Topic: Microstation - Units preferences of users

[Keith™]

I need some basic information concerning units that ties in with my previous question regarding importing blocks into microstation. Yes, I am well on my way to becoming a microstation junkie ... or is that flunkie .. who knows .. anyway I am trying to get as much real world knowledge as possible given my limeted exposure to microstation over the last several years.

So to that extent, I would like as many responses as possible on the following questions:

1) What is your discipline, please be specific as to the types of drawings you do such as: residential/commercial architectural work, structural steel, roadway design, stormwater, survey, traffic impact studies etc.

2) What units settings do you typically use in your discipline. If you use multiple settings, indicate what settings for what type of drawings.

Thanks for the help!

[Bob Wahr]

I thought that you were a real estate mogul now.  How'd you get stuck on Microsuction?

[Keith™]

I thought that you were a real estate mogul now.  How'd you get stuck on Microsuction?

Ah .. my foray into real estate was enlightening and profitable, alas, it is still not over, but I find myself moving back to my previous position, and in the mix taking on a new position, this one proving to be much more challenging ... I suppose the biggest allure was the question .. "can I do it" .. I found out that "yes I can" and "I don't want to continue in that field" ... I tend to be much more intellectual than the job required and found myself butting heads frequently with those who were not.

It also gives me more time to devote to my third love ... I'll let the deviousness of the crowd decide what they think it is

[pmvliet]

working for a A/E company doing commercial, retail, industrial, healthcare, institutional, all disciplines.
I'm not 100% sure what civil used, but I believe they used the same working units.
Prior to V8, working units were set to 96,000 per foot
with V8, working units were set to 304,800 per foot

I know the V8 value is the default and recommended by Bentley for their conversion ability.

I also do Telecommunication stuff in Microstation and use the 96,000 per foot rate.

Pieter

[kindra]

I do predominantly roadway design and structural/bridges, and our working units are set to architectural, which gives us survey feet as master units and survey inches as subunits. I'm afraid I don't understand where you guys are finding the working units 'set' to 96,000 per foot etc. Is that in your .stg file?

[Keith™]

I do predominantly roadway design and structural/bridges, and our working units are set to architectural, which gives us survey feet as master units and survey inches as subunits. I'm afraid I don't understand where you guys are finding the working units 'set' to 96,000 per foot etc. Is that in your .stg file?

In the window where you set the units, you can select the "advanced" button ... it gives the units per unit ... quite confusing if you ask me

[pmvliet]

quite confusing if you ask me

Prior to V8, it use to be on the tab of "working unit"
with the advent of V8, Bentley didn't want this to changed..

In the old days, many would detail multiple scaled drawings by changing the working unit...

I better run, someone might think I am good at microstation  

pieter

[kindra]

Whoa - I just checked mine out. My master units are set to survey feet, my subunits to survey inches, but when I click on 'Advanced', my resolution is 10000 per meter, and my working areas are shown in kilometers! What the heck??

[Keith™]

Whoa - I just checked mine out. My master units are set to survey feet, my subunits to survey inches, but when I click on 'Advanced', my resolution is 10000 per meter, and my working areas are shown in kilometers! What the heck??

Exactly my point .. resolution is set to metric, while working units are set to imperial ... so the bottom line is, that if you place a cell whose settings are not exactly the same, the thing will be scaled wrong ...

[kindra]

Gotta go right now, but I need to check into this. Let me know if you find anything out, Keith.

Jeez, just when you thought you had MicroStation licked 

[CADaver]

Prior to V8, Msta was integer based with a maximum point of 4,294,967,295 square TOTAL. (Imagine a grid of dots 4,294,967,295 per side, made the math easier in 1986, but you can only draw from dot to dot.)  A master-unit (say feet) was divided by sub-units (inches), and then the sub-units were divided by positional-units to determine precision. If you wished a precision of 1/1000th of an inch, you set MU=1', SU=12" (per '), PU=1000 (per ") giving you a design plane (working area) 357,913'-11 19/64" square.  Sounds good until you try drawing at angles.  This integer based system only allows drawing from dot to dot, no fractions of dots (integer).  You can not draw a line one PU long at forty-five degrees, it would be over one full PU, and up one full PU and be 1.414 PUs long.  Doesn't sound like much, but try getting an angular dimension accurate to 3 decimal places over four feet.

So you crank up the Positional-Units one more decimal place from 1000 to 10,000 to provide a finer control of angular dimensions. Oops, that shrinks your design plane down to 35,791 feet per side, just under seven miles.  Great for finer angular dim control, but sucks for highway work. So you play a balancing game with precision for accuracy or area, but you get the idea.

Cells in those days were constructed under the same system so might not be usable in other MU-SU-PUs

Originally Msta shipped with the default setting of MU=1', SU=12" (per ') and PU=2032 (per ") resulting in a design plane of 176,138.75' square.  I'm not sure how they arrived at 2032, and when I asked I was told it had to do with metric to imperial conversions.  When I pressed further I was met with blank stares.  I did notice, however, that 2032 divided by 80 = 25.4, so if you made the SU=1 and the PU=80 and them updated all the dims, it would be millimeters (of course angles would be FUBAR).

You could fiddle with PUs to change drawing scales for multiple scales on one sheet, but it was a load easier to just reference the file to itself at a different scale.

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With V8, Bentley went to a floating point system (like everyone else) but that makes them more compatible with AutoCAD than it does V7.

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BTW, I know nothing at all about Microstation.

[pmvliet]

Gotta go right now, but I need to check into this. Let me know if you find anything out, Keith.

Jeez, just when you thought you had MicroStation licked 

In a word, don't mess with what you have... It can have severe consequences...
It might be good to understand what is going on, but don't change the values as all sorts of things
will change, especially dimensions...

Pieter

[Maverick®]

... I'll let the deviousness of the crowd decide what they think it is

Jeez, just when you thought you had MicroStation licked 

 :whistle: :whistle:

Geez.  The only thing you can do in Softplan is draw.

[Dinosaur]

hmm . . . multiple ways to screw up multiple things to multiple degrees of magnitude . . . I think it is a good thing that this software has not gained favor in our office

[PHX cadie]

I think it is a good thing that this software has not gained favor in our office

favour!

Resistance is futile

(New sig?   )