Making MicroStation reference files even more powerful
When it comes to coordinating the activities of multiple MicroStation users working on the same project, no feature is more important than reference files.
Reference files have been a feature of MicroStation and its predecessor, IGDS, since the early 1980s. The reference file features of MicroStation are unsurpassed by any CAD product at any price. Autodesk has spent over a decade trying to catch up to MicroStation's powerful reference file features.
What then, you ask, could make MicroStation reference files even better?
The answer is: writable reference files! MicroStation reference files are, of course, ordinarily read-only. You can see the elements in a reference file, but you can't make any changes to them. That is, unless you have Axiom's RefWriter.
What does RefWriter do?
Once you've started RefWriter, you just select any element in any attached reference file. RefWriter instantly makes that reference file your active design file while preserving all of your view settings. That's right — even though the selected reference file is now the active file, everything on your screen looks the same as before. The same views will be turned on showing the same areas with the same rotations. Everything looks the same. Except now you can make changes to all the elements in that reference file! When you're done, a single mouse-click brings you back to the original design file.
What happens if you don't have RefWriter?
To edit an element in one of your reference files without RefWriter, here is what you would have to do:
- Determine which reference file contains the element you want to modify.
- Open that reference file as your active design file. Depending where that file is stored, finding and opening that design file could take as many as thirty keystrokes or ten mouse-clicks.
- Rotate, scale and clip the newly activated design file so that it looks the same as it did when it was being used as a reference file.
- Re-find and attach the original design file as a reference file.
- Rotate, scale and clip the master-file-turned-reference file so that it looks the same as it did when it was the master file.
- Repeat step the above two steps on every reference file that was attached to the original design file.
In short, what could take you twenty minutes or more using native MicroStation commands, RefWriter can accomplish with a single mouse-click!
Available for MicroStation V7 and V8/XM.
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 RefWriter's toolbar.
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A component of MicroStation® Acceleration Garage ™
If working with reference files is slowing down your project workflow, call 