LJB Inc., a 200-person facility and infrastructure design firm, was selected as a finalist in the international Bentley Systems 2003 Success Awards competition. LJB was chosen for its innovative use of design technology on the Interstate 275 reconstruction project south of Dayton, Ohio. The project involves the reconstruction of I-275, including 18 bridge structures and design work at the Interstate 75 interchange.

“It has been a compliment to receive an award in 2001 and then be selected as a finalist in the innovative use category this year,” says Mark Thompson, president of LJB. “That says something about LJB’s commitment to invest in new technology, but it also says a lot about our design automation group. It is a group of very motivated and hardworking individuals.”

LJB is using several different applications for the design portion of the project, but Cyrax 3D laser scanning and Bentley CloudWorx for MicroStation have made significant impacts so far. The use of Cyrax 3D laser scanning has allowed all lanes of traffic on I-75 to remain open and has provided safe working conditions for the surveyors capturing field measurements. The scanning process supplied “as-built” geometric data sets for two multi-span, 500-foot bridges – one bridge at the I-75 interchange and another bridge over-passing I-275. The 3D laser scanning not only increases the efficiency of data collection but also enhances the accuracy of the data.

Cyclone CloudWorx fully modeled the bridges and obtained critical measurements needed for design. The point cloud visualizations have allowed LJB bridge engineers to make design decisions immediately instead of having to first create sketches from surveying information. With the combination of GEOPAK Survey, 3D laser scanning and the state plane coordinate system, scanned bridge models have been imported into the project in their correct x, y, z coordinates eliminating the need to scale and realign the scanned models.

Additional design automation programs being used on the project are GEOPAK Survey, GEOPAK Road, GEOPAK Drainage, InRoads and GEOPAK Site. MicroStation V8 has also been instrumental in sharing and re-mapping files with the other sub-consulting firms working on the project.

“It is amazing to see where design technology is going,” says Dan Steeley, director of design automation for LJB. “The capabilities of the newer applications are phenomenal and very influential in the benefits we give our clients.”

At a special reception held recently during the 2003 Bentley International User Conference, Bentley honored this year’s Success Awards winners. The award for innovative application of Bentley technology was given to Bechtel UK for their 3D visualization work on a virtual railway project.