Doug Persson, Chairman of OSWCU, opened the third meeting of 2003 at 5:30 P.M. on January 22, 2003. The meeting was held in the conference room of HDR Engineering. Doug introduced himself (Chairperson), John Volk (Vice Chairperson) Tina Chee (Treasurer), and Lesli Merhaut. (Secretary).

Doug invited the meeting attendees to introduce themselves.
In addition:

• He also announced the topics for the remaining meetings for 2003.
• Encouraged people to visit the OSWCU web site often since it is kept up to date with any news or happenings on a frequent basis.

The meeting consisted of the introduction of Dana Ramer of PDOT (Portland Department of Transportation), who gave a presentation and was followed by a question and answer session. Dana’s section of PDOT has dived headfirst in the use of Microstation V8. The presentation covered PDOT’s foray into the use of Microstation V8 and their subsequent trials and travails.

The meeting was divided into two main topics: Tips and Potential Problems.

Tips:

The 1st and biggest issue was opening V7 (J) files in V8. In configuration variables, there are several modes available for accessing, reading and writing to V7 files. The options are 0, 1, 2 or 3, depending on the level of access required. See Configuration (in the Workspace menu), Operation.

PDOT is gradually converting cell libraries as they move deeper into use of V8. Apparently this is readily accomplished by selecting a V7 cell library, upon which a prompt appears asking if the user wants to convert. Pick yes, and the conversion only takes a moment.

AutoCAD Fonts: You will have to define where to look for the AutoCAD fonts. This can be done by picking Workspace/Configuration/DWG/DXF, AutoCAD shx definition.

Levels: in the conversion of a V7 file to a V8 file, unused levels are created. These can be deleted.

Cell libraries can be opened as design files. Each cell can be viewed in its own window and all cells are fully revisable.

A level file can be imported into different files.

Potential Problems:

Since there are so many levels now available, there is a tendency to put everything in one file. If it’s later decided to merge two files together, any overlap in levels will blend everything in each file, which are on the same level into one level, causing obvious issues. The workaround is to keep the files separate and use them as references.

When placing a cell at it’s actual created size, pick Place Active Cell, click the dropdown, and choose True Scale.

Use care in working with V7 files while using V8 mode.

When converting files to AutoCAD: in the auxiliary coordinate systems, make sure the origin is 0,0 or the coordinates won’t be correct in the converted file.

All MDLs will have to be recompiled.

This informative meeting ended at 7:30pm.
Meeting Pictures