Hi all,
We have a specific OpenBridge workflow that I can't seem to figure out. Say we have an urgent job that needs a quick turnaround, we would get multiple designers to work on the job at once. One would work on the abutments, one on the piers, one on the deck, one on the barriers, etc. How would we do this in OpenBridge?
I have tried creating a 'Bridge setout.dgn'. This model has the alignment, profile, support lines, and beam layout. That is then referenced into the 'Deck.dgn', and the 'Abutments.dgn' and 'Piers.dgn'. And a different person would be able to model, reinforce and document in each of those separate dgns. However, it doesn't seem possible to set the referenced bridge setout as the active bridge. This means that you can't select the support lines to create abutments, piers, etc.
Am I missing a trick here?
Just for clarification, are you looking for multiple people to be doing the design/engineering on the various elements at the same time or just the plans production?
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I know that we can have multiple paople working on the drawing production. What could be nice is to have a Master file with the support line, and alignements. Then have the possibility to have the deck in one file, the pile in an other and the abutment in a other. So this way we could have one team designing each part of the bridge in a collaborative way.
Keep in mind that what you are asking for could lead to dozens of files for a single structure. By having the entire structure in a single model, when a change is made to any component, all components that need to update will do so with every change. In your scenario, if the PGL changes, each of those files would need to be opened in a particular order (beams are placed relative to the deck, bents relative to the deck and beams, etc.). Unless every file is opened in the right order, the bridge would never be in sync at any given time. Let's say the person working on the deck goes on vacation for a week? That would impact everyone else on the project. Today, users occasionally turn off or detach the geometry file then wonder why they can no longer make changes to the structure. Imagine the number of references that would be involved in pulling off putting each component in a different DGN.
I've had multiple requests from our team to figure out a way to make this work as well. I understand it's probably never going to be possible because in OpenBridge the bridge is essentially one single parametric object. Adjusting a one item can adjust any other object in the bridge. So in that sense it's different to almost every other software where you can split the project up into different parts to allow people to work on at the same time. Even in Revit when we split the project using worksets, they generally need to be separate parts of the project that don't directly affect objects in other worksets. i.e. I feel like a bridge in OpenBridge is similar to a single Family in Revit because of the heavy relationship between its parts.
I certainly understand the desire for such a request. I've seen projects where a firm was focused on the superstructure and a different firm was working on the substructure. Or on larger structures, its necessary to throw as many people as possible on a structure at a time. As mentioned above, for detailing and drawing production purposes, that is certainly available today as a workflow.
You can still separate the files for plans production, which is where the bulk of the time is spent and where you need to divide and conquer. Updating a component of the model takes seconds, sometimes a few minutes at most, so there really isn't any kind of production choke point there unless I am missing something. We haven't had any issues with it thus far.