Import, Export and Remap of Levels using CSV files

In this blog, I am going to talk about something related to one of the extensively used entity in MicroStation called Levels. You will learn how to manage a set of levels using CSV files.

In most of the practical scenarios, CAD engineers mostly use a set of standard levels that comply with the company standard. CAD administrators mostly decide these levels and their properties. These levels can easily be tabulated in a CSV files.

In Level Manager dialog, there is an option to export/import levels under Levels menu. You can simply type the name of the CSV file that you want to be created at the specified location. When you export levels, level-filters also get exported with this. You can see two sections in the CSV file, one belonging to level and one belonging to level-filter.

You can see columns for each of the properties of levels. These can easily be edited using Microsoft excel.

To import levels, use the import menu item under levels. This will import only levels, not level-filters. Once you select a file and proceed, a dialog comes up with the list of levels in that file.

This lets you choose the levels that you want to import. If a level with the same name is already there in the file, this causes conflict and the incoming level is discarded.

To import level-filters, you can use the import menu item under Filter menu. This item will be enabled once you select the Filters node in the left tree hierarchy. This also follows the same procedure as levels. The hierarchy of level-filters is been maintained as each filter remembers its parent filter name.

You can also remap levels using CSV files. This is especially useful when you want to change the same set of level properties for multiple files. You can choose the “Save As” option from the file menu. This opens up the save as dialog. Clicking on the options button opens up this dialog:

You will need to create a CSV file using the right most button. This will create a excel file with multiple spread sheets for different MicroStation entities. You need to open the first spread sheet and make appropriate changes to this Level Mapping Table. The first column in this table lets you identify the level that you want to remap. This column can easily be populated using the icon on Level column. The next columns let you choose the new properties that you want to assign to levels.

Stay tuned, more blogs coming up...

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