Clearwater, Florida, USA — “HELP ME! I can’t open my V8 file with MicroStation!” Axiom’s support team hears this plea all too often. They receive more calls about V8 design file corruption than V7 design file corruption.

MicroStation attempts to abort gracefully after opening a corrupted V8 file.

MicroStation V8 users report models which they can’t activate. They also report elements which no longer reside on a defined level. MicroStation users commonly complain about elements which can’t be selected, moved or copied. All of these project stoppers are obvious manifestations of design file corruption — and FileFixer can eliminate every one of these problems, allowing you to get back to work.

Theoretically, any bit (“0″ or “1″) in a design file can represent the wrong (corrupted) value. There are an infinite number of corruption possibilities. Yesterday’s power glitch or that flaky new network card (or any number of other factors) can disrupt data transfer and change the state of any bit in your design files.

Fortunately, FileFixer is able to identify and repair the most disastrous categories of MicroStation design file corruption. Out of the billions or trillions of zeros and ones in your design files, FileFixer can detect the true production killers and budget busters — those corrupted bits which block projects and cause MicroStation users the most headaches. FileFixer is like Sherlock Holmes on steroids — it can literally find the right grain of sand on the beach.

FileFixer’s Search and Repair capabilities have evolved from nearly two decades of relentless research and development — all focused on analysis of corrupt design files submitted to Axiom by MicroStation users like you.

The latest version of FileFixer for V8 (version 8.7d) distinguishes itself by achieving an unprecedented milestone for FileFixer. The most menacing remaining category of V8 corruption has been conquered by new FileFixer Search and Repair features. This means Axiom now provides complete corruption solutions for all of the most commonly encountered categories of V7 and V8 corruption, confirmed by detailed analysis of customer files.

What was the last unconquered continent in the world of V8 design file corruption?

Internal compression damage can destroy a lot of drawing geometry.

Explosive Decompression
The innermost data in all V8 files is compressed (like .zip files). When the compressed portions of a V8 file are damaged, there is no way to access the elements within.

Internal compression damage was discovered to be the most common new form of V8 file corruption — FileFixer for V8 version 8.7d now handles this. Tests confirm recovery of thousands of previously inaccessible elements in corrupted files submitted by MicroStation users.

No other application anywhere, including MicroStation itself, can open files with severe internal compression damage — except FileFixer for V8. FileFixer can recover these previously inaccessible elements — allowing you to get back to work!

The completeness of FileFixer for V8 now matches its older sibling, FileFixer for V7. Axiom has now conquered all continents of corruption for both V7 and V8.

Do not wait until there’s trouble on your island. Run FileFixer as a preventative maintenance program to catch and fix design file corruption in the early stages.

CLEARWATER, FLORIDA, USA — Because Axiom’s FileFixer has distinguished itself worldwide as the solution for automatic analysis and repair of MicroStation V7 and V8 design file corruption, there’s really no reason not to reveal how we do it. Companies often protect their proprietary data and trade secrets but, what the heck, let’s see what I can get past the editor.

“Mommy, where do FileFixer enhancements comefrom?”

Where do FileFixer enhancements come from?

1. Nearly all Axiom personnel, not just the Support and Development teams, are in regular communication with MicroStation sites around the globe, monitoring the most frequently reported forms of file corruption on a daily basis (for over 19 years). It is routine for MicroStation users to report misbehaving design files to Axiom — Axiom welcomes such reports and carefully analyzes and tabulates all corruptions found.
2. Axiom’s Support and Development teams identify the forms of file corruption which most severely impact MicroStation users.
3. Axiom’s Development team implements new Search and Repair capabilities which remedy the most severe forms of corruption which FileFixer doesn’t already handle. The team goes beyond merely tweaking bits and bytes to salvage a corrupted element in one customer file — repair algorithms are devised which generalize the solution to benefit all FileFixer owners.
4. Axiom’s Development team polishes the user interface so FileFixer remains as easy as possible to use, despite the underlying complexity of design file analysis and repair.
5. Axiom’s Certification team performs thousands of tests to ensure enhancements do not impact the reliability and effectiveness of existing FileFixer features.
6. Go to step 1 and repeat.

Sounds pretty simple. Maybe I shouldn’t have revealed these secrets…

How V8 design file repair differs from V7
To facilitate migration from MicroStation/J to MicroStation V8, the Bentleys ensured the look and feel of V8 was not drastically different from MicroStation/J. The similarities between the V7 and V8 user interfaces belie the significant differences in the V7 and V8 file formats.

Some MicroStation users have expressed the idea that FileFixer for V8 is an upgrade from the V7 version of FileFixer. It is more accurate to say FileFixer for V8 is an entirely new application that specializes in the analysis and repair of MicroStation V8 design files.
Let’s highlight the similarities and differences between the V7 and V8 file formats.

V7 and V8 elements are similar, but…
Specific information is required to represent a line or rectangle or other shape in a design file. For example, to store a line you need coordinates for the two endpoints. To store a rectangle, you need coordinates for the corners.

V7 and V8 elements are similar.

The illustrated V8 element is wider because more storage is required for V8′s increased coordinate precision. Otherwise, the information required to represent a line or rectangle did not change dramatically from V7 to V8 (lines still have endpoints, rectangles still have corners, etc.).

That’s where the similarity between V7 and V8 design files end.

V8 elements are compressed to reduce size, much like .zip files. Elements in V7 files are not compressed.

However, unlike V7, V8 elements are compressed.

V8 design file organization is new.
MicroStation V8′s compressed elements are organized internally into subfolders and subfiles. There are no subfolders or subfiles in V7 design files.

V8 elements are compressed and then stored in subfolders and subfiles within the DGN file itself.

FileFixer for V8 — new search and repair breakthroughs
You might begin to see why structured storage errors are so serious for V8 files. When the structured storage framework of a file is damaged, there is no way to access the elements within.

Similarly, when the compressed portions of a V8 file are damaged, there is no way to access the elements within.

V8′s structured storage file organization and element compression normally work fine, but when one or the other or both become corrupted, there is no way to access the elements nestled within. Analysis of customer files reveals these are the most common categories of file corruption unique to V8.

FileFixer for V8 includes the element analysis and repair capabilities of FileFixer for V7 — plus completely new analysis and repair features to handle these V8-specific categories of corruption.

In fact, FileFixer for V8 is the only application available anywhere which can automatically repair these new categories of V8 corruption.

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.