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“This is for every manager that I can’t teach to use CAD,” said Ron Gant, global marketing director for civil engineering at Bentley Systems, about Bentley’s newest paradigm-pushing technology, the ProjectWise Dynamic Plot.

At the Be Inspired Awards in Charlotte this October, Gant gave editors from Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure a sneak peak at the smart pen, which the company began developing about two years ago, after CEO Greg Bentley got the ball rolling.

“It’s a well established technology — been around for a decade — originated by a Swedish firm [Anoto] for use in healthcare,” explained John Simmons, Bentley’s director of product management. “Bentley has adapted it for markup of AEC drawings.” The Dynamic Plot uses technology from Anoto, which also has a partnership with Seattle-based Adapx.

“This was a huge priority for Greg," Simmons said. "They saw the use. They saw the simplicity. We pushed it through."

According to Bentley, here’s how it works: “When plotting a drawing, a unique pattern of dots, along with the design data, is applied to the paper. At the same time, a record is made indicating which design file was used to create the plot. As a result, when markups are retrieved they can be registered to the appropriate design data. Even though the pattern is almost imperceptible, the digital pen can detect it when writing on the plot and track the pen marks on the paper. After the markups have been applied to one or more drawings, the digital pen is docked to the computer through a USB port. In real time, the marks are then retrieved as vector data, converted to the design format, and stored in ProjectWise as an associated redline file to the original design file.”

Here’s a demonstration, courtesy of Bentley: