Unlock the secrets of your MicroStation files
CadExplorer, Axiom's brand-new, enterprise-level MicroStation software solution, lets you interactively find, analyze, explore, report on and investigate your MicroStation data in ways never before possible.
- How much time do you spend documenting your project for each submittal?
- Do you ever have to count and/or locate specific assets, such as signs, traffic lights, windows, doors, etc. spanning multiple design files?
- How difficult is it to locate standard details found inside existing designs for reuse in other projects?
- Is it easier to redraw a standard detail than to locate them?
With CadExplorer, you can:
- Automatically extract all of the project data, such as reference attachments, title block data, cells, etc. directly from the existing project folders and export the data into a custom spreadsheet.
- Use standard or custom search filters to locate all the files containing specific assets by name, description, etc., as well as a list of all projects where the assets are used. The search results can be viewed inside CadExplorer or exported to a spreadsheet.
- Locate standard details, even if they are embedded inside project designs. The search results are displayed as a CadExplorer table with an entry for every located detail. With a single click, CadExplorer navigates between found details, displaying the data inside MicroStation.
CadExplorer will let you:
- Instantly find any MicroStation element (or elements) in any design file in your current project or at your site. You can instantly find elements using any combination of color, level, weight, text content, cell name, tag data, element size and many other element attributes. (This feature is sometimes called "Google for MicroStation".) Like Google, you can interactively refine your search and again get instant results.
- Instantly zoom in on found elements in any design file that resides on your local server. At the click of a button, CadExplorer will open the design file containing the found element or elements, zoom in on them and await your further instructions. (Requires MicroStation.)
- Instantly and interactively search all your the design files in any project or at your site for elements that violate your CAD standards. When you find something that seems non-standard — say a few design files with the wrong working units — you can interactively perform more detailed analysis on these files to determine what they have in common. Were they all last modified around the same time? Do they all contain a model named "Plumbing"? Do they all contain a level named "Subcontractor X's Level"? Do they all reside on the same workstation? Do they all reside in the same folder? You'll be able to interactively explore, investigate and drill down into anything you find in your design files that "doesn't make sense".
- Find all kinds of oddball errors. For example, you could instantly get a report of every level name at your site that appears in only one design file. (How much do you want to bet that it's spelled wrong in that one file?) If there is anything else you can imagine that there should never be exactly one of, you can find those too. Why not ask CadExplorer to show all the cells that appear anywhere in your design files only once? Quickly scan through the list of these used-only-once cells. How many of them are misspelled or non-standard versions of the cell that should have been used instead? Not sure what one of those cells is? Just click a button and CadExplorer will instantly open up the design file or cell library containing the odd cell and zoom right in on it so you can see for yourself exactly what is going on. (Requires MicroStation.)
- Find all kinds of oddball duplicates. Got a series of maps where all the text on level "Legal" is the legal description of a parcel of land. No two parcels of land can have the same legal description; right? Ask CadExplorer to display all duplicate text strings in all the design files of your project and you'll instantly see a list of all the parcels where your designer copied a parcel number intending to change the last couple of digits, but then forgot to make the change.
- See how your reference files are being used. Instantly see a list of all your design files and which reference files they use. Or see a list of each reference file followed by a list of all the design files that include it. The data you get is similar to a RefManager report only the data is available instantly and interactively, without having to wait for RefManager to scan all your design files to accumulate the data.
- Get an instant report of how many times each cell is included in a certain set of design files. Interactively filter the data to your heart's content. For example, you might want to count only the instances of the cells that appear on certain levels, or in certain models.
- Find all elements that are — or should be — within a user-specified distance of other elements. (Feature currently works with MicroStation elements only.)
- Find out stuff that you can think of and we can't. The above is just a tiny few, not-terribly-creative examples of the ways you can explore, investigate and report on your MicroStation data. You're the guy on the CAD battlefield fighting the daily fight. You're the guy who knows what kind of information you need. The questions you want to ask tomorrow are probably totally different than the questions you'll want to ask today. That's why we designed CadExplorer to make it easy for you to ask it almost any question you can imagine about your MicroStation elements, models and files. The examples we gave above pale in comparison to the creative, brilliant and urgent tasks you and your staff will use CadExplorer for.
All of the above are things you can do with CadExplorer right out of the box.
Benefits of using CadExplorer
This new breed of enterprise software gives CAD managers the power to:
- Easily browse any or all project folders, project files, models, levels and elements. You can sort, filter and group this information in any way that you can imagine.
- Instantly find text, cells and tags in any model, file or project.
- Identify duplicate files or models anywhere in your enterprise.
- Instantly discover details about any reference file attachment, in any file or model, in any project.
- Instantly collect information about the usage of cells in any design or anywhere project-wide.
- Instantly identify odd-ball deviations from project standards in one or many project files.
- IT personnel can generate reports about your CAD projects using the common database structured query language (SQL), Crystal Reports (powerful report writing and generating software package) and other tools they are already experts in.
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 CadExplore, lets you instantly find and display MicroStation models and elements in hundreds of design files in a single spreadsheet-like view!
 CadExplore's, interactive features lets you quickly discover information about elements, levels and files. Search and filtering criteria can be easily saved allowing you to reuse those searches in the future.
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A component of MicroStation Acceleration Garage ™
