No matter how difficult the construction of a project turns out to be, most planners would agree that getting non-technical stakeholders to understand the design in the first place may be one of the hardest parts of all.

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Now, Bentley Systems Inc., Exton, Pa., has put an export link in MicroStation design software that lets users reference plans to geographic locations and export data in the file format of Google Earth, a free program that lets users view maps and satellite images of locations all over the world. By linking the products, Microstation users get a tool to quickly plant 2-D and 3-D designs of structures on images of the site, which can be viewed by anyone using a free downloadable viewer from Google Earth.

“The value for me at least, is that I see Google Earth as kind of like PDFs and Acrobat Reader. It’s everywhere,” says beta tester Shawn Foster, engineering CADD applications manager at HNTB, Kansas City, Kan. “I can get design information into a format that is pretty easily accessible by everybody,” he says. “Typically, a lot of stakeholders involved in projects are not very CAD-literate, but I can use this to put the project into a context for them. It just makes my job a lot easier.”

MicroStation files in the Google Earth format can also have links attached to points to pull up windows with more detail, such as renderings of the view from that location, or spreadsheets, or any supporting data. Bentley SELECT subscribers can download the connection software for use with MicroStation V8 2004 Edition. It is delivered within MicroStation V8 XM Edition.