VOLUME 18
THE WORLD’S LARGEST CIRCULATION MICROSTATION® PRINT PUBLICATION
ISSUE 11
MicroStation
®
Now you don’t have to fiddle with crooked raster
reference files. Learn how you can automatically
deskew crooked scans. Page 1
Tips & Tricks
Find Out How to Quickly Replace any
Number of Cells in Multiple Design Files.
Ever had a project come back because cells
that were placed in multiple design files are the
wrong ones? Here’s a fast and easy solution.
Page 3.
TODAY
Time-saving MicroStation News
How Do You Get Tall Excel Pastes to
Fit Into Your MicroStation Borders?
Works with Word, too!
By Eiren Smith
Have you ever suffered
from the myriad shortcomings which plague
MicroStation’s “Paste
Special” command?
If you’ve ever tried
to get a tall Excel or
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MicroStation News
An Easy Way to Fit those Tall Pastes
Inside Your MicroStation Borders
Do you have tall pastes that need to fit into
small spaces? Tired of making multiple pastes
with little sections of data? Here’s how to do it
all in one shot. Page 1.
Axiom News
Fix those Crooked Scans —
Automatically!
RasterDgn™ lets you easily deskew crooked
scans automatically. Plus, RasterDgn is
packed with other features such as copy, move
and delete that allow you to edit raster files
without leaving MicroStation. Page 1.
When Will You Upgrade to
2012 CAD Products?
Now
In 3 to 6 Months
No Plans
In 6 to 9 Months
Within 3 Months
In 9 to 12 Months
Source: www.caddmanager.com
Project changes are a fact of life. Having to
manually replace MicroStation cells one at a time
in all your project files doesn’t have to be. Page 3.
Word paste into a short
space, you know the
kind of problems I’m
talking about. In fact,
in talking with our
customers, we found
that one of the tasks
that people were taking the longest time
on was trying to make
tall pastes from Excel
or Word fit inside
their DGN borders.
They were manually
splitting up tall data
into multiple pastes.
Trying to do this is
both time-consuming
and frustrating. Simply
changing text size is
seldom an option as
the text must be readable in the plot and
almost always must
follow a CAD standard that dictates the
text size. Fortunately
for Microsoft Office
Figure 1. Microsoft Office Importer’s™ new feature allows users to easily
fit tall pastes into short spaces in design files by splitting the data into
sections. Users can also select which (if any) of the rows in a paste should
be used as repeating headers for each of the sections created.
Importer™ owners, this
(and many other issues
with importing Excel
or Word data) isn’t an
issue.
Microsof t Of fice
Importer has a feature
called “split paste into
columns”. This feature
is great when you have
a tall paste that you
want to fit into a short
area, such as within
a border. To use this
feature, all you have to
do is put a checkmark
next to the “Split paste
into columns.” option
in Microsoft Of fice
Importer’s tool settings
box. (See Figure 2.)
Now, when you go
to put a tall paste into
See “How to Get Tall
Pastes into Short
MicroStation Spaces”
on page 2.
RasterDgn™ Makes it Easy to Permanently
Deskew Raster Reference Files!
Change the actual
raster reference file, not
just the way it displays
in one DGN file.
By Eiren Smith
Do you have crooked
raster reference files
of s c anne d drawings? Do you find
yourself rotating the
same raster reference
file in MicroStation
every time you attach that raster file
to another DGN file?
MicroStation’s Raster
M a n a g e r d o e s n’ t
change the actual raster file, it just changes how it displays in
that one instance in
the current DGN file,
meaning the deskewing is never permanent
as the raster file itself
doesn’t get changed.
So, every time you attach the raster reference file, you also
have to manu a l ly
deskew it again with
MicroStation’s Raster
Manager.
This kind of double-work is completely avoidable. Axiom’s
RasterDgn can deskew
the actual raster file
such as a TIFF or CIT
(a common Intergraph
raster file format) file
so you never have
to fix its rotation in
MicroStation again.
You deskew it once
with RasterDgn and
it st ay s de skewed
because RasterDgn
changes the actual raster file, not just how it
is displayed as referenced to one DGN file.
Even better, RasterDgn
doesn’t require you to
figure out the angle
you need to deskew
by to make the raster
file level — RasterDgn
can scan the raster
file and calculate its
skew angle completely automatically.
Figure 1. Each of RasterDgn’s™ features such as deskew, copy (shown
above), move, delete and more are easy to use. Once you know how
to use one, you can use them all. RasterDgn is the easiest way to edit
your color and monochrome raster reference files — without leaving
MicroStation and keeps MicroStation users in control of their raster
reference files with little or no training.
We hear from customers all the time
with scanned drawings that are skewed.
It’s a common side effect of scanning large
batches of old drawings, especially if the
folks scanning them
used an automatic
document feeder to
speed up the scanning
job. And when people need to scan tens
of thousands of drawings, they do whatever
they can to save time.
Sometimes this results
in 100,000 skewed raster files. Rescanning
the skewed drawings
would be way too costly, and carefully rotating them by hand each
time they’re attached
to a DGN file, over and
over, is tedious and
error-prone.
Deskewing a
Referenced
Raster File with
RasterDgn
RasterDgn makes short
work of this. Here’s
how.
1. Open a DGN file
with a skewed raster reference file
See “Easily Deskew
Raster Reference
Files” on page 2.
www.AxiomInt.com • Fax 727-442-8344
Page 2 • MicroStation Today
How to Get Tall Pastes into Short MicroStation Spaces
Continued from page 1
your DGN file, you’ll be
able to have Microsoft
Office Importer automatically split your paste into
multiple columns so that it
fits into the space you need
it to. Don’t confuse these
you’re trying, for instance,
to place a tall paste inside
a sheet border.
The result (as shown in
Figure 3) is that your paste
starts where you choose
and then continues to the
right (as you drag the cursor down and to the right)
(the first “n” rows of your
paste) at the top of each
of the columns it automatically creates in your
Figure 3. Microsoft Office Importer lets you easily fit a
large paste perfectly inside your border.
Figure 2. With the “split paste into columns” feature,
getting tall pastes to fit into short spaces is simple to do.
columns in the DGN file
with Excel’s columns —
the paste that Microsoft
Office Importer is splitting
into multiple columns can
contain as many Excel columns and rows as you like.
This feature splits your
Excel paste into columns
in the DGN file. In effect,
your tall paste (of multiple
Excel columns and rows)
flows naturally from one
column in your DGN file
to the next column (from
left to right). This works
with pastes from Word as
well. This feature is great if
and automatically creates
one or more “columns”.
You don’t have to violate
your CAD standard by
shrinking your text to illegally small (and possibly
hard to read) sizes to get
it to fit inside your short
space (such as a border)
and you don’t have to make
several different pastes to
get the desired result.
What If You Have
Header Rows in Your
Excel Paste?
Often, Excel data such as
summaries, schedules,
bills of materials and the
like have header rows at
the top. Without Microsoft
Office Importer, you would
have to paste the header
rows separately into your
DGN file for each col-
makes this automatic as
well. Simply check the
“Repeat XLS header of
‘n’ rows in each column.”
checkbox and enter the
number of rows of column headers you have.
Figure 4. If you are splitting your Excel paste into
columns, Microsoft Office Importer lets you repeat any
number of rows of Excel headers at the top of each
column in your DGN file!
umn except the first column. This is inefficient,
not to mention annoying.
Microsoft Office Importer
(See Figure 4.) Microsoft
Office Importer will automatically duplicate your
Excel spreadsheet’s headers
Easily Deskew Raster Reference Files
Continued from page 1
attached in Micro­
Station. RasterDgn supports MicroStation V8
2004 Edition, XM and
V8i. For this exam-
For this example, we’ll use
the default (“Calculate automatically”) as it actually
does an incredibly precise
job. Also note the “Pivot
Corner” setting, which
lets you choose the cor-
ple, I’ll use the tutorial sample file “rasdgn.
dgn” delivered with
RasterDgn, which is
usually saved in “c:\
Program Files\Axiom\
V8\RasDgn\Sample\”.
Observe that it is indeed skewed.
2. S e l e c t A x i o m |
RasterDgn for V8 from
the Axiom menu.
3. Choose the {Deskew}
button from t he
RasterDgn toolbar. The
“RasterDgn Deskew”
tool settings box will
appear.
Note: In addition to aut om at i c c a l c u l at i on ,
RasterDgn allows you to
enter a skew angle value or
use a two-points method.
ner to pivot the raster file
about when deskewing it.
I’ll leave the default corner
chosen, “Left-Top”.
4. If you have only one
raster reference file attached to your active DGN
to your active DGN file,
choose the one you want
to deskew with a data point
and RasterDgn will calculate its skew angle.
5. Once RasterDgn has
calculated the raster file’s
skew angle, place a data
point anywhere in any
view and RasterDgn will
deskew the attached raster file. When it is done,
You’re all done! You just
deskewed your raster reference file automatically with
RasterDgn. The raster file
itself has been deskewed
so you’ll never need to
deskew it again!
Call Now!
For more information
on RasterDgn, contact
an Axiom MicroStation
You deskew it once with RasterDgn and it
stays deskewed because RasterDgn changes
the actual raster file, not just how it is
displayed as referenced to one DGN file.
file, RasterDgn will immediately calculate its
skew angle and report it
in its tool settings box. If
you have multiple raster
reference files attached
You don’t have to violate
your CAD standard by
shrinking your text to
illegally small (and possibly
hard to read) sizes to get
it to fit inside your short
space (such as a border)
and you don’t have to make
several different pastes to
get the desired result.
DGN file. It’s automatic and, to quote a few
Microsoft Office Importer
users, “Awesome.”
As a note, the “Split
paste into columns” feature
works with ProjectWise
and doesn’t require any
special training for pasting from files stored in
ProjectWise. Once you’ve
tried it for yourself, it’s
like riding a bike. You
won’t forget how to use
it, and I’m pretty sure you
See the Time-savings
for Yourself with Our
Free 45-day Lease!
For more information on Microsoft Office
Importer or to receive a
free 45-day lease, contact
an Axiom MicroStation
Consultant today! Call
727-442-7774 extension 1508, e-mail 1508@
AxiomInt.com or visit
Axiom on the Web at
www.AxiomInt.com now!
MST
Formatting problems with
imported spreadsheets?
See the Time-Savings for Yourself
With Our Free 45-day Lease!
RasterDgn’s deskew feature works directly on the raster
file, not just the view.
Figure 2. RasterDgn’s Deskew tool can determine the
exact skew angle of your raster reference file. You can
choose the corner to pivot about when deskewing.
won’t want to go back
to MicroStation’s “Paste
Special” tool ever again.
you will see the deskewed
raster file in MicroStation
immediately — there is no
need to reopen your DGN
file to reload the deskewed
raster file. It just works.
Call 727-442-7774 extension 2765 in the United States.
Consultant today! Call 727442-7774 extension 2833, email [email protected]
or visit Axiom on the Web
at www.AxiomInt.com
now! MST
Why spend time
messing with
the spreadsheets
you impor t into
MicroStation? Get
perfect formatting
every time — even
with huge pastes
— with links that automatically update (or
not, based on your preference) when the
source file changes. The latest version also
helps fit tall pastes into your design file.
Call 727-442-7774
extension 2633 or visit
www.AxiomInt.com/microsoft-office-importer.
Need to make global changes
to your MicroStation files?
Find out how to modify — in batch — text,
elements and settings
in your design files.
Call 727-442-7774
extension 2636 or visit
www.AxiomInt.com/global-file-changer.
E-mail [email protected].
www.AxiomInt.com • Fax 727-442-8344
Page 3 • MicroStation Today
Tips & Tricks
most users just press the “Browse for files” button.
This will allow you to navigate to and select each
file that should be processed. Once your files are selected, press {OK}.
Quickly and easily
replace cells in all of your
design files — in batch.
By Rick Sewell,
Axiom Director of
Customer Services
Rejected! You know
the feeling. It’s the one
that washes away any
sense of satisfaction
you might have had
when you completed
and submitted that last
project. In looking over
Rick Sewell, Axiom Director the reason the project
of Customer Services, has
was rejected, you find
been helping CAD users
out that the wrong cell
with their MicroStation
was placed multiple
problems for over a
times in each of your
decade.
design files. What’s
worse — the client didn’t provide the correct cell until
after the “wrong one” was already placed. If only they’d
given the right spec!
If it was just one design file, it wouldn’t be a problem,
but this project has over 500 design files! So much for
the weekend. While the changes aren’t hard, the correction will easily eat up days. This is certainly not the
most efficient use of your time — or your skills.
Lucky for MicroStation users like you, there’s a solution — Global File Changer. Global File Changer has
a built-in custom command that allows you to replace
— in batch — all instances of a cell in any number
of design files, while retaining all the database linkages and tags that are associated with that cell, if you
choose. Here’s how:
1. Load Global File Changer from your Axiom pulldown menu.
2. Select Custom | Replace cells… to open the “Replace
Cells” dialog box. (See Figure 1.)
3. At the top of the “Replace Cells” dialog box will be
a field labeled “Which cell library contains the new
cells?”. Press the {Select…} button next to this field,
then browse to and select the cell library that contains the correct cell — the cell that you want to be
added to your design files.
4. Under the “Cell replacement rules” section you simply place the name of the old cell that you want to
replace in the field labeled “Existing cell:”. Place the
name of the new cell that you want to add in the
Figure 1. Global File Changer lets you make unlimited
changes to multiple design files quickly and easily.
The “Custom” menu contains a growing number of
built-in commands that just cannot easily be done
using MicroStation key-in commands.
field labeled “New cell:”. In Figure 2, below, we’re
using “P2” as the old cell and “P300” as the new cell.
5. Press the {OK} button on the Replace Cells dialog
box and you will be prompted to choose a location
and file name for saving the cell replacement instructions you just created for Global File Changer
to use while processing. Do so and press {OK} to
return to the main Global File Changer dialog box.
Figure 3. The {Browse for files} button makes it easy
to select any number of design files that contain the
cell you want to have replaced. Whether you select
a few or a few hundred files, Global File Changer will
process them all in batch, quickly replacing the cells
in all of the files you’ve selected.
8. Press {Start} on the main Global File Changer dialog box.
In just a matter of minutes, the job will be complete! Your
client (or boss) won’t believe that you made the necessary changes in such a short amount of time. Now you
can go back to the sense of satisfaction of finally having
the project complete.
Find Out More Cool Tricks You Can Do With
Global File Changer!
Figure 2. Global File Changer allows you to replace
one or more cells in any number of files in batch.
6. From the main Global File Changer dialog box,
press {Select…}, which is next to the “Design Files:”
field. This will open the “Choose Files to Process”
dialog box.
7. In the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box, you can
browse for all of the files you need to process. There
is more than one way to select your files for processing. From talking to customers, I’ve found that
Solve MicroStation
Problems Fast!
MicroStation Acceleration Garage
For more information on Global File Changer or to obtain a free trial version, contact an Axiom MicroStation
Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774 extension 2682, email [email protected] or visit Axiom on the Web
at www.AxiomInt.com now!
Send Us Your MicroStation Tips!
Send your favorite MicroStation tip or trick to
[email protected]. We will give you full credit for
the tip and your peers will look at you with reverence. MST
60
40
80
MPH
100
(MicroStation Productivity per Hour)
20
120
140
™
Garage includes tools that allow you to:
0
160
• Train on MicroStation, GEOPAK, InRoads
and AutoCAD without leaving your desk!
• Easily edit raster reference files — in color —
without leaving MicroStation!
• Solve any MicroStation reference file problem
fast!
• And much more!
• Import spreadsheet and word processing data
into MicroStation with perfect formatting!
• Make unlimited changes to multiple design files
quickly and easily!
• Achieve title block consistency automatically!
• Take control of your MicroStation cell libraries!
Call 727-442-7774 extension 2765 in the United States.
• Perform quality-assurance checks on your
MicroStation files quickly and easily!
For more information on Garage, call
727-442-7774 extension 1642, e‑mail
[email protected] or visit Axiom on the
Web at www.AxiomInt.com!
E-mail [email protected].
www.AxiomInt.com • Fax 727-442-8344
Page 4 • MicroStation Today
Get Translations Between DGN and
DWG Files Done Right the First Time!
With Translation Manager,™
you can:
• Avoid messy translations
between MicroStation
and AutoCAD.
• Simplify the process of
translating files between
MicroStation and
AutoCAD and improve
the results.
• Get your translations
done right the first time!
Translating files using MicroStation’s or AutoCAD’s built-in translator
alone often creates messy files requiring someone to spend hours
fixing each file after the translation. In some cases, it’s faster to recreate
CAD files from scratch, rather than trying to correct translated design
or drawing files. Some of the more common types of problems with
translated files include fonts that don’t map correctly, problems with
element or entity symbology (such as incorrect style, weight or color),
incorrect units (DWG units or MicroStation working units), symbols
(such as degree symbols) that come out wrong, lost levels (when
translating from MicroStation) and lost layers (when translating from
AutoCAD).
Call 727-442-7774 extension 2334, e-mail
[email protected] or visit Axiom on
the Web at www.AxiomInt.com now!
Copyright 1995–2011 Axiom. All Rights Reserved. Acceleration Garage, Global File Changer, RefManager, Title Block Administrator, Title Block Client, Title Block Manager and Translation Manager are trademarks of Axiom. MicroStation and InRoads are trademarks of Bentley Systems‚
Incorporated. Neither Axiom nor MicroStation Today are affiliated with Bentley Systems‚ Incorporated. GEOPAK is a trademark of GEOPAK Corporation. Axiom is not an affiliate or licensee of GEOPAK Corporation. Other trademarks are held by their respective owners. Not responsible
for inadvertent errors.
Call 727-442-7774 extension 2765 in the United States.
E-mail [email protected].