First of all i must say that i am an Autodesk user.
I use Autocad, Civil 3d, Revit Architecture and in the past autocad architecture. I,m from Greece where its difficult to find microstation users.
For education and skill improvement i start watching the training videos of microstation and open roads technology , and in many cases i like very much some features they have.
So last days i watched some videos of Aecosim building designer.
I have also download a 30 day trial today.
But after watching the first videos, not fascinated at all and i want to ask a few things to decide if its worth to continue training.
At first i must say, that what i liked in bentley ,is that it has the same platform for the most of its products. So i believe that if you make a model with power in roads you can open it with Aeco and you can model some building elements it . And then continue with power in roads, with road design.
I open a dgn file which i made with the live training that i get a month ago with Power in roads, and i open it with aeco and of course i cant edit it but i can model some things save the file and then continue with power in roads. Is that true? I dont know if this could be done with the previous version of power in roads which was project based like the old Autodesk land desktop.
In Autodesk side you need object enables ,witch sometimes don't work perfect between Autocad and its vertical, but you cannot doing this with revit which you should export it in order only to see in in e.g. civil ed and not as you see it in revit.( no materials and other visual effects.
But what i see in the first video of Aeco is that instead of open roads technology,You must build a project, in which every floor is a different file and in the end all floors attached to a separate file to built the whole model. Its like autodesk architecture. But this workflow has some serious disadvantages.
You cannot make edits in sections and levels of the whole building. E.G. you cannot align windows of different floors in an building elevation view.
Its not as dynamic is a project in a single file.
I think this way is an old way and this is why autodesk buy revit which is similar to archicad, with many differences of course but with the same philosophy.
But as i said i don't know Aeco and maybe i am wrong.
So i want to ask. Is it possible in Aeco to built the whole building in a single file?
I saw that with floor selector i can built easy multiple floor in a single file but is there an option to make clipped views in a range of every floor?
Is it possible to work in a single file?
And another question.
When i start Aeco it says that there was no interoperability with previous versions?
So a model make witch made with Aeco SS5 won't be opened with Aeco SS4 or it will be opened and it won't be edited?
Unknown said: You cannot make edits in sections and levels of the whole building. E.G. you cannot align windows of different floors in an building elevation view. Its not as dynamic is a project in a single file.
No, as Eric mentioned, the normal practice is to split the project up into separate files and work in individual files. This is different to the way ArchiCAD or Revit is set up, which is more centralised. There are other Bentley products like OpenPlant that allow the user to check out selected elements for editing like ArchiCAD Teamwork or Revit Server does.
Apparently, it is possible for Mstn to edit elements across multiple files and save them to their separate files like MicroGDS and Allplan.... but 'multiple active Refs' was not implemented. I agree with you that this work be a great improvement on the existing file-based working practice.
Unknown said:I open a dgn file which i made with the live training that i get a month ago with Power in roads, and i open it with aeco and of course i cant edit it but i can model some things save the file and then continue with power in roads.
You should probably speak to a rep and ask if PowerCivils can be configured to load AecoSim's tools in addition to its own, vice versa. Discussion here regarding loading Descartes (pointcloud/mapping vertical) into AecoSim. Already possible with Openplant.
Unknown said:In Autodesk side you need object enables ,witch sometimes don't work perfect between Autocad and its vertical
Yea, Bentley's version of Object Enablers are called Element Handlers. As I understand it, Object Enablers allow 'smart objects' to be worked on without the full set of their originating tools loaded. Example of a Raster object from Map imported into ACAD that retains some of its Map functionality. Pretty cool. I suppose that you could ask Bentley if say a stair generated in AecoSim (or GC) could be imported into PowerCivils file and still retain some parametric smarts and handles to allow some basic editing without having all of AecoSim mdl/dll's loaded. Lot's of precedents of how this could work. ABD's PCS does something similar. ArchiCAD's GDL Adapter and Houdini Engine do this as well.
Hopefully, Bentley's new content strategy will enabler more cross-vertical working.
Unknown said: Yea, Bentley's version of Object Enablers are called Element Handlers. As I understand it, Object Enablers allow 'smart objects' to be worked on without the full set of their originating tools loaded. Example of a Raster object from Map imported into ACAD that retains some of its Map functionality. Pretty cool. I suppose that you could ask Bentley if say a stair generated in AecoSim (or GC) could be imported into PowerCivils file and still retain some parametric smarts and handles to allow some basic editing without having the full blown AecoSim mdl/dll's loaded. Lot's of precedents of how this could work. ABD's PCS does something similar. ArchiCAD's GDL Adapter and Houdini Engine do this as well.
Yea, Bentley's version of Object Enablers are called Element Handlers. As I understand it, Object Enablers allow 'smart objects' to be worked on without the full set of their originating tools loaded. Example of a Raster object from Map imported into ACAD that retains some of its Map functionality. Pretty cool. I suppose that you could ask Bentley if say a stair generated in AecoSim (or GC) could be imported into PowerCivils file and still retain some parametric smarts and handles to allow some basic editing without having the full blown AecoSim mdl/dll's loaded. Lot's of precedents of how this could work. ABD's PCS does something similar. ArchiCAD's GDL Adapter and Houdini Engine do this as well.
No with autocad Object Enablers its only possible to see Smart Objects from a different program. Without it , if you open a model e.g. that was created with civil 3d, with another autocad vertical e,g autocad Architecture or Autocad and you haven't install civil 3d Object enablers( which in the latest versions installed automatically) you will see something like the images that i attach. ( the image Without object enablers is from opening the civil 3d model with microstation because in my computer i have installed object enablers, but its exactly what you see with autocad products if you are not install object enablers").
So you can only see, not edit.
Eric said that i can work with a single file. But i don't understand how then i will create floor plan views for each separate floor.
A few years ago someone from an australian blog, which i m not able to find any more, describe a method to work with autocad architecture, [which also works with building floor references in a single file from which you can only see elevations and sections but you cannot directly edit (of course in autocad you can also edit references from the destination file , but e.g. how will you place a window between two floors?)] by building the whole model in a single file and place the different floor elements in different layers (microstation levels) e.g. wall_level0 wall_level1 etc.
But even thought i believe revit is definitely better product that autocad architecture.
So Can i work in Aeco with a single file? or to do that i must do something that i described above?
The revit philosophy is very simple i think.
There is only one model and all the other views is just a clipped window ( vertically clipped for plan views and horizontally from the the sections and elevations).
Its like if you apply a section box in microstation. And in revit you can create as many views of the model (plan, sections elevations, 3ds) as you want.
Can you do that in microstation? Or you can only create 8 views? I'm just using ( try to learn not working with them) bentleys products for 20 days, and this maybe is a silly question.
Thank you
Object Enablers: Sure. I expect that C3D enablers would be quite bulky. But, as you can see from the Map example it is possible using OE's.
Unknown said:So Can i work in Aeco with a single file?
Sure. AecoSim does not have parametric control of which elements sit on which levels, so you can stack all your elements in 3d space for all the floors you need.
But the problem will be controlling the display of the elements by floor level. You could do this by just using saved fence clips for each level... but this will be clunky. I think a lot of people would start out this way then break the model up as more people need to work concurrently. As mentioned above, it would be nice to 'merge' the models together on an ad hoc basis after they are chopped up.
Unknown said:And in revit you can create as many views of the model (plan, sections elevations, 3ds) as you want.
You can have 8 views per model, but you can have as many models as you want for your views. The models can be internal as well as external to your file.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noKC7YT_M90
Answer Verified By: nikoue
Ok. As i said i'm not very familiar with bentley products but for the general concept i think i will prefer revit over Aecosim.
What i ' m really exited in the open road technology which seems very promising.
This is the reason i'm starting trying bentleys products and i gave a look in AECO sim.
The multiview display function is that that i most missing from autocad. I think microstation has this technology from the first releases. I think it will be probably a huge step to create as many views as you want per model and organised them in a project viewer. it will extend very much the program capabilities, such as the things i'm asking above.
Again thank you for your time.
There are two obvious ways,
1- Create a Building Views, plan and/or sections, and place them as separate Models in same file as your 3d. Then while in your 3d-model you can apply them in any of ABDs 8 View Windows. You can then edit the geometry in 3d or in the 2d fully resymbolized views. (View Attributes>VIEW Setup) or use the Markers and MIni toolbars.
2- use 'clip volumes'
and some others, like putting thins on separate levels/layers.
regards / Thomas Voghera
"Create a Building Views, plan and/or sections, and place them as separate Models in same file as your 3d. Then while in your 3d-model you can apply them in any of ABDs 8 View Windows. You can then edit the geometry in 3d or in the 2d fully resymbolized views. (View Attributes>VIEW Setup) or use the Markers and MIni toolbars. "
How to do that? is there any workflow? As i said i m very new to miscrostation
Unknown said:but for the general concept i think i will prefer revit over Aecosim.
Sure. But if you will probably want to work in one environment at some point. And if you need to reach across civils, plant and buildings...
Unknown said:I think it will be probably a huge step to create as many views as you want per model and organised them in a project viewer.
Err.. I think this is already possible with the Project Explorer in Mstn.