As rescuers in Haiti struggled to locate victims of a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the island at 4:53 p.m. on Jan 12, the U.S. government and construction industry mobilized to assist. U.S. engineers familiar with the Caribbean also speculated that impoverished Haiti and its structures may have existed in a seismic safety time-warp with 1970s standards or worse. Photo courtesy Airports Council International Goods destined for Haiti being loaded at an airport in Costa Rica. Related Links: Can you help in Haiti? Let us know Groups Mobilize to Help Haiti Tragedy in Haiti The extent of the devastation

In its latest response to the evolving market needs, Autodesk recently presented 2010 versions of its architecture, engineering, construction and geospatial products, as well as civil design software for transportation and utilities. The new versions are designed to ease the adoption of building information modeling (BIM). The most ubiquitous change, as presented in a Web conference showcasing the new products, is the replacement of tool bars with ribbons that organize context-sensitive tools under tabs. Each tab is organized around workflow functions such as “creation, “annotation,” and “collaboration.” The ribbons are used across the full suite of 2-D and 3-D products.

Today, the software provider Bentley Systems released a long-awaited, new version of its entire suite of infrastructure analysis and design products, now dubbed V8i. The release is the culmination of 15 years of acquisitions, integration and development, according to Greg Bentley, CEO. Code-named “Athens” through the many years of planning, the company says V8i represents a $1 billion, internally-financed investment that positions it to take advantage of an anticipated surge of public and public/private infrastructure work. Infrastructure development and rehabilitation is about the only bright spot on the economic horizon, so Bentley feels this is an opportune time to launch.

In a surprise joint announcement, the two leading—and rival—vendors of design and analysis software say they have agreed to exchange their software libraries and support each other's application programming interface tools to improve interoperability between their products. The day of the announcement, July 8, may go down as a historic great leap forward, creating a link between the two most widely used suites of architectural, engineering and construction tools. The design tools of Autodesk, San Rafael, Calif., and Bentley Systems, Exton, P.A., are often used by project collaborators who have long complained of limited compatibility when exchanging designs between the