CAiCE Software Corporation announced that their Visual PE suite of civil engineering and surveying software products are fully compatible with MicroStation V8. This ensures that surveyors and engineers who utilize both Visual PE and MicroStation will be able to share data seamlessly as they move to the new V8 platform. The new integration also allows MicroStation users to achieve a greater level of accuracy and to produce drawings faster. “Many of our large public transportation clients use MicroStation as their CAD platform, and they rely on us to transfer data in and out of MicroStation without losing data integrity or accuracy”, says Alan Akman, CEO of CAiCE. “It’s important that we support our customers’ system environments and ensure they achieve maximum project productivity”. CAiCE Software has recently entered into an agreement to be purchased by Autodesk. “This will not affect CAiCE’s continued support for the MicroStation platform”, according to Mr. Akman.

CAiCE, a Bentley Alliance Partner and MicroStation Development Partner since 1998, has consistently maintained translators that allow MicroStation users to transfer survey and design data between the two systems. The Visual PE V8 translator goes one step further, taking advantage of both systems’ Microsoft VBA integration, enabling a greater level of customization and flexibility.

The new V8 compatibility allows CAiCE clients to leverage some of V8’s new features through:

1. Increased drawing and geometric layout accuracy using V8’s double precision floating point design coordinates
2. Increased resolution between positional units without changing the size of existing geometry
3. Increased design plane and accuracy, eliminating the need for multiple seed files in a project
4. Selective user preferences using the V8 active model concept, allowing a DGN file to be composed of multiple models, each having its own working units and perspectives
5. Increased name space for cells and unlimited cell sizes
6. Allowing 2D and 3D cells in a single cell library
7. The ability to attach an unlimited number of references, including DWG files, to the active model
8. The creation of larger and longer elements (line strings, shapes, or fences) eliminating the need to break up profiles and ground line strings and allowing for more complex computational shapes
9. Allowing unlimited graphic groups that make it easier to manage graphical project data
10. Allowing an unlimited number of levels and level based symbology that makes it easier to adhere to each organization’s CAD standards

The interface is built into Visual PE’s CADLinks component, which provides direct interaction between Visual PE and MicroStation DGN files. CADLinks also supports direct interaction with Autodesk DWG files. The V8 translators will be available as part of the Visual PE 9.1 version, to be released on September 15. CAiCE Software Corporation products are widely used by transportation departments and private consultants for highway design projects.