Automate the process of adding new reference files.
Clearwater, Florida, USA — Axiom is pleased to give you back your evenings and weekends. As the world’s oldest and largest third-party solutions provider for MicroStation, Axiom is known for breakthrough enhancements to the applications in MicroStation Productivity Toolkit. Coincident with RefManager’s 20th anniversary (RefManager is a Toolkit component), Axiom outdoes itself by offering one of the most customer-demanded, weekend-liberating enhancements in Axiom’s history.
Liberate your weekends — let RefManager take care of the scaling and clipping so you can get to grilling and flipping.
RefManager now automates the process of adding new or revised reference files to multiple plot sheets, as a project’s design evolves. For example, MicroStation users can now use RefManager to add new reference files to multiple sheets along a roadway. Using RefManager, 50, 100, 200 or more sheet files can be automatically updated in one batch. Each new attachment clones (copies, duplicates) the attachment settings of a pre-existing attachment (one that is already properly scaled, rotated, clipped, and so forth).
If each MicroStation project consisted of only one unchanging sheet file with one unchanging reference attached – no problem. Set it and forget it. If you later need to add a new attachment to that sheet file, it doesn’t take long to add one new attachment — even if the new attachment must be rotated, scaled and clipped for the sheet.
But multiply the time involved by 50, 100, 200 or 500 sheets and repeat a dozen times throughout the life span of a large project and it adds up to a lot of wasted time. If that describes the production demands you face, don’t be discouraged. You don’t have to be a full-time “reference wrangler” any more — just select RefManager from your Axiom pull-down menu, click on RefManager’s new “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” command and take the weekend off!
How RefManager’s “Clone” command works
Your project sheet files typically contain one or more attachments which are properly clipped, scaled, rotated and shifted. You have probably tweaked the level display, level symbology, nesting and other settings for these existing attachments.
RefManager’s “clone” command copies the settings from one of those carefully-created existing attachments and uses those settings to attach your new or revised reference files.
A cloned attachment is a new reference file which inherits the clipping, scale, rotation, offset, level display, level symbology and all other settings of an existing attachment. RefManager also ensures each cloned attachment is created with a user-defined logical name and description.
Figure 1: RefManager’s new “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” command eliminates the time and tediousness of repeatedly adding or replacing reference files in multiple project sheet files.
Ralph the Reference Wrangler — a case study
Ralph (name changed to protect his anonymity) works for a civil engineering firm, which is contracted to widen a multi-mile span of a major highway. A few weeks ago, the initial layout was completed for 187 project sheet files. Ralph now has the ongoing responsibility of updating all project sheet files when new or updated reference files are created during the life of this three-year project.
Figure 2: The new attachment (shown in blue) needs to be appropriately clipped in 187 sheet files!
One day, a subcontractor submitted “pavement.dgn” (pavement plan) to Ralph. Ralph needs to attach “pavement.dgn” to the 187 project sheet files. [See Figure 2]
The new attachment (“pavement.dgn”, indicated in blue) needs to be clipped — not once, but 187 times (in “sheet001.dgn”, “sheet002.dgn”, “sheet003.dgn” through “sheet187.dgn”). That’s 187 different clipping boundaries for 187 project sheet files!
When Ralph hears that the field engineers need all sheets updated by Monday, his heart sinks. So much for his weekend barbecue plans. And sheet updates will continue throughout this three-year project!
Ralph realizes there is an existing attachment in all 187 sheet files, “roadway.dgn”, that is already properly clipped, scaled and rotated in each of the 187 sheet files. Level display, level symbology and all other attachment settings for “roadway.dgn” are perfectly tweaked in all 187 sheet files. Ralph ponders, “If only ‘pavement.dgn’ could inherit the attachment settings from ‘roadway.dgn’ in each of the 187 sheet files.”
Then a thoughtful colleague tells Ralph about RefManager. Ralph contacts Axiom, orders RefManager and has the application downloaded and installed a couple minutes later.
Figure 3: RefManager automatically attaches (and properly clips) the new reference file to all 187 sheet files!
Ralph uses RefManager to automatically attach “pavement.dgn” (the new reference file) to all of his 187 sheet files. RefManager applies clipping and other attachment settings from “roadway.dgn” (the pre-existing attachment) each time “pavement.dgn” is attached to a different sheet file. RefManager automatically applies the appropriate clipping boundary to each newly created attachment.
Ralph confirms RefManager has automatically attached “pavement.dgn”, properly clipped, to all 187 sheet files in just minutes! Hello weekend barbecue!
Tip of the iceberg
So far we’ve only discussed reference file clipping. There are dozens of settings involved with the creation of each reference file attachment.
RefManager’s “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” command preserves all of the existing attachment’s settings (including clipping, scale, rotation, offset, level display and level symbology settings) when creating cloned attachments.
On top of that, as the command name implies, RefManager’s “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” also allows you to replace existing attachments.
Replace is similar to clone, except a new reference file takes the place of an existing attachment. For example, RefManager can replace “pavement50.dgn” (design 50 percent complete) with “pavement60.dgn” (design 60 percent complete) in one or hundreds of project sheet files.
And the new “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” command doesn’t limit MicroStation users to updating one attachment at a time in their sheet files. The “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” command allows you to clone and replace multiple attachments in multiple sheet files. If, for example, your sheet files contain a plan and a profile view, you can clone and replace different attachments in both views in all project sheet files — all in one step.
RefManager’s new time-saving “Clone or Replace Reference File Attachments” command is available for MicroStation/J and MicroStation V8 (including XM).
