Bentley Systems Releases Open-Source Library: iModel.js

At the Year in Infrastructure 2018 Conference in London, Bentley Systems 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 quickly and easily create immersive applications that connect their infrastructure digital twins with the rest of their digital world. iModel.js is the cornerstone of Bentley’s just-announced iTwin Services that combine iModelHub, reality modeling, and web-enabling software technologies within a Connected Data Environment (CDE) for infrastructure engineering.

Bentley’s iModels have become a de facto standard for visibility into digital engineering models. 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 comprehensive collection of JavaScript packages that build on the most open, popular, and flexible 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, it is simple to 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.

Keywords: iModel.js, Bentley Systems, Year in Infrastructure Conference 2018, ARC Advisory Group