Project Explorer - 101

               In this article let's take a look at the basic roles that Project Explorer can play in our day to day life with MicroStation. I will try to answer several questions on what is Project Explorer doing and how can it help in sheet composition and managing your AEC data. I will also describe the basic fundamentals behind Project Explorer.

This blog post applies to MicroStation XM. Some of the content is from newer versions.

               Typically you create several models (design, drawing, sheet), saved views (plan, elevation, section, detail), and reference attachments using MicroStation. They are distributed in several DGN files. Thinking beyond these DGN files, you also use information from several folders and URLs, using data of different formats; Microsoft Office files, Acrobat files, other CAD formats, and image files. Is there a single place in MicroStation where we can list all this important information? The answer is Yes - in Project Explorer.

               Since you have all your data at your finger tips in Project Explorer, you can use it for sheet composition and getting your final deliverables ready. If you setup Project Explorer correctly, you can have all your models (design/drawing/sheet) show up in corresponding folders in Project Explorer, additionally you can have folders that correspond to different types of saved views as well as other resource types. You can drag and drop your models or saved views from Project Explorer into a MicroStation view window to attach them as references to the active model. Also, if you hold the CTRL key while dragging a model it allows you to place that model as a cell. In the following image you can see several types of information that are being displayed from our project by Project Explorer.

 

 

               If you create a new section view using the "Place Section Callout" tool, it will be available under the "Sections" folder just by refreshing the folder (right click select Refresh). We call this "Harvesting", which is Project Explorer's ability to scan several folders and file types for a particular resource type and list them. Pretty Cool!!! You can distinguish a harvested folder from a regular folder by the small filter on its icon.

               Callouts (Section, Detail, and Elevation) have a link created on them automatically when the saved view associated with them is placed on a sheet. We have had a links technology even before MicroStation XM with our "Engineering Links" tools. We now have a much more sophisticated way of achieving the same result using Project Explorer and a technology we call "Design Links". This technology is not limited to URLs only, you can link a graphic element to a URL, any MicroStation resource type (saved view, model, reference attachment, etc.), or other project data. Think hyperlinks within your DGN files. This link can be manually established in Project Explorer by right clicking on the resource and choosing "Add Link to Element". Alternatively, if you drag and drop a resource in a view while holding down the ALT key, it will allow you to add a link to an element. Elements may have more than one link stored on them. When hovering the mouse on a linked graphic element, a glyph appears indicating that the element has a link. The tooltip shows all the links that this graphic element contains.

 

 

               If you were to right-click on on a linked graphic element, it will show an option called "Follow Link". This lets you choose the link that you wish to follow. "Follow Link" means it will take us to the resource which the link refers to. For instance, if you follow a "URL Link", it will open the URL in your default web browser. These links will also publish to PDF when printing our documents.

               Tools have been made available in MicroStation which let you identify all the elements containing links in a single shot, as well as give you an opportunity to rectify/modify existing links.

               Links have several other benefits, a CAD administrator can make a set of links referring to his company's CAD standards and make them available in Project Explorer for every draftsman/designer. A link can be made to a Print Organizer PSET file, where we can Preview and Print our drawings. We can have a link to a configuration variable and expand this link in Project Explorer to see the information it contains. A link can be made to a folder within our project to see the information that it contains about our project. These are just a few of the link types available. Don't worry if this sounds too advanced. Depending on your feedback, I can blog on each of these topics separately.

                Talking about links, this is exactly the type of data that Project Explorer is composed of; Project Explorer is nothing but a set of links. Choose a file or folder in Windows Explorer and right-click choose "Create Shortcut". This creates a new icon right there, this new icon is nothing but a link to the original. The new shortcut icon consumes less space (typically a few KBs) on your disc. The links that we are creating in Project Explorer are the same thing as Short Cuts in Windows. These links also have a very small overhead on the size of DGN files. For example, let's take a look at a link to a model or "Model Link". What information should a "Model Link" have in order to make it an independent entity? Model name, file name and full-path of the location of DGN file on disc. If we right-click on a "Model Link" in Project Explorer and choose the Properties option, you will see the following dialog describing all the information needed to find the corresponding model.

 

 

Since we now understand what a link is, let us look at a list of the different types of links that we have in MicroStation:

1. File Link
     • Refers to a file on a disc.
2. Folder Link
     • Refers to a folder on a disc.
3. Model Link
     • Refers to a design/sheet/drawing model in a dgn file
4. Saved View Link:
     • Refers to a saved view in a dgn file
5. Reference Attachment link:
     • Refers to a reference attachment in a model
6. Drawing Title Link:
     • Refers to a drawing title in a sheet
7. Configuration Variable link:
     • Refers to a configuration variable in MicroStation to harvest links from
8. URL Link:
     • Refers to a URL, FTP or e-mailing address
9. Key-in Link:
     • Refers to a key-in in MicroStation
10. Word Heading Link:
     • Refers to a heading in a Microsoft Office Word file
11. Word Bookmark Link:
     • Refers to a bookmark in a Microsoft Office Word file
12. Excel Sheet Link:
     • Refers to a Sheet in a Microsoft Office Excel file
13. PDF bookmark Link:
      • Refers to a bookmark in a adobe pdf file
14. PSET Link
     • Refers to the Print Organizer file.

                   In this blog post we have mentioned several things; PSET files and Print Organizer, Place Callouts tools, Links, and a few other items. Watch for future posts on these topics as well as a Project Explorer 201 post. So be there!

 

  • Hi Stuart;

    There are two ways of doing this.

    1. Set Link Sets dialog to Configured Libraries mode, Copy the Links you want in active file. Switch Link Sets to Active file and then Paste these links in Active file.

    OR

    2. Create a Link to the that DGNLIB Link Set containing your links, in active file. You can do this by select "Create Link - Link from file" in Project Explorer. Select the DGNLib file in create links dialog. In Link Picker dialog, select the Link Sets containing links and click OK. This will add Link Set link to Project Explorer. Now when you expand you will be able to see all the links within this Link set.

  • Mark,

    I have set some linksets in our DGNLIB, and I have also set linksets in 'active files'. How do I combine these so that I can see a list of links as part of our DNGLIB, together with those that I have created in the particular file?

  • You have asked several good questions. I have planned to answer all of them in my upcoming blogs and illustrate several of these things using movies. I'll answer these question in short for now.

    You can delete the links from an element using "Element Information dialog". You need to select the link and open element info dialog with selection mode ON. You will see the links panel in the list of panels. Expand this panel. This populates all the links on this element. Select any one link and right-click on the browse icon onthe right end. "Delete Link" should be there. You can click on this browse icon to see all the properties of a link. You will notice that these properties are editable. Here you have a chance to rectify/modify the links.

    To select all the elements with links, you need to use these keyins which are visible in KeyIn dialog only when we have loaded project explorer at least once in a MicroStation session:

    LINKS SELECT ALL

    LINKS SELECT INVALID (select all the elements in view window which contain broken links)

    LINKS SELECT VALID (select elements containing only valid links)

    Starting V8i, you can see standard links coming from ustation.dglib. It's true that you can't modify these links. Project Explorer has three modes: "Active File", "Selected File" and "Configured Libraries". The last one is the default one that you see when we open PE first time. Click on "Manage Link Sets" icon in PE. This opens the linksets dialog. Change mode from "Configured Libraries" to "Active File" (this means we are going to work with links and linksets in the active dgn file). Now we have an option to create a new LinkSet. The new linkset created will be an empty linkset. From PE, you can add several links to this linkset.

    We can make links portable. The first icon in PE lets you create links from file. You have an option to choose a file which actually contains the target. The create links dialog has a toggle icon in the bottom for "Save Relative Path". If we toggle ON this, the link remembers the relative path of the target dgn file or any other file.

  • great. Some questions:

    how can I delete a link from element? And can you be more specific with "Tools have been made available in MicroStation which let you identify all the elements containing links in a single shot, as well as give you an opportunity to rectify/modify existing links. "?

    Starting V8i, I can see a standard link set definition from ustation.dll. But I can't fill the structure, because it's read only. How can I automize copying this into an active DGN at users choice?

    Link targets are not portable bacuse of hardcoded paths. Would it be conceptually possible to store relative paths or (even better) logical pathnames (MY_FOLDER:file.pdf where MY_FOLDER is a CFG_VAR)?

    Many thanks for this blog!

    Bigean