Take a tablet, and some paper

London — At the recent official opening of Bentley Systems’ new London office, CEO Greg Bentley gave an impressive live demo of his company’s Bentley Navigator for the iPad software.

Pointing a tablet wired to a presentation screen upwards, Bentley navigated delegates around a virtual 3D model of the pipework, ducting and other fittings in the ceiling above the meeting room.

The potential value of the technology, particularly to engineers on the move and construction workers in the field, was highlighted by subsequent speaker at the London event Graham Daines of CH2M Hill.

Citing a recent project in Abu Dhabi involving 6500 workers from 57 different nationalities, Daines reported: “You would arrive at a spot where mechanical and electrical work was being executed and constructed and find on the wall a drawing which was very often out of date and completely in English — a language which couldn’t be read by many of those actually working from this drawing. This meant mistakes arising quite often.

“Seeing this application this afternoon gives me the great idea that soon everybody will be walking around in these environments with an iPad and actually looking at drawings and hopefully covering the language barrier as well.”

A word of caution though: The live demo at Bentley Systems’ new office came to an abrupt end due to a problem with the connection between the iPad and the cable to the presentation screen. Perhaps those mobile engineers should continue to pack their paper drawings along with their new iPads – just in case.