Wednesday, May 8, 2002

Meeting Minutes:

(Doug Persson, Chairman of OSWCU, opened the second meeting of 2002 at 5:30 P.M. on May 8, 2002. The meeting was held in the conference room of Kittelson and Assoc.)

Doug introduced himself and John Volk who holds the Vice Chairman position.
Doug invited the 10 meeting attendees to introduce themselves.
John announced door prizes for the meeting were 2 CD Wallets and a Coffee Mug which were donated by Bentley.
Doug opened the business portion of the meeting:


  • Doug announce Board member positions which still need to be filled. We are still in need of a Secretary, Treasurer, and a Web Master. (We are happy to announce that following the the meeting, Tina Chee, of Kittelson and Assoc., volunteered for the Secretary Position. Welcome aboard Tina!)
  • Doug mentioned the topic of the next meeting (see the Meeting Information page for more detail)
  • John introduced the guest speaker, Wendell Gardner, of Bentley Systems, Inc., whose topic was Migration Strategies for Transitioning from V7 to V8.

Synopsis of Wendell's presentation:

    Key Features of V8:
  1. DWG Compatibility
  2. Unlimited Levels
  3. Long Cell Names and Cell Format
  4. New Text Format (recognition of True Type Fonts)
  5. Coordinate Storage
  6. Design File History
  7. New Productivity Tools
Levels of Migration to V8
  • Level 1 - Bare Bones

    Working in V7 mode only
    Keep V7 file format
    Same Levels, Coordinates, Cells, Text, etc.
    Have Increase Ability to work with DWG files
    Take Advantage of DWG Productivity Tools
    MDL, Macros need to be recompiled to V8 format

  • Level 2 - Selected Features

    Work in V8 mode
    Move to New V8 File Format
    Selected Items
    Enhanced Coordinate Storage
    Long Cell Names
    New Text Features
    Keep Levels, Linestyles and Resources as V7
    New Productivity Tools

  • Level 3 - Incremental Approach

    Implement a staged deployment
    Phase I

    • New Level Structure
    • New Cells
    • New Text and Dimension Styles
    • Coordinate System
    • Productivity Tools
    • File Format
    • DWG Compatibility


  • Level 4 - GO WHOLE HOG!

    Phase II

    • Refine Phase I
    • Design File History
    • Models

Real World Example-WSDOT

What WSDOT instituted:

  • Level 3 acceptance
  • Internal Committee (CAD Coordinator from each region)
  • Advisory Group 2-3 users from each region 2-3 outside consultants with ACAD experience
  • Phase I Cells (~200) Linestyles Levels (~800 plan sheets, ~400 basemaps) Text Styles Level = Linestyles = cells = text style - all names have the level indicator Level Libraries

Answers to attendee's questions:
Design file that store information about level settings to be used as a standard for all design files (like a seed file).
Configuration Variables (MS_DGNLIBLIST - enforces CAD Standards).

  1. Sets the Levels in the active DGN file.
  2. User can add levels, but cannot delete information.
  3. Stores level symbology, fonts, text styles and cells.
Original level symbology can be entered by spreadsheet.
Level Name Strategy:
    Be explicit with naming convention
    Naming convention allows for wildcards
    Make use of level filters (ACAD level manager)
    Make use of description fields

OTHER RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT V8
SELECT online V8 Tech Notes
Microstation Manager Magazines
    MSN Insider
    MSNOnline.com/Insider
BIUC Workshops

The meeting adjourned at 7:00 P.M.
Special thanks go out to:
- John Volk for bringing cookies.
- Tina Chee and Kittelson & Assoc. for providing the coffee, water and meeting space.
- Also, thank you to Bentley for providing the meeting door prizes and for furnishing other Bentley give-aways.