October 17, 2018 – Bentley Systems, a provider of software solutions for the design, construction, and operations of infrastructure, announced the initial release of its iModel.js library, an open-source initiative to improve the accessibility, for both visualization and analytical visibility, of infrastructure digital twins. iModel.js can be used by developers and IT professionals to create applications that connect their infrastructure digital twins with the rest of their digital world.
iModel.js is the cornerstone of Bentley’s iTwin Services that combine iModelHub, reality modeling, and web-enabling software technologies within a Connected Data Environment (CDE) for infrastructure engineering.
iModelHub manages an iModel as a distributed database with an intrinsic ledger of changes—enabling alignment, accountability, and accessibility of its digital components—to form the backbone of an infrastructure digital twin.
The iModel.js library is a collection of JavaScript packages that build on standards for modern cloud and web development. It is written in TypeScript, and leverages open technologies including SQLite, Node.js, NPM, WebGL, Electron, Docker, Kubernetes, and of course HTML5 and CSS. The same codebase can produce cloud services and web, mobile, and desktop applications.
The source code is hosted on GitHub and is distributed under the MIT license.
With iModel.js , users can create a web-based experience that shows interactive “nD” views (1D, 2D, 3D, 4D, etc.) of iModels that are assembled and synchronized from BIM files and other digital engineering models, and from data created directly with iModel.js . Those same views can also include digital (reality) context, real-time sensor data, and other data from enterprise sources and analytics.
Since the iModel is synchronized by iModelHub, it always reflects the most recent updates from all project participants, who are thus able to visualize and analyze changes between points in time or between versions. Importantly, only users and applications authorized by the iModel owner, through iModelHub, are granted access through iModel.js .
