it will also come with a 200 page user manual including many practical examples.

GC has been a long time in development (see Generative Components Technology, AEC Magazine, January 18, 2005) but Bentley hopes to ship it this year "in the July timeframe," when it first appears in MicroStation XM 8.9.4.

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*Though it has a different interface, GenerativeComponent technology appears to function much like the parametric modeling that has been popular in mechanical design for about 20 years.