MicroStation Tips & Hints A presentation by Rande Robinson November 15, 2018

THE LEGAL STUFF (The stuff my “bosses” make me add.) The Opinions (no matter how well thought out they are) expressed in this presentation are my own and do not represent the views or policies of the North Carolina Department of Transportation or any other government agency, foreign, domestic or extraterrestrial. (the fine print - Although they should)

One More Thing (more cover my A%# stuff.) I didn’t make this stuff up. I have “borrowed, begged and appropriated most of the information in this presentation from a variety of sources so I apologize up front if I haven’t given (INSERT NAME) proper credit. Sorry but you shouldn’t have shared your knowledge if you didn’t want others to find out about it….. ( like Bentley and Manuals) 3

ALT+DATA to MATCH To quickly match an elements level, color, line style or line weight: hold the pointer over the element, and press ALT+Data. The active attributes will change to match the element under the pointer.

Quick Info Rather that using the Element Information dialog to retrieve bits of information about a selected element, simply use the Quick Info dialog. To use it simply hover your cursor over the element and press ALT+RESET. This will allow one to not only review the element but change it.

Double Click to Fit View Simply double click the middle mouse button (wheel) in the view to go from this To This

Multiple Action Strings (1) This feature has been documented over the years but it's still well worth doing a brief review on. MicroStation recognizes keyed-in commands, obviously, but it can also recognize a series of keyins entered in a single string with each keyin separated from the next by a ';' (semicolon). This allows you to create a customized keyin for a specific operation which can then be attached to a custom menu item (dropdown, toolbox, function key, etc.). An example of this type of keyin is: lv=cogo default sprial;wt=3;co=2;lc=2;place line constrained

Multiple Action Strings (2) You can use this to set Active Angle, Active Scale, Active Cell, or any other parameter or operation that can be accessed via a keyin (which is almost all of them). If you want to perform a view attribute setting operation and have your view(s) automatically selected and updated, use something like this: set weight off;selview 1;update all

Multiple Action Strings (3) If you don't know the keyin for a specific operation, you can open the Keyin window (Utilities -> Keyin). Make sure that it's 'free-floating' (not docked) and expand it so that you can see the keyin list

Remap Elements in Level Manager To quickly move elements from one level to another. 1.Select source level in Level Manager, 2.right click and choose Remap Elements to Level . 3. Then select the destination level. 1 3 done 2

Eye Dropper In the True Color Tab of the Active Color Dialog, you can select, hold and drag the eyedropper to ANWHERE on your monitor to select a color.

Pop Up the Key-in Browser When in the “Home” Position just hit <ENTER>

% Keyin To start another windows app while in MicroStation just key in %calc or the filename %filename.doc

RPN Calculator NCLUG.COM Need a REAL Calculator? Go to Download a copy from NCLUG.COM Go to Tips and Hints/downloads

Change Font Size in Word Processor Dialog If the text in the word processor dialog is too small or jagged try increasing the display size with this key-in. “wordprocessor displayfontsize x” where x is the size

Change Case Do you know where this command is?

View Different Models You can now view different models in different views. Just use define which model you want in the view’s view attribute dialog box.

Selection Overlap Mode To select elements in inside mode, drag Left to Right To select elements in overlap mode, drag Right to Left

Reset Pop-Up Menu Simply Hold down the Reset or Right mouse button to get the Menu

Free DGN Editor download DualCad at http://www.pcscad.com/index.html DualCAD is a 100% Microstation editor developed by Pangaea Cad Solutions. DualCAD will edit or redline both V7 and V8 Microstation files. DualCAD handles resource files, truetype fonts and user defined linestyles. You can also attach both raster and reference files to your drawing You can create clip regions for the reference files , scale, rotate and move them. You can create cell libraries and add cells to them. DualCAD also has built in macro language based on QBasic. QBasic is about as simple as a programming language can get so people with no programming experience can still create useful macros. Create your next project using DualCAD and be confident that both Microstation and AutoCAD users will be able to call up your drawings without any problems.

How About a DWG editor DraftSight is a new 2D .dwg editor from Dassault Systemes, maker of CATIA and Solidworks. Download from http://www.3ds.com/

MicroStation Web Sites nclug.com

MicroStation Web Sites www.bentleyuser.org

MicroStation Web Sites www.eatyourcad.com

MicroStation Web Sites http://communities.bentley.com/

My E-Mail rjrobinson@ncdot.gov randerobinson@gmail.com Email me at either of the following addresses rjrobinson@ncdot.gov randerobinson@gmail.com

Social Contacts Randall Robinson http://rjrcubed.blogspot.com/ @randerobinson http://communities.bentley.com/blogs/rjrobinsons_blog/default.aspx

Thank You for Your Attention. Q & A Thank You for Your Attention. Any Questions, Comments or Derogatory Statements?

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