Christopher Dalgleish's Activities

OpenRoads Designer Chevron Pavement Markings

Matthew Eiben — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 13:24:37 GMT

Does ORD have an equivalent tool to the GEOPAK D&C Manager Pavement Markings for placing chevron markings? It doesn't look like it to me but maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Cross Sections in OpenRoads Designer - How to extract co-ordinates of Section Cut Graphics

Christopher Dalgleish — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 10:24:36 GMT

We've migrated from MX to OpenRoads Designer and it seems we are in the same boat as many former MX users whereby the process to generate cross-sections in ORD is long and frustrating compared to MX. A cross-section run to produce annotated cross-sections at 10m intervals for a 10km stretch of road is taking close to a day (6-8 hours) when in MX it used to be a few minutes. Further to this, the resulting DGN is massive (700Mb), which is another problem for another post.

What I'd like to find out is if anyone knows how to access or extract the geometry information of the sections that have been cut? The element type is "Section Cut Graphics" which we can snap to and Microstation returns co-ordinates for (in the message center or AccuDraw read-out), essentially giving you an offset-elevation pair - but I can't seem to export the co-ordinates out?

We've tried different ways to export the cross-sections (merging files, clip masking, saving as, etc.) but they all take way too long, there must be a better/quicker way? We also have some CAD clean-ups/post-processing to do on the cross sections, hence our need to be able to manipulate them. My thinking is that even though these sections are dynamically cut through the 3D models (using Named Boundaries), in the cross-sectional view they are simply 2D linestrings or shapes depicting the component at each particular section - if we could find a way to access each sectioned component's XY information as displayed in the section model, it could be re-drawn as a simple but static CAD element.

Does anybody have any ideas how to do this using standard Microstation tools, or alternatively through VBA?

ORD 2020 R3 version 10.9.0.91

PowerDraft SS10 08.11.09.912

Thanks,

Chris

Copy cross section elements

Keith Kennon — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:18:49 GMT

Is it possible to copy cross section elements into a regular 2D model?

Exporting Corridor/Cross Sections to XML

Dave W. — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 19:22:29 GMT

I'm at the point in a project of handing over my design data to surveyors for construction staking. Although I found the function to export the geometry to XML, I'm struggling with how to export the cross sections or surface. In SS2 I was able to export the alignment and profile, as well as a cross section set, but I can't seem to find the comparable process in ORD.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Best practice for documenting design changes in ORD

Christopher Dalgleish — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 17:01:36 GMT

Hi all,

I'm reaching out to the community at large to please share some inisght or practical experience with documenting design changes in ORD. We're having some issues on a current major project where the design isn't behaving as it should between corridor re-processing and it is becoming increasingly difficult to track down if it is due to unintentional changes by the designer or whether it is an issue with ORD or the templates.

A previous thread I posted (https://communities.bentley.com/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/215324/ord-2020-r3-output-log-similar-to-mx-output-window/655747#655747) was the start of this where we were trying to find the way to track the processing done by ORD but the answers I received confirmed what we thought after we had first searched ORD quite extensively ourselves.

When we used MX, we would document any changes made in the header part of the relevant input file. This changelog was commented out and grew as the input file grew, but it was useful to see who did what when and where in the input file so we could start there to identify any obvious errors (typo's, use of incorrect strings, etc.). The benefit of this method was that the changelog was contained within the input file itself and was part of the design package so it was relatively simple to keep up to date. An example is provided below:

What I'd like to know is how do you all track your design changes? Design History, direct text table or text elements in DGN file, separate Microsoft Word or Excel register? Personally I'm a bit reluctant to use an external file or process as it just adds an extra layer of activity to an already constrained team, so ideally something inside the DGN or within MicroStation would be advantageous. In saying that, if the general consensus is to use an external file or mechanism then I guess we must just bit the bullet and get moving on it!

We are running OpenRoads Designer CONNECT Edition - 2020 Release 3 and we are not using ProjectWise.

Any advice or insight will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Chris

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Tue, 13 Jul 2021 12:26:13 GMT

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[ORD 2020 R3] Output log similar to MX Output Window

Christopher Dalgleish — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 16:21:51 GMT

Hi,

I'm wondering if there is an output log of the corridor processing in ORD, much like in MX where the input file log was passed to the output window where you could see what was done and where any errors were.

All I can see is the progress bar while the corridor is processing and the occasional message saying 'Creating corridor XXX' or 'Creating meshes' but I'd like to be able to see a bit more about what has been processed and what hasn't. I know there is an exception log, but that is more for the developers' debugging purposes and not really for the end-user

Anybody been looking for this or knows if one gets created, and if so, where it is saved to?

regarding Visibility analysis in Long section (Profile)

Deval GUPTA — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 12:40:07 GMT

Dear All,

Can any one suggest how to check visibility in long section i.e. profile view in ORD software, for your reference i am attaching image below

Regards

Deval

New to civil programming - way forward transitioning from VBA to using SDK

Christopher Dalgleish — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 06:52:42 GMT

Hi,

Over the last 5 years or so I've been using VBA to help us automate and standardise some of our processes, however I see that there is limited functionality/access for VBA in ORD; there seems to be a push to move toward using the SDK?

If that's correct, I just wanted to know what the best way forward is to transition from VBA to using the SDK:
1. Is C# or C++ the preferred language (I'd need to start learning a new language). In our company we have both divisions that use both Bentley and Autodesk platforms for design so it would be good to go the route that could possibly service both platforms.
2. Is Visual Studio the only IDE that is supported? Can I use visual studio Community? Ideally I'd like to test the waters in a free or open source environment first, and then motivate to purchase a licence for Visual Studio if that is the better development platform?
3. Do I or my company need to be a part of the BDN or is that only for commercial development?

Lastly, as an intermediate, self-taught VBA user - how difficult is the transition? I know this is kind of like asking how long a piece of string is but it would be useful to hear others' stories that may be similar.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Chris

OpenRoads Designer CE Release 3: Excel import of data into gINT Projects

Christopher Dalgleish — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 12:02:29 GMT

Has anyone had any experience successfully importing geotechnical borehole data into OpenRoads Designer using the Database Connectivity under gINT Projects?

Our geotechnical engineers use WinLoG by GAEA Technologies to log there borehole and test pit data. I'm looking to import this data into OpenRoads Designer. The current options are only SQL Server, gINT project or Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel would be the easiest as the database file for WinLoG is a simple Access .mdb, but I keep getting error messages that don't tell me exactly what/where the problem lies:

/resized-image/__size/320x240/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/5922/gINT-error.PNG

Does anyone know the format the Excel file needs to be in or have a sample to send me that I can work with? Ideally I'd like to create something in Excel that reads from their WinLoG database and populates the correct tables and fields so my OpenRoads project can read the data.

I'm currently running OpenRoads Designer CONNECT Edition - 2018 Release 3 Update 5 - Version 10.05.00.30

Thanks,

Chris

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Mon, 29 Oct 2018 02:31:50 GMT

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OpenRoads: Import corridor information from .csv

Christopher Dalgleish — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 10:28:26 GMT

Is there any way to import corridor information, especially template drop locations from a .csv? I have a design with 196 template drop locations, which I have referenced by chainage in a spreadsheet already - ideally I'd like to be able to import the template drop locations from this information rather than having to manually specify each one!

Thanks in advance!

Chris