Revert Bentley Map "back to basic"

Morten,

First Bentley Map is a "feature based" as opposed to the "level based" system of MicroStation. Technologies such as "Dynamic Feature Scoring" (DFS) exist to allow Bentley Map to consume well structured "level" based data as "inferred features". The Bentley Map core along with the many applications such as the Data Browser, Interoperability and Map Manager are all built upon a "feature" based concept.

Unlike a single MicroStation element on a particular level, a Bentley Map "feature instance" can be composed of one or more graphic elements, on multiple levels along with one or more sets of business properties, either embedded in the design file or external using a MicroStation database link. This feature based system provides Bentley Map the robustness necessary to model and maintain today's infrastructure. This also allows Bentley Map to support the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) Simple Feature Specification as well as exchange data with other feature based products such as those from Oracle, ESRI, Microsoft, MapInfo and others.

Now the goal of the DFS technology has always been to maximize the amount of "well structured data" that a Bentley Map user may work with coming from other non-Bentley Map sources. For example, without any data conversion to native XFM features, users should be able to open the "Mapping" sample project data set previously delivered with MicroStation (e.g. cd9.dgn, cd10.dgn), connect to the gis.mdb database and have complete access to the data through the Bentley Map applications such as the Data Browser and Interoperability.

As you may know, there are various ways to configure or even disable DFS completely for your specific needs at the workspace configuration level as described here.

Since you and many others in this forum have knowledge of the previous MicroStation GeoGraphics product, think of DFS as a dynamically running "Attach Best Feature" process. You may recall that "Attach Best Feature" used a "feature scoring system" to determine what MicroStation elements should be tagged as a feature. DFS performs similar scoring only dynamically and does not require that the data be tagged. If you look at the "Customizing DFS Operations" section on this page you will see the concept of a minimum score is provided.

One of the most common issues we find is that often the MicroStation data is not well structured enough for DFS to properly infer or score the features. Common causes are multiple element types placed on a single MicroStation level. Multiple cells placed on a single MicroStation level. A bit of data cleanup involving organizing data across named levels usually leads to the desired result.

And finally, I hope that this helps to explain somewhat the background and purpose of DFS and the Bentley Map feature based approach. Our goal is to maximize your investment in your data with Bentley Map so you can use the "cool stuff" as you say. Our intention has never been to get in your way but there are times when the "feature based" and "level based" worlds don't always fit perfectly together.

If you have specific data issues you would like us to review for your projects, please let us know.

Morten,

I agree with Jeff about the need for "well structured data". We recommend to our clients to not only separate their levels by feature type, but by element type as well. Linear type elements, shape type elements, cells, and text should all be on their own levels for ease of interoperability with GIS software.

Look at the layer structures of typical GIS applications (Map, ArcMap, MapInfo, etc.). They all separate linear features, polygon features, and point features on to separate layers. It would make sense to segregate your MicroStation levels the same way. In doing so you have much better success with DFS when using this data in Bentley Map.

Rod

Morten (and others),

If you by chance have what may be considered as slightly unstructured CAD data that you wish to scrub a bit for use in Bentley Map, please be aware that Bentley Map provides a "scripting engine" that can help with the process.

For example, the following script locates all color 0 text elements on the 'MyOldLevel' in the active design file and moves them to a 'MyNewLevel'. Uncommenting the lines SETUP WEIGHT 2 and SETUP STYLE 0 would allow you to further define the search criteria of the MicroStation elements that you wish to move.

Now the above is just a simple example of using the Bentley Map "scripting engine" to look for elements that meet certain search criteria, then move them to a new level. If we had wanted to also change the element color and style during the level move, then adding C0 = 3 and LC = 2 into the VALIDATE block would have done the trick.

Please refer to the "Using Scripts" section of the Bentley Map help file for additional information.

Morten (and others),

If you by chance have what may be considered as slightly unstructured CAD data that you wish to scrub a bit for use in Bentley Map, please be aware that Bentley Map provides a "scripting engine" that can help with the process.

For example, the following script locates all color 0 text elements on the 'MyOldLevel' in the active design file and moves them to a 'MyNewLevel'. Uncommenting the lines SETUP WEIGHT 2 and SETUP STYLE 0 would allow you to further define the search criteria of the MicroStation elements that you wish to move.

Now the above is just a simple example of using the Bentley Map "scripting engine" to look for elements that meet certain search criteria, then move them to a new level. If we had wanted to also change the element color and style during the level move, then adding C0 = 3 and LC = 2 into the VALIDATE block would have done the trick.

Please refer to the "Using Scripts" section of the Bentley Map help file for additional information.