Archive for December, 2004

How will your legacy V7 files behave once in V8?

Tuesday, 7 December 2004

By Al Germolus
CLEARWATER, FLORIDA, USA — The best way to guarantee that V7 files import into MicroStation V8 healthy and whole, is to first process then with FileFixer before importing them in V8. This isn’t to say that it is necessary to repair all V7 files prior to import into V8, but I do recommend at least checking them for problems. When facing the migration of 10,000 legacy V7 files that have been handled by a slew of designers through the years, things could get quite treacherous when migrating to V8, as many MicroStation CAD managers have attested.

To avoid a disastrous situation, it is necessary to take the correct steps to ensure a problem is handled properly. Such is the case with legacy V7 design files that are to be migrated to MicroStation V8.

Faulty migrations of legacy V7 design files to V8 can be attributed to unhealthy V7 design files. Here are some of the more observable problems that can compromise the successful migration of V7 files to V8 of and why they occur:

  1. In a V7 file, elements are stored in sequential order (one element after another). Near the beginning of each element there is data that indicates the size (number of words) of the element. This is how MicroStation knows where the next element is located in the file. If the data containing the size of the element is corrupted (incorrect), then MicroStation cannot find any more elements after the corrupt one. When this V7 file is imported into V8, only the elements before the corrupt element are imported and displayed, leaving users with half-empty files. By using FileFixer to fix the V7 file prior to migration, all data containing the element size can be automatically repaired so that all elements are imported into the V8 file.
  2. The design file header (type 9) element is the first element in a V7 file. It stores a variety of vital information such as, the largest graphic group number in the file and the highest text node number in the file. Sometimes when this element is corrupt, none of the elements in a V7 file are displayed in MicroStation. You can expect that if this error is not fixed, no elements will display in V8 either. This problem can be easily fixed by using FileFixer’s “Replace Design File Header” command.
  3. In each element there is a bit called the complex bit, which is data that indicates whether an element is part of a complex element, such as a cell. If this bit is not properly set (turned on) in a V7 element, then the complex element will be migrated as a simple element into the V8 design file. FileFixer can repair complex bit errors so that when the element is imported into the V8 file, it is part of the appropriate complex element it belongs to.

The above are just some of the more severe instances that will derail a successful V7 to V8 migration. To find these crippling symptoms of corruption, run FileFixer’s “Search for Problems” mode. After FileFixer searches for problems, it generates a report delineating all the problems present in the processed V7 design files.

Access FileFixer’s “Search for Problems” option from the “Mode” drop down menu.

Isolating problematic V7 design files
FileFixer allows users to fine-tune the severity of errors that are reported. 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 be problematic during and after importing them into V8. FileFixer veterans routinely use FileFixer’s “Build a list…” option to isolate and handle the true trouble-marker files.

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:

Set FileFixer to only search for files containing severe problems.

Then, back on the main FileFixer dialog box, select “Search for Problems” mode, type in “*.dgn” (wildcard value that will include all DGNs in the drive the active design file is in) in the “Which files?” field, and click <Start> to analyze all of your design files.

Quick solution for major problems
After running FileFixer on the V7 design files in “Search for Problems” mode and finding out which design files could threaten your successful migration, use FileFixer’s “Automatic Repair” mode to repair the most severely damaged. Doing so will eliminate over 97% of the problems on the first run and greatly increase the chances of successfully migrating your legacy V7 files to V8.

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Controlling file translations between MicroStation V8 2004 and AutoCAD: the basic settings.

Tuesday, 7 December 2004

MicroStation V8 2004 has certainly made dealing with AutoCAD files much less complex than it used to be. However, there are still some important things to understand in order achieve the results you expect when translating files between the two applications. In this expanded tip, we will cover how to access and change the necessary settings to correctly translate DGNs to AutoCAD and DWGs to MicroStation and achieve the desired results.

Note: the graphics and descriptions in this article were done using MicroStation V8 2004 version 08.05.01.25. If you are using an earlier version, the look of the settings dialog boxes will be somewhat different, as will some of the available options.

MicroStation V8 2004 offers the ability to open and translate files on a “one-file-at-a-time” basis — using the “MicroStation Manager”, “File|Open” and “File|Save As” dialog boxes — or in batch — using the “Batch Converter…” accessed from the “Utility” pull-down menu. Since the basic translation control options are the same in both approaches, we will stick to “one-file-at-a-time” translation in this article.

In essence, there are two main groups of settings used to properly translate the CAD files. One group has to do with importing (or opening) an AutoCAD DWG file and the other group has to do with exporting or saving a V8 file to the AutoCAD format. In both cases, knowledge of these particular settings is imperative to properly handle the results of the file translation, due to the data format differences of the two programs.

Before we dive in, here are some reasons why these settings are important. For starters, MicroStation supports eight views of any model, where each view can display different levels and other view attributes. In AutoCAD, you can only adjust the view to see different angles of a design; there are no multiple view windows.

Another example is the difference between cells in MicroStation and blocks in AutoCAD. Block definitions in AutoCAD are always unique and stored in the drawing itself, very much like shared cells in MicroStation, but most MicroStation files predominately use regular cells. With regular cells, the cell definitions are stored in an external source, and when the cell is placed in a design file, all the graphic elements are included in the placed cell itself. Because of this, two cells could end up with the same name, but include different graphics. This could cause a problem during the translation to AutoCAD unless the export settings are adjusted properly.

Accessing the settings when opening a file
To access the settings to import AutoCAD files, go to “File|Open” and select the file or open the file through the MicroStation Manager. From either dialog box, click on the <List Files of Type:> drop-down and select “AutoCAD Drawing Files [*.dwg]“. This makes the <DWG Options> button selectable. Click on the button to open the “DWG Open Options” dialog box.

Select the DWG file to open.

Set open options for the DWG file you selected.

Accessing the settings when saving a file
To access the export settings to convert a DGN to a DWG from the “Save As” dialog box, click on the <List Files of Type:> drop-down and select “AutoCAD Drawing Files [*.dwg]“. Then, click on the <Options> button, which gives you access to the “Save As DWG/DXF Options” dialog box.

To save your DGN file as a DWG file, select the “AutoCAD Drawing Files [*.dwg]” option.

To modify export settings, change any of the available DWG export options

Categories and changes
The first category in both settings groups is labeled “Basic”. You can differentiate a category (group of settings) from a setting by the little box that has a plus (+) or minus (-) sign in it to the left of each category. Clicking on the plus or minus sign expands or contracts the category to show or hide all the settings and sub-settings, just like in Windows Explorer. A setting will show its value in the column to the right. The “Basic” category handles things like: determining the working units to use when importing an AutoCAD file, whether to save the AutoCAD model to a 2D or 3D file, which seed file to use and more. To change a value for a setting, highlight the setting and then click on the value of that setting. Depending on the type of setting, one of the following may appear: a list of predefined choices, a file selection dialog box, a check box or a field that allows the user to type in a value.

Understanding what each setting does and how it will impact the translation process takes a good understanding of both MicroStation and AutoCAD. Make sure you spend some time playing around with these settings to see how making changes will impact your translations. Enjoy!

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