This Client Server article is republished in its entirety from 2004 for reference purposes.
By Kees van Prooijen, Product Support Manager, Bentley Hoofddorp Office 17 February 2004
Since the introduction of MicroStation GeoGraphics v5.5 back in 1995, the project database has been extended to offer more functionality, following along with the functionality offered by MicroStation.
With new releases of MicroStation GeoGraphics, new columns were introduced and existing columns were changed to store additional feature settings. Although a MicroStation GeoGraphics project created in previous versions is still supported, adding or changing columns might offer you some new options.
During the move to MicroStation V8 or the 2004 Edition, it is a good time to add and populate these columns and to enhance a project created in pre-V8 versions of MicroStation GeoGraphics.
Columns can be added using the available database tools, like SQL*Plus for Oracle or Microsoft Access.
In the ugfeature table the columns zoommin, zoommax (long integer or number (38)) are used for setting the scale-dependent viewing. When these columns are available, the fields Min. Zoom and Max. Zoom are enabled in the Feature Setup dialog box. It is the width or height of a view in master units that determine whether a feature is displayed or not.
User defined linestyles
In older databases, the column lsname for the user-defined linestyle in the ugfeature table often may have the wrong structure. It must be a char(255) type (and not integer).True type fonts (TTF)
In the ugfeature table the column fontname (char(255)) is used to store the True Type font name.
Besides the font numbers from a MicroStation font resource file, you can also define True Type Fonts for Text features.
Using the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR)
Instead of storing the surrounding of a map in an index file, the range of a map can be stored in four columns in the maps table. The columns xlow, ylow, xhigh and yhigh (long integer number(38)) can contain the range of a map in sub units and not master units (or in uors for v7 design files).
In the Category section of the Feature Setup, the field Index can be left empty. In this case, the Register tool fills these columns.
In MicroStation V8 there are new ByLevel settings to define the display of the color, style, and weight per level. For using this functionality, the ugfeature table must have the columns (type number) ByLevelCo, ByLevelLc and ByLevelWt.
In the Feature Setup the three ByLevel check boxes are enabled. When these settings are set for a feature, elements will be placed with the ByLevel settings.
Hint: These columns can automatically be added using the macro Project Update in the MicroStation GeoGraphics VBA example project samples.mvba at \program files\Bentley\Program\GeoGraphics\vba\examples\.
It is started with this key-in: vba run
[GeoGraphicsSamples]VBA_PEUtils.OpenProjectUpdateDialog
With the new V8 format and its added functionality, these columns can be changed to make use of new options.
In the feature table the field size can be changed as follows:
· celllibrary 14 to 255, to use cell libraries with long names.
· fcellname 6 to 255, to use cells with names with more than six characters.
· tablename 14 to 32, to use this table with automatic attribution. This column might be NULL.
Hint: With an Oracle connection a table is changed with the following SQL statement: SQL> ALTER
TABLE "MYTOWN"."FEATURE" MODIFY("TABLENAME" VARCHAR2(32))
In the ugcategory table the field size for the column can be changed as follows:
dgnfex from 3 to 32, to use file extension with more than three characters like iTiff and MrSID images.
Since MicroStation GeoGraphics v7.2 there are three different category types. Design File, Raster and Spatial.
To enable all three options in the raster column in the ugcategory table must be a long integer (for Access) or number(38) (for Oracle).
The level column in the feature table is obsolete when the feature names or feature codes are used as level names. This is defined by the environment variable MS_GEOLEVELMODE. Possible values are:
_ 0 The legacy mode where the level is still used.
_ 1 Level name is similar as the feature name (the Feature column of the Feature table).
Warning: This is the default.
_ 2 Level name is similar as the feature code (the Fcode column of the Feature table).
The available "feature" levels are stored in the GeoGraphics project seed file, by default seed2d.dgn.
The new levels are inserted in the seed file with a Commit in the GeoGraphics Feature Setup.
The environment variable MS_DGNLIBLIST points to the DGN level library that is used to store all your project standards. Besides storing all the available levels in your project, you can store the master coordinate system and text styles in this file.
This variable is set the configuration msgeo.ucf at the folder \program files\Bentley\Workspace\Users\:
%if exists ($(MS_SEEDFILES)$(MS_DESIGNSEED))
MS_DGNLIBLIST < $(MS_SEEDFILES)$(MS_DESIGNSEED)
%endif
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