Easily Delete Linear Elements Partially Overlapping Other Linear Elements
By Eiren Smith, Axiom's Vice President for Technology - www.axiomint.com
Accidental, duplicate elements
are a fact of life for nearly all MicroStation sites.
They cause plotting problems, selection trouble (elements
that take forever to select with the Area Selection
tool, because MicroStation may be selecting dozens
or even hundreds of duplicates hidden under those
you intended to select), deletion difficulties (“I
just deleted that element - and it came right back!”),
unexpected results with third-party automation software
that has no idea that the area you asked it to process
includes numerous duplicate elements that you didn’t
know about and did not want processed, unnecessarily
large files padded with duplicate elements and a host
of other site-specific problems.
Duplicate elements come from
many sources and come in varied forms. That is, there
are many ways elements can be considered “duplicates”.
Obviously, there are the simple cases of “perfect
duplicates.” From a programming point of view,
those are the easiest to locate and handle. However,
there are many other ways elements can be considered
duplicates from a production standpoint.
In this technical bulletin,
I address one of the more annoying forms of duplicate
or near-duplicate elements: linear elements fully
overlapped by other, longer linear elements. The overlapped
elements could be significantly smaller than their
overlapping counterparts, making them hard, sometimes
practically impossible, to locate without the assistance
of advanced software. The problem is solved using
the latest addition to Axiom’s Duplicate Element
Remover. The following steps demonstrate exactly
how to get rid of this type of duplicate element.
- Select Duplicate Element
Remover from the Axiom pull-down menu [located
on the MicroStation menu bar].
- Duplicate Element Remover’s
main dialog appears. Your active design file
will be selected by default. To process a different
file (or multiple files), click the <Select…>
button. For the purposes of this article, we will
work with a test design file, overlap.dgn.
- To begin, we will load Duplicate
Element Remover’s default settings. From
the main dialog box, choose “Settings | Reset
to factory defaults…” and answer <Yes>
to the confirmation box that appears.
- Once the factory settings are
restored, go to “Settings Change Settings…”
- In the Category list, choose
“Tolerances”.
- Turn on the checkbox next to
“Remove linear elements overlapped by longer
elements?” A few other options will automatically
be activated. This is okay.
- Now, keep in mind that it is
possible for lines which look like perfect duplicates
to be less-than-perfect duplicates if they each
contain different non-graphic information - information
you can’t necessarily see. Attribute linkage
information is a good example of this. For the purposes
of this bulletin, we are not concerned with attribute
linkages. In order for Duplicate Element Remover
to treat near-duplicate elements with different
attribute linkages as perfect duplicates, simply
set the settings under the “Attribute linkages”
Category as in the image below or make adjustments
according to your own preference.
- Then, on the same dialog box,
choose <OK> to go back to the main dialog
box.
- Back in the main dialog box,
check the box next to “Generate report only”.
In “Generate report only” mode, Duplicate
Element Remover will not delete any elements
- it will simply create reports of what duplicate
elements it found.
- Next, uncheck the box next to
“Interactive mode”.
Note: In this article, we run Duplicate Element
Remover in non-interactive mode. In non-interactive
mode, Duplicate Element Remover will process
all your elements automatically without requiring
you to make a decision for each one. Using Duplicate
Element Remover in non-interactive mode is a
great way to quickly see how many duplicate elements
are in your files.
On the other hand, interactive mode gives you the
finest level of control. In this mode, Duplicate
Element Remover will let you “visit”
each duplicate element it finds. While visiting
each duplicate element, you can choose to delete
it or not. This is a great way to get a hands-on
feel for what types of duplicate elements exist
in your files. In everyday operation, you can choose
whether you want to run in interactive or non-interactive
mode.
- Press
<Start> to begin processing the design file.
- After
processing the design file, Duplicate Element
Remover creates two report files:
• A text report file (*.trf) which is
a simple text file listing all the duplicate elements
found; and
• A design report file (*.drf), my personal
favorite. Design report files graphically show you
exactly what duplicate elements were found, presented
in their relative location to the other elements
in your file. You can think of design report files
as “duplicate element X-ray glasses.”
With them, you can essentially look right into a
file and see only its duplicate elements.
- To see what duplicate elements
Duplicate Element Remover found, press the
<View Design Report File> button. The green
elements are the duplicates; the white (color 0)
elements are all the non-duplicate elements in the
file, included (and turned white) to distinguish
them from the duplicate elements.
- If you agree that the green elements
shown in the design report file are valid duplicates,
process the file once again with the “Generate
report only“ box unchecked, and, at your discretion,
process the file in either interactive or non-interactive
mode. After this step, you will find that your duplicate
elements are gone. That’s all it takes!
Click here
to find out more about Duplicate Element Remover.
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