CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
15 May 2008
Product News
Bentley Announces Innovative Discovery Subscription Program for GenerativeComponents
Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced a special new annual subscription program for GenerativeComponents (GC), Bentley’s new generative design software for architects and engineers. The GenerativeComponents Discovery Subscription program includes a one-year subscription to GC, plus online learning and support resources to help users accelerate their discovery of the power of this new technology. GC enables architects and engineers to pursue designs and achieve results that were virtually unthinkable before. Empowered by computational methods, designers can direct their creativity to deliver inspired, sustainable buildings that are freer in form and use innovative materials. The GC Discovery Subscription is available to new users for $250 in the United States. For pricing outside of the U.S., contact Bentley.
Commenting on this new subscription program, CEO Greg Bentley said, “Thousands have taken advantage of our free trial download of GC that we introduced last year. They have experienced the ability to quickly explore a broad range of ‘what-if’ design alternatives, and their feedback has been most gratifying.
“To empower others to employ computational power through GC to discover their ideal designs, we have developed an extremely cost-effective program. To my knowledge, our Discovery Subscription is the first of its kind among providers of software for infrastructure. We are proud to offer it to architects and engineers around the globe eager to pursue a new approach to design.”
GC uniquely preserves and exploits the critical relationships between design intent and geometry. Users can, for instance, dynamically model and manipulate geometry, apply rules and capture relationships among geometric features, and define complex forms through concisely expressed algorithms. By virtue of GC’s extension of Bentley’s MicroStation environment, the resulting generative designs can flow through to detailed production and fabrication without information loss.
The GC Discovery Subscription is available for secure purchase by credit card online at http://www.generativecomponents.com. Along with the software for download, users receive a set of GC-related resources from Bentley – including OnDemand eLearning – and gain entry to the new and expanding BE Communities website, which includes blogs, wikis, forums, and a resource gallery for sharing generative design project work. Practitioners will be able to meet equally inquisitive peers, share how-to information and best practices, and learn about upcoming GC events. You can visit BE Communities, which is still in beta, at community.be.org.
GenerativeComponents is available to Bentley SELECT subscribers at no additional charge. For more information, visit http://www.generativecomponents.com.
GC has already been incorporated into the curricula of top architectural and engineering colleges and universities around the world, including Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT in North America; the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, the University of Bath, and the Architectural Association in the United Kingdom; TU Delft and KTH Stockholm in Continental Europe; and RMIT University in Australia.
Designs that have been completed using GC include Dostyk Towers by NBBJ and E/Ye Design, Cutty Sark Pavilion by YOUMEHESHE, The Pinnacle by Kohn Pederson Fox, and Museo del Acero by Grimshaw Architects.
About these designs, David Chadwick, editor, CADUser and Construction Computing, said, “Projects already completed using GenerativeComponents clearly illustrate tremendous creativity based on a highly developed sense of intuitive design, while being expressed with a clarity that comes from an equally developed sense of design logic.”
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