Intergraph® executive vice president EMIA Philippe Marceau, during a press conference with industry journalists at the ONS Norway 2013 conference, presented a preview of the upcoming Intergraph Smart 3D 2014, which boasts hundreds of enhancements and several innovative capabilities to further enhance user productivity. Marceau announced during the press conference that Intergraph’s Arne Monsholm is to demonstrate how the company’s market-leading design solutions, SmartPlant® 3D, SmartMarine® 3D and SmartPlant® 3D Materials Handling Edition have been consolidated into a single solution that will help oil and gas companies model complex offshore structures and vessels and create automated engineering deliverables.
Marceau explained during the press conference that the rule-based concept of Smart 3D enables more efficient design, with better quality and design integrity than ever. In addition, upgraded model data reuse capabilities enable efficient reuse of designs that is not possible in any other 3D CAD application. Users can reuse FEED or old designs with different catalogues and specifications, by leveraging Smart 3D’s unique rule re-use, tag renaming and specification interchange. Also, enhanced 3D interoperability capabilities enable the use of 3D data from multiple foreign CAD systems in conjunction with native Smart 3D models. Smart 3D is the only system in the world that allows interoperability with both graphics and data of foreign CAD models, making it an ideal solution for revamp and joint venture projects.
Intergraph’s 30-year well-established position in the Norwegian Continental Shelf will be enhanced with the consolidated solution, which allows customers to further increase productivity. "The North Sea has traditionally played a major role in exploration and production (E&P), but is now facing increasing challenges," said Marceau. "The design of new facilities becomes more challenging as the drilling goes into deeper waters and closer to the Arctic. In addition, the North Sea is a mature market, therefore the amount of engineering data that needs to be managed demands a more centralized and efficient data processing system. Projects are getting larger and need to deal with larger amounts of data, shorter schedules and an increased number of overseas stakeholders. The solution to these challenges is to rely on advanced technology opportunities."