MicroStation / Bentley Architecture exporter

[dheselwoodEV]

I wonder if there is anyone that can help.

I am trying to use the Navisworks(NW) exporter from Bentley Architecture. I configure the settings as it seems to indicate but when I open the file in NW I dont appear to have any of the properties of the Bentley Architecture elements such as door Finish, Frame Material, etc.

Anyone know how I can resolve this issue?

Regards,

Daniel Heselwood

[lee.mullin]

We've seen this in a couple of Bentley Architecture models.

Do you have vanilla Microstation? When we tried this out in Microstation minimal properties were visible.

We believe that Bentley Architecture Properties need additional work to bring them through and there is an existing enhancement request for this.

The Bentley products we support in the 2012 release are: -

AutoPLANT
MicroStation J
MicroStation v8 to 8.5, XM (8.9)
ProSteel 3D
TriForma J
TriForma v8 to 8.9

[dheselwoodEV]

Hi Lee,

We have a custom dataset.

What is somewhat confusing is that the converter has a number of options to point to the triforma dataset. Does this means these options aren't used?

Also, on a side-line note, if they do work - do they accept MicroStation/Bentley Architecture variables such as $(TFDIR) or do you need to enter the full path to the dataset (of which is fine for the company version but for the project related dataset information, means editing the paths each time.

I appreciate all your help, thanks Lee.

Regards,

Daniel Heselwood

[lee.mullin]

Hi Dan,

There was some additional work needed to add Triforma to the list of products we support, Bentley Archtiecture looks like it would need similar work.

Honestly I do not know enough about Bentley variables like TFDIR. I would imagine we don't but I'd need to look further into it. If you have a database, you could link to that if you have the correct drivers through DataTools.

[dheselwoodEV]

Hi Lee,

Triforma is the old version of Bentley Architecture - they are reasonably similar in what they do and in fact all the variables used in Triforma now are used for Bentley Architecture e.g. TFDIR = Triforma Directory is also the variable for Bentely Architecture.

There seems to be very limited information on what each of the properties do and very limited information for best practice of setting those variables up - is there any documentation other than what comes with Navisworks which will explain how each of the settings affect an export?

Is there any plan for Autodesk to make this work better than it currently does? - this meta information is obviously key and we dont want to have to resort to using IFC as the implementation between products is different which means exporting and importing tends to cause different issues.

If there is, we (Evolve Consultancy) would be happy to review and help develop the implementation of the plugins for MicroStation / Bentley Architecture.

Regards,

Daniel Heselwood

Evolve Consultancy