Archive for February, 2004

Customers drive FileFixer enhancements.

Saturday, 7 February 2004

CLEARWATER, FLORIDA, USA — Even though MicroStation J and V8 are robust and stable applications, file content can still be damaged. It only takes one problematic design file to slow or halt a project. That is why MicroStation sites all over the world keep FileFixer around for emergency file repair and routine checkups of their important design files.

FileFixer on-going enhancement is fueled by customer requests and Axiom support conquests.

The beauty of FileFixer is its ability to diagnose design file problems and repair most problems automatically. But regardless of its powerful existing features, the variety of new problems reported by MicroStation users keeps Axiom’s Support and Development teams on their toes, fine-tuning the V7 and V8 versions of FileFixer. Any problem file that FileFixer does not handle automatically is given top priority by Axiom staff. FileFixer owners with active maintenance are eligible for these enhancements at no additional charge.

Frankly, typical FileFixer enhancements are so intricate and technically detailed Axiom would not normally describe them. Axiom sweats over the tough stuff so you don’t need to. But, in this article, Axiom invites you to take a look under the hood of both FileFixer and MicroStation, to show you things you may have never seen before.

Structured storage and file corruption?
Traditional file formats, such as the original V7 design file format, aren’t ideal for efficiently storing dissimilar types of information (like graphical data, non-graphical data and Windows file properties) in a single file. So, along with the many other enhancements introduced in MicroStation V8, Bentley adopted a new file format for V8.

Each MicroStation V8 file consists of multiple internal directories and sub-files. This data organization scheme, also used by Microsoft Word and Excel, is called structured storage. Per Microsoft documentation, “The purpose of structured storage is to reduce the performance penalties and overhead associated with storing separate objects in a flat file.” When saved to disk, MicroStation V8 design file elements are compressed and nested in the sub-files of the structured storage file.

Explanation of the V8 DGN file structure

The structured storage system is normally reliable and robust, but as with any computer application and file type, data can become corrupted. If one of the structured storage folders or sub-files is damaged, the data therein is likely to become inaccessible, even when other portions of the compound file are intact.

Analysis of MicroStation V8 files submitted to Axiom reveals that structured storage errors do occur in production. This is a new phenomenon with MicroStation files. If you’re working with V8, you might have encountered structured storage errors without realizing it. Typical symptoms of structured storage errors are missing elements or “MicroStation Problem Notification” dialog boxes.

In response to customer demand, FileFixer for V8 was enhanced to detect and handle the most serious structured storage problems. The details are a bit much for this article, but we encourage you to contact Axiom for an online demonstration of FileFixer for V8.

Going from V7 to V8?
The best way to guarantee your V7 files import into MicroStation V8 healthy and whole is to first process all V7 files with FileFixer. FileFixer’s “Search for Problems” mode identifies files which manifest the most severe problems — possibly just a few true troublemakers. Once the most severe problem files are isolated, use FileFixer’s “Automatic Repair” mode to repair the most severely damaged files before importing them into MicroStation V8.

To do this, open FileFixer (V7 version) and select “Options | Search”. Within that dialog box, select the “Design File” category of options and check the “Build a list…” option:

You can control the severity of errors reported by FileFixer

Then, back on the main FileFixer dialog box, select the “Search for Problems” mode, type in *.dgn in the “Which files?” field, and click <Start> to analyze all of your design files. You can even fine-tune the severity of errors that are reported (see above). The resultant list will contain those files with the most serious problems — repair those files with FileFixer, and afterwards they will be a lot less likely to give you problems while and after importing them into V8. FileFixer veterans routinely use FileFixer’s “Build a list…” option to isolate and handle the true trouble-maker files.

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David Evans and Associates saves over $19,000 per year using utility in MicroStation Productivity Toolkit.

Saturday, 7 February 2004

PHOENIX, ARIZONA, USA — Abe Arroyo’s MicroStation shop at David Evans and Associates imports many Excel spreadsheets into MicroStation every month. The following is his account on how they used to do this without the help of Axiom’s Microsoft Office Importer — a popular component of MicroStation Productivity Toolkit — and how much time and money they saved by using it:

Abe: “Without Microsoft Office Importer, importing spreadsheets was a two-step process that took two people (a designer and a CAD drafter) a minimum of two hours on a simple Excel spreadsheet to a maximum of five hours on a complex spreadsheet.

Step 1 (done by the designer): The designer saved the Excel spreadsheet as a text file. Then, using a specialized text editor, he manipulated the columns in the text file so they would import properly. Average time spent on this step: 45 minutes

Step 2 (done by the CAD drafter): The CAD drafter imported the text file using the MicroStation command “File | Import | Text”. Then, he did some set-up so the data followed our client’s CAD standards and manipulated the text information to fit the columns and rows in the plan sheet. Average time spent on this step: 2 hours”
Microsoft Office Importer:

$40 (average designer and CAD drafter hourly rates combined) x 15 days (number of monthly work days that at least one spreadsheet is imported) x 2.75 (average number of hours it took to import a spreadsheet) x 12 months = $19,800 per year spent importing spreadsheets into MicroStation, without Microsoft Office Importer.
Cost of importing Excel spreadsheets into MicroStation files using Microsoft Office Importer:

$17 (average CAD drafter hourly rate — only one operator is needed when importing spreadsheets using Microsoft Office Importer) x 15 (number of monthly work days that at least one spreadsheet is imported) x 4 (average number of minutes it takes to import a spreadsheet using Microsoft Office Importer) x 12 months = $214.20 per year spent importing spreadsheets using Microsoft Office Importer.

Total yearly savings due to Microsoft Office Importer: $19,585.80

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Taking cell libraries to other dimensions!

Saturday, 7 February 2004

How do you convert a MicroStation V7 3D cell library to a V7 2D cell library and vice-versa? Easy! Just use MicroStation’s “Export” function.

By Rick DeWitt, Axiom’s Senior Technology Officer

The first step is to open a MicroStation file with dimensions (either 2D or 3D) that match the cell library you want to convert. Then, attach the cell library you want to convert. For example, if you want to convert a 2D cell library to 3D, open a 2D design file and attach it.

As the first step in converting a 2D cell library into a 3D cell library, attach the 2D cell library to a 2D MicroStation file.

Now from MicroStation’s main menu bar choose “File | Export | 2D” if converting a 3D cell library to 2D or “File | Export | 3D” if converting a 2D cell library to 3D.

Select “File | Export | 3D” to convert a 2D cell library to 3D.

The “Save 2D as 3D” or “Save 3D as 2D” dialog box opens (depending on what you chose earlier). In the example below, we have chosen to convert a 2D cell library to a 3D cell library.

The “Save 2D as 3D” dialog box.

Navigate to the directory you want to save your new 2D or 3D cell library to and give the cell library a name. If you use a different directory than the original cell library, you can give it the same name.

Now go to the section of the dialog box labeled “Selection Option”. Click the drop-down button next to the “Source” label. Choose “Attached Cell Library” from the drop-down list.

Select the “Attached Cell Library” option to convert the desired cell library.

Now click the <OK> button on the dialog box, and your cell library will be converted. Easy as pie.

Press <OK> to convert the 2D cell library to a 3D cell library.

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How to automatically re-sequence sheet numbers in title blocks with Title Block Manager

Saturday, 7 February 2004

Title block data consistency easily accomplished

CLEARWATER, FLORIDA, USA — Title Block Manager helps CAD managers and MicroStation users bring about a consistency of title block data in all of a project’s MicroStation files, fast. How? Read on.

By synchronizing title block data from many design files with an Excel spreadsheet, it is possible to easily make a number of changes right in the spreadsheet and then have Title Block Manager automatically make those changes for you in the affected design files, thereby establishing uniformity of title block data.

In this article (a follow-up to the January 2004 MicroStation Today article entitled Axiom releases Title Block Manager 1.0!), we will go over how to do this. We will discuss how to handle sheet numbering when inserting a new drawing into a project.

Let’s say our project has one hundred design files in it, each with its own sequential drawing number. Now let’s say we want to add a drawing to this project, and have it be “Drawing #25″. This means we need to re-sequence the existing drawing numbers in 76 files to make room to insert the new drawing. With MicroStation alone, we would have to edit all 76 design files by hand. With Title Block Manager, we need only re-sequence the drawing numbers in an Excel spreadsheet (which can be done with a single command), and Title Block Manager updates the design files for us automatically. This is how it works.

Start Title Block Manager from the Axiom menu in MicroStation. This brings up the main Title Block Manager dialog box.

First, we will update an Excel spreadsheet with the title block information from the design files. Under “Mode:”, choose “Update database from selected design files.”

Click on the <Edit List…> button and add all the MicroStation files in the project to the list of files to process, including the new file which has not yet had a drawing number assigned to it. Then press <OK>.

Back in the main dialog box, press <Start>. Title Block Manager will prompt you for the name of the spreadsheet to update. If the spreadsheet doesn’t exist, it will be created. Push <OK> to accept the default spreadsheet.

You will now see the design files you selected flash by as their title block information is used to update the Excel spreadsheet. When the process is complete, you will be presented with a summary list like the following:

Now open the spreadsheet to see what Title Block Manager put in it. In our sample spreadsheet below, you will notice that all of the sample files have their “Drawing #” fields filled in except for the new file.

At this point, you would write “25″ in the “Drawing #” cell of the 26th spreadsheet row. The spreadsheet now shows two drawings assigned the number 25 (see below).

Now, to re-sequence all the drawing numbers, you will use Excel’s ability to update number sequences. To do this, click over the Excel cell with the number 24 in it, and drag the mouse down to the first cell with the number 25. The result will look something like this:

Now, click on the little black square (called the fill handle) located on the bottom-right corner of the Excel selection set (seen above) and hold it down. Now, to re-sequence the cells in increasing order, drag the selection box down until you get to the last title block drawing number and release the mouse. Once you release the mouse, the numbers will be automatically re-sequenced. The drawing numbers are now properly re-sequenced up to 102 in Excel! The spreadsheet now looks like this:

After you have made your changes to the spreadsheet, save it and close it. Back in Title Block Manager’s dialog box, change the “Mode:” to “Update selected design files from database.” and press <Start>.

Press <OK> to accept the default spreadsheet selection. Now, Title Block Manager will update the design files with the information from the modified spreadsheet. When this is complete, you will be presented with a box summarizing the changes that were made. If you were to look at the title blocks in these sample design files now, you would see that their drawing numbers have all been re-sequenced with very little effort thanks to Title Block Manager.

Summary>
Title Block Manager gives its users the ability to create title block templates that ensure consistency throughout a project’s title blocks. If you’re looking for an application that takes the work out of managing and maintaining hundreds, even thousands, of your shop’s title blocks by allowing you to make whatever modifications you need, in batch, you need Title Block Manager. Contact Axiom today for more information on this new MicroStation utility.

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