UC1LC4 - What’s New in MicroStation for Utilities

Inga Morozoff

© 2010 Bentley Systems, Incorporated.

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What's new in MicroStation V8i for Utilities

MicroStation V8i offers electric, gas, water and telecom utilities tools that enable integration across the entire life cycle of facilities including planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance. Topics covered in this session include: assigning a geographic coordinate system, interfacing with GPS devices, interoperability with SHP and R2010 DWG files, and WMS imagery.

Create geographic coordinate system (GCS)

Geo-coordination features let you specify the position of design contents on the earth’s surface. Once that position is established, a design can be coordinated with other data for which the geographic location is known.

A geographic coordinate system can be applied to structural-scale data as well as earth-scale data. Earth-scale data is used when designing larger scale infrastructure, mapping, and surveying while structural-scale data is used when designing buildings, stadiums, industrial plants, and other structures.

For additional information, please refer to the following wiki article: http://communities.bentley.com/Wiki/view.aspx/Assigning_A_Geographic_Coordinate_System

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Attach shapefile as reference

MicroStation V8i SS1 now supports the attachment and opening of SHP, and MIP/MIF files.

Shapefiles require at least three files in the same directory, with the same name and with the following extensions: SHP (geometry), SHX (index), and DBF (attributes). Shapefiles can have an associated geographic coordinate system that’s described in an accompanying PRJ file. To view this information in MicroStation, open the file as you would any other design file.

Open shapefile read-only

When a shapefile, or other supported GIS files are opened in MicroStation, they are opened for “read-only” access, meaning you cannot save updates back to those formats. To view the information about the associated coordinate system refer to the Geographic Coordinate System tool and select the Details button.

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The Geocoordinate System of attached references, including shapefiles, can also be seen in the Reference dialog when the GeoCS column is displayed. This column can be enabled by right clicking on any column name and selecting it from the popup menu.

Reproject shapefile to GCS of active model:

Since the shapefiles have a geographic coordinate system associated with them, they can be reprojected via the References dialog. When MicroStation knows the location and orientation of both models, it can calculate the coordinates of any point in the reference model in the master model, as long as the geographic area of the reference model is within the useful range of the master model's geographic coordinate system. Both models must have a GCS.

To do that, simply select the reference and choose Reprojected from the Georeferenced option.

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Design data can also be reprojected when initially attached, by selecting Geographic - Reprojected from the Reference Attachment Settings dialog. This option reprojects all data in the reference model from the reference model´s geographic coordinate system to the active model´s geographic coordinate system, if the active model and the reference have geographic coordinate systems. The reprojected data is stored only in memory (since the reference is not changed), so the reprojection calculations happen each time the reference is loaded. This increases the time required to open the active model but is more accurate.

Not Georeferenced Reprojected

Change symbology of merged shapefile data

It’s possible to merge attached shapefiles into the active design file, however since shapefiles don’t store symbology, the data comes in using the generic black and thin linework. Since the graphics from the shapefile are merged as normal MicroStation elements, the symbology can easily be changed to suit the project using the standard tools.

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Item Browser with SHP file data

When shapefiles are imported into a design file, the associated business attributes are embedded and made available via the Element Information dialog.

When dealing with multiple features, the Element Information dialog may not be the appropriate tool to use for reviewing business data. Instead, use a new tool called Items that’s located in the Primary Tools tool box. This tool is hidden by default and is used to display non-graphical business items contained in the DGN file and its reference models.

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Enabling this button, opens the Item dialog which provides convenient access to the business data in either a tree or browser dialog. By default the data is shown read-only, however if you desire to edit the data, this setting can be changed via the Tree Manager dialog.

Buttons along the top of the Items dialog enable you to set graphics not associated with the selected item transparent, highlight of the selected item, zoom to the selected item, isolate the selected item, and adjust display options.

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The details dialog functions in a similar manner to an Excel spread sheet. You can reorder, freeze, sort and rename columns to customize the display of the content. To do that, simply right click on any column name and adjust the settings as desired.

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Create a query

To isolate the number of records being displayed from the repository, you can use the Search function to define and save a query. In the example below, the data is filtered to highlight only those parcels that are heated with gas.

The query can be further refined by adding only those addresses along a specific street.

Highlighted items can be added to a selection set and be further manipulated to create a custom map.

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Over-posting cleanup with reference activate

A new capability in MicroStation V8i lets you edit a reference in-place. That is, you can edit a reference from within the active model. To do this you first must activate the reference which locks it so that it can’t be edited by other users in another session. Activating a reference is as simple as holding the cursor over a reference element, doing a right click and selecting Activate from the menu.

Note that you can only have one reference active at a time and once opened, all graphical elements that do not reside in the reference are rendered grey. This colour is controlled by the Active Reference Override Color option of the Reference category in the Workspace Preferences dialog and can easily be changed to suit your needs. And, in the Reference dialog, a black dot will appear in the Activate Status column which indicates that the reference is open for editing and can’t be opened by other users in another session.

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Once all the needed edits are complete, a right click and Deactivate is all that’s needed to return to the master design file. In doing so, the file’s activate status changes from Activated which was indicated by a black dot, to Write Locked which is shown by a tick mark.

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When you activate a reference, you acquire the write-lock which prevents other users from modifying the file while you're working on it. You then hold the locks until you either explicitly release them or exit the design session. In this manner, a single user may hold the lock for multiple files at the same time. The reason that deactivate doesn't automatically release the lock, is that once the lock is relinquished it is not possible to undo changes.

Geospatial PDF support

Geospatial PDF files are now supported as an input format in Raster Manager. To quickly see if a PDF is geospatial, refer to the thumbnail information when attaching it as a raster reference.

Interface with Google Earth

While not new, the ability to interface with Google Earth provides a rich, accurate and intuitive backdrop for your projects. MicroStation can export the design file data as a KML file which is an XML based data structure for creating and sharing geographic data in the Google Earth application. Geometry exported to KML retains the reference and level structure defined in the model which can be used by Google Earth to control the display of the models contents.

In addition, when you have both Google Earth and MicroStation viewing the same general region, you can move between the Google Earth view and the active view using the Synchronize Google Earth View and Follow Google Earth View tools.

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Interfacing with GPS devices

New to MicroStation is the ability to recognize a NMEA compliant GPS device connected to the computer via a serial cable or Bluetooth technology. GPS devices that support NMEA range from inexpensive consumer units up through very sophisticated surveying instruments and provide information such as position, heading, velocity, time, fix type and fix quality.

The GPS dialog provides a number of settings and controls including the ability to track, trail, enter data points, and view centering options. The dialog also provides the ability to playback a previously recorded NMEA file created with GPSRecord which is a standalone recording utility delivered with MicroStation.

For more information, refer to the following wiki article: http://communities.bentley.com/Wiki/view.aspx/Using_Global_Positioning_System_Devices

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AutoCAD R2010 support

Autodesk changed file format in AutoCAD R2010 DWG, and as a result, RealDWG R2009-based products such as MicroStation V8i SS1 are unable to open or create R2010 DWG files. MicroStation V8i SS2 will support the new file format but it will not be commercially available for a while. Since we realize our users need to be able to open and create R2010 DWG files now, we have released an update -- Bentley V8i SS1 - Autodesk® RealDWGTM 2010 -- to use now. This update is a shared program that extends MicroStation V8i SS1 based products to be able to open and create R2010 DWG files.

Utilizing WMS imagery

A Web Map Service, or WMS for short, is a standard protocol developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for the transfer of georeferenced map images over the internet. The images are generated by a map server and eliminate the need for users to store and maintain images locally. In addition to transmitting imagery, a WMS server can also provide vector data representing different features such as roads, hydrography, and so forth. The vector data is not transmitted as is, but is rasterized by the WMS server before being sent to the receiving application.

The first step for accessing data from a WMS server is to create a .xWMS file, which is an .xml file containing information about the WMS server URL. Once the .xWMS file has been created it can be attached like any other raster file. One particularity of a WMS raster is that it does not have a fixed number of resolutions. Instead, it has an unlimited number of resolutions which are defined by the bounding box requested in world coordinates and the number of pixels requested in for a particular bounding box. In some instances, a no image icon will display. This occurs when the WMS server isn't able to send the raster data due to it being off-line, or that there is no image available at the requested resolution.

For more information on using streaming raster technology, please refer to the following wiki article:

http://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/microstation_v8i/w/MicroStation_V8i__Wiki/raster-manager-_2D00_-server-streaming-raster-visualization.aspx