Exporting Civil 3D to Microstation ...

[curt.moreno]

So today I was confronted with the question "Can you export project files from Civil 3D to Microstation for submittal to a DOT successfully?"

I don't know. I have never had to do this so I was wondering if anyone has had experience with this scenario. Chiefly I'm looking answers to the following:

1. Was the fidelity between the two formats comparable?
2. Were you drafting standards maintained as to be able to produce plan sheet correctly from the DGN file?
3. Did the DGN require a lengthy cleaning and / or QA process?
4. Would you consider the effort a success?
5. If you use an interim application for the process what was it?

As always I appreciate any information you have.

- Curt Moreno -

[Sinc]

Civil 3D cannot create DGN files, so if they require DGN files, then no, C3D can't do it.

However, Microstation can open DWG files, so as long as they aren't strict about "files must be DGN", then it can be possible. I believe you would basically need to export everything to plain-Autocad format, though - at least, last I heard, Microstation cannot read any C3D objects yet.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[nzeeben]

C3D has the ability to export to DGN. I cant speak to the submittal process.

See the attached image. Edited by: nzeeben on Sep 18, 2009 4:43 PM
Forgot to include image

[Sinc]

Ah! All this time, and I hadn't noticed that.

Anyone tried it? What works best, exporting DGN from C3D, or opening DWG from Microstation? I know that going the other way, we have better luck with DWG files created out of Microstation than we do with DGNs imported into C3D.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[Anonymous]

look at your microstation version you may in fact be able to simply open the
dwg in the dgn interface. this is available with powercivil with dwg version
civil 3d 2008 and i believe 2009 but not 2010.

wrote in message news:6257125@discussion.autodesk.com...
Ah! All this time, and I hadn't noticed that.

Anyone tried it? What works best, exporting DGN from C3D, or opening DWG
from Microstation? I know that going the other way, we have better luck
with DWG files created out of Microstation than we do with DGNs imported
into C3D.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[Anonymous]

Hi Sinc,

It's been available in Map since the early days of Land Desktop.

It used to (I haven't used it for years) require careful preparation of
a translation library to ensure layers, colours etc, are transformed as
required. It probably still does require a translation library.

Regards,


Laurie Comerford

dei-feif wrote:
> Ah! All this time, and I hadn't noticed that.
>
> Anyone tried it? What works best, exporting DGN from C3D, or opening DWG from Microstation? I know that going the other way, we have better luck with DWG files created out of Microstation than we do with DGNs imported into C3D.
>
> -- Sinc
> http://www.ejsurveying.com
> http://www.quuxsoft.com

[Sinc]

Hmmm... That might make it challenging to use. Not being a Microstation user, I would have no idea what to do in order to create a proper translation library.

Is that the sort of thing that would ideally be provided by the DOT (or whoever wants the Microstation submittals)?

Also, what happens to civil objects? Does "Export to DGN" work like "Export to AutoCAD", and destroy all Civil elements? If so, I presume that a LandXML dump would also be required.

How about on the Microstation end? If it can open C3D drawings, can PowerCivil or InRoads convert all the Alignment, Profile, Surface, etc. data?

Our experience so far has primarily been on the other end, where we use C3D to work with drawings created in Microstation (usually InRoads), using the "Import DGN" option to get the data into C3D. We can generally work with the files, but it is far from seamless, and we run into a lot of "quirks". But since we are typically using the DGN files for construction, we can typically do what we need to do. We don't have to worry about submitting things to a review agency. Civil elements typically do not come through, and TIN surfaces in drawings in particular are usually mangled beyond all use, but we usually get enough linework that we can get by.

We've even submitted asbuilt drawings back to the engineer (typically when working with the Army Corps), but so far, we've just given them DWG files. From what I gather, they then take that data and merge it into their DGN files somehow. Again, they seem to suffer some "quirks" and annoyances, but they seem to manage to get what they need.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[Anonymous]

The Map3d Export to MicroStation requires all the Civil3D objects to be
converted into vanilla AutoCAD objects the same as exporting to ESRI shp
format. As for the layers blocks and etc you can use what is called a seed
file that will convert the layers to the MS levels and blocks to their cells
when using the map export. The seed file should be provided by the DOTs, I
know in Tennessee they provide all the info needed to convert to their
standards.

--
Murph
www.map3d.wordpress.com


"dei-feif" wrote in message news:6257252@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hmmm... That might make it challenging to use. Not being a Microstation
user, I would have no idea what to do in order to create a proper
translation library.

Is that the sort of thing that would ideally be provided by the DOT (or
whoever wants the Microstation submittals)?

Also, what happens to civil objects? Does "Export to DGN" work like "Export
to AutoCAD", and destroy all Civil elements? If so, I presume that a
LandXML dump would also be required.

How about on the Microstation end? If it can open C3D drawings, can
PowerCivil or InRoads convert all the Alignment, Profile, Surface, etc.
data?

Our experience so far has primarily been on the other end, where we use C3D
to work with drawings created in Microstation (usually InRoads), using the
"Import DGN" option to get the data into C3D. We can generally work with
the files, but it is far from seamless, and we run into a lot of "quirks".
But since we are typically using the DGN files for construction, we can
typically do what we need to do. We don't have to worry about submitting
things to a review agency. Civil elements typically do not come through,
and TIN surfaces in drawings in particular are usually mangled beyond all
use, but we usually get enough linework that we can get by.

We've even submitted asbuilt drawings back to the engineer (typically when
working with the Army Corps), but so far, we've just given them DWG files.
From what I gather, they then take that data and merge it into their DGN
files somehow. Again, they seem to suffer some "quirks" and annoyances, but
they seem to manage to get what they need.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[Anonymous]

The Map3d Export to MicroStation requires all the Civil3D objects to be
converted into vanilla AutoCAD objects the same as exporting to ESRI shp
format. As for the layers blocks and etc you can use what is called a seed
file that will convert the layers to the MS levels and blocks to their cells
when using the map export. The seed file should be provided by the DOTs, I
know in Tennessee they provide all the info needed to convert to their
standards.

--
Murph
www.map3d.wordpress.com


"dei-feif" wrote in message news:6257252@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hmmm... That might make it challenging to use. Not being a Microstation
user, I would have no idea what to do in order to create a proper
translation library.

Is that the sort of thing that would ideally be provided by the DOT (or
whoever wants the Microstation submittals)?

Also, what happens to civil objects? Does "Export to DGN" work like "Export
to AutoCAD", and destroy all Civil elements? If so, I presume that a
LandXML dump would also be required.

How about on the Microstation end? If it can open C3D drawings, can
PowerCivil or InRoads convert all the Alignment, Profile, Surface, etc.
data?

Our experience so far has primarily been on the other end, where we use C3D
to work with drawings created in Microstation (usually InRoads), using the
"Import DGN" option to get the data into C3D. We can generally work with
the files, but it is far from seamless, and we run into a lot of "quirks".
But since we are typically using the DGN files for construction, we can
typically do what we need to do. We don't have to worry about submitting
things to a review agency. Civil elements typically do not come through,
and TIN surfaces in drawings in particular are usually mangled beyond all
use, but we usually get enough linework that we can get by.

We've even submitted asbuilt drawings back to the engineer (typically when
working with the Army Corps), but so far, we've just given them DWG files.
From what I gather, they then take that data and merge it into their DGN
files somehow. Again, they seem to suffer some "quirks" and annoyances, but
they seem to manage to get what they need.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[dfarris75]

Here are some threads you might look into. With Microstation v8 I think they made some advances towards making a translation from Acad to Ms a little easier. Before that you needed to do the setup (translation files) for it. That's going from Acad to Ms though. Going the other direction is different. I would recommend reading in the help file about it as it does cover it some.

http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=26162.0

http://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=23564.0

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=30819&highlight=microstation

If you search around both those forums you'll find many more threads that cover the topic (not necessarily re: c3d, but Acad/Ms translations).

[dfarris75]

It helps a great deal if you have both AutoCAD and Microstation so you can play around with translating between the two.

May not hurt to browse the Bentley forums on the subject too.
http://communities.bentley.com/forums/273/ShowForum.aspx

When it comes down to it, to answer your question, I would say yes, it can be done with some upfront work. I would highly recommend calling your local dot and discussing it with them. Find out if other firms are doing this and try to find out how they go about it if you can.

With the project I'm working on (see other forums linked in my previous post) I have got it down to where I simply saveas my dwg to r2000 format (Ms v7 doesn't seem to handle any later formats than that in my experience) then I open or import that r2000 file into Ms. From there all I have to do is attach the proper color table (for some reason when I bring in an acad file it overrides the color table that is already attached so I have to reattach) and then select the text entities and change the font. That's it.

The trickiest part I have experienced is getting things to land where they are supposed to be. I have had to use a dwg exported from Ms (from the same project) as a template every time I do the conversion. I start a blank dwg from said template (it's actually a dwg file) and perform a Map query to bring in everything I need/want to translate to Ms, then saveas to r2000 format. I then take it to Ms and - see previous paragraph.

It's weird, but I've got the algorithm down to the point that it is a fairly smooth conversion. Not without lots of testing and headaches in the beginning though. After I convert I send to the other firm and call or email to confirm that all went well on their end. He says "came in just fine".

This is all just concerning the drawings though, not the data. You'll have to find out from your dot what they expect in terms of data. They will likely expect a proposed surface in a format their grading machines can make use of. Who knows what else they'll want. Edited by: dfarris75 on Sep 19, 2009 9:15 PM

[mike.barkasi]

All

It really isnt rocket science..

Just open the Dwg in Microstation (Or PowerCivil) and save as Dgn, its been that way since 2001(V8).

Note Microstation does not have the object enablers used by Civil 3D so you will have to first export to AutoCad- (That sounds funny-"export C3d to AutoCad")

Next release will debut True Dwg in Microstation... what is this??? it is the Dwg libraries Autodesk and Bentley exchanged in their agreement last year... Imagine that a "True' (trusted) Dwg From Microstation.

Mike Barkasi
Bentley Civil Professional Services

[Sinc]

If that's the way it is for Microstation to convert DWG to DGN, then it sounds far easier for us to continue to send our DWG format to them, and let them worry about it. From what dfarris is saying, that sounds much easier than trying to create the DGNs out of Civil 3D. From what I've heard from our clients that want DGN files, the biggest problem they have is something related to text styles, which don't convert well or something. I don't know the details, all I know is that they don't really like getting DWG files from us, but they can make them work.

Of course, we have it easy, in that all we're trying to send is asbuilt drawings. We don't have a giant plan set, with P&P pages and data shortcuts and XREFs et al., that we need to send to a DOT. We just need to send some bare-bones linework and text.

-- Sinc
http://www.ejsurveying.com
http://www.quuxsoft.com

[Civil3DReminders]

The main problem is when the agency isn't using the most current version of Microstation. Bentley has the same problem as Autodesk in that not everyone wants to use the most current version of the program.

Christopher

[nzeeben]

Sinc,

The export to DGN behaves like the export to AutoCAD, breaks the objects down into basic linework, blocks(cells) etc.

[Anonymous]

Welcome back, Mike, we've missed you.

Been hanging out with your PW pals of late. Interesting toy you have there.

JW

[dfarris75]

Sinc, In my experience after converting a dwg to dgn I usually just have to grab all the text entities and switch to the desired font. Pretty easy to do, but maybe they're having other issues...

[dfarris75]

Chris, You might rephrase that "not everyone has the funds to use the most current version of the program". Most people like to use the current version but budgeting gets in the way of that frequently. Others find that it is just overpriced and continue using an older version as they don't find it necessary.

[david.dixon]

We are also currently trying to figure out the best way to convert from Civil 3D to Microstation DGN for one of our Government clients (you can probably guess who). The DGN Converter in Microstation v8 XM seems to work well. All seems to convert OK except the Civil 3D labels that have annotative scaling attached to them (grades, contour labels). We have some site plans with enlarged views at different scales. All of the labels export at the "primary" view scale. Exporting the DWG to DWG first does not help. The "Maintain Visual Fidelity" option in eTransmit does not seem to play well with Civil 3D label objects.

Also, the background masks come over as "0,0,0" color solid hatches, so that takes a little cleanup as well.

Dave