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MicroStation

Score6.1 out of 10

24 Reviews and Ratings

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What is MicroStation?

Bentley Systems offers the MicroStation application and product family as a 3D and 2D modeling and computer-aided design (CAD) solution for engineers and designers.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Take advantage of built-in support for 100+ common formats and data types for 2D and 3D raster and vector geometry and associated BIM information, including trusted RealDWG
Supporting hundreds of coordinate systems and dozens of geospatial data types, users can reliably integrate existing data quickly and confidently.
Produce better documentation, faster, with fully integrated 2D and 3D workflows, creating a single integrated model that allows you to view drawings and other model information directly immersed within the 3D model
You can ensure your design intent while speeding modeling with extremely powerful and flexible constraints and a range of solid, mesh, surface, and topological modeling tools
MicroStation's native support for an unmatched range of file formats and data types means you can leverage any data you have to speed drafting and modeling and decision-making
Turn your models into polished professional presentations to win stakeholder buy-in and speed approvals on your design projects.

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Reviews

What users are saying about MicroStation.
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Digital Revolution of Computer-Aided Design!

Incentivized
Huma Ali
Center Head at iNIFD (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Plethora of design alternatives to choose from right from design to completed models
  • Detailed approach towards parametric, mesh and surface modelling
  • Well integrated modelling workflows
  • Intelligent parametric components with 2D and 3D designs

Cons

  • Expensive software
  • Workset configuration and design file settings should be more intuitive and easy to understand
  • Lacks intuitive and modern design

Most Important Features

  • Real-world context examples
  • Ability to photo texture and then creating locations
  • Project team collaboration

Return on Investment

  • It is an easy tool to create workflows and simultaneously work collaboratively
  • Costs are little high but the demand associated with the knowledge of this software is quite big
  • MicroStation expertise has helped us gain more business as we have a working knowledge of it

Alternatives Considered

AutoCAD and ARCHICAD

Other Software Used

AutoCAD, ARCHICAD

Perfect solution for 2D document drafting and easy to compare various design views.

Incentivized
Jackline JuliasView profile
Proyecto Coordindor in Engineering at JOYCO (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Easy view comparison.
  • 2D drafting.
  • Design modeling.

Cons

  • 3d rendering functionality.
  • Designing of large projects design slows the entire process.
  • Deployment on Cloud.

Most Important Features

  • 2D drawing functionality.
  • 3D visualization.
  • View comparison functions.

Return on Investment

  • Being able to provide amazing design analysis.
  • Easy drawing generation.
  • Annotation was effective.

Alternatives Considered

AutoCAD, Revit and SketchUp

Other Software Used

Autodesk Civil 3D, OpenRoads Designer, AVEVA Engineering

Quick overview of MicroStation

Incentivized
Randall (Rande) RobinsonView profile
Information Technology Specialist in Information Technology at North Carolina Dept. Information Technology - Transportation (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • MicroStation, as a stand-alone CAD package, is a great plan production tool.
  • MicroStation makes a very good base to build other applications on top of.
  • It has at least, in my opinion, a very easy to use interface.

Cons

  • While it has a very usable interface it contains a lot of commands and can be intimidating to a beginner.
  • MicroStation uses several interfaces (depending on versions) which can complicate its use in large spread out organizations.
  • Multiple versions of the product can be an issue for large organizations to keep up with.

Return on Investment

  • A very positive one and the main reason for it is that MicroStation never leaves your old data behind regardless of the version of the software you are using. The latest version will always read the data from earlier ones. Civil projects can take years and you need to be sure your software can handle that.

Alternatives Considered

AutoCAD

Microstation-good for roadway and corridor model, bad for new users

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • roadway and corridor modeling
  • storm sewer and utility layout
  • cutting sheets and production
  • plan and profile annotation

Cons

  • adding smart tables to the plans is difficult-I always end up using axiom
  • tying utilities to a surface-rims, grates, and other features typically need to be assigned elevations manually
  • profiles for pipes are difficult to draw and do not update automatically like they would in ssa

Most Important Features

  • corridors! We use this feature constantly
  • surface modeling and triangulation
  • the inroads add-in for modeling storm sewer and utilities-trickle tool is invaluable

Return on Investment

  • The trickle tool saves us hours of time and headache
  • The surface tracking tool saves us effort, time, and money in running quick calcs and annotation
  • We constantly fight with manipulating text. It takes hours in production time and a lot of effort to force our text to look/print correctly.

Alternatives Considered

Autodesk Civil 3D, Revit and SOLIDWORKS

Other Software Used

Microsoft Teams, InEight, Axiom Software (formerly Axiom EPM)

Usability

A solid competitor to other CAD software on the market

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Simple user interface
  • Easy to pick up from using any other CAD tool

Cons

  • Some of the more complex models have had a few issues exporting.
  • We've struggled with external consultants using the custom Autocad engineering tools, and it plays nicely with MicroStation.

Return on Investment

  • Been beneficial in the current office to have a copy for information exchange.
  • Some of the more "die-hard MicroStation users" often do markups in it over our current software.

Alternatives Considered

AutoCAD, ARCHICAD and DraftSight

Other Software Used

ARCHICAD, SketchUp, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign

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