New in MicroStation CONNECT Edition Update 5: References Enhancements

MicroStation CONNECT Edition Update 5 has added a new feature for attaching reference files. You can now set the visible edges display directly from the Reference Attachment Properties dialog. This will save a step that you would previously have to do in the References dialog after your visible edges file would have been attached. This option will only be available when attaching a 3D model to a 2D sheet model or 2d drawing model. The 3D model can be from a DGN or DWG file.

You can also set the Visible Edges display setting in the Create Drawing dialog.

The visible edges display options are:

• Dynamic - In this mode, the reference file and the visible edge process are always kept in a live state, that is, they are updated whenever you do operations such as file opening, viewing references, modifying references and so on.
• Cached - In this mode, a local cache is stored for the visible edge process. The reference is kept live but the visible hidden edge display is not regenerated. The default cache synchronization option is Automatic with Alert.

In order to provide better display performance when have a large number of reference files or even a large model with great hidden line detail, you can change the performance by defining the MS_REF_VISEDGE_ATTACH_STATE configuration variable. This will allow you to set the default value that you want for display of the visible edges. This will once again save time by not having to go into the reference file interface and change this manually for your reference(s).

The options for this variable are Dynamic, CachedManual, CachedAutomatic, CachedAlert, or CachedDisconnect.

Another thing that has been added to save time and improve display performance is the ability to set the cache synchronization option of all the references in the active model by suffixing ALL to the cache synchronization key-ins.

The following key-ins are added to change the Visible Edge option of all references in the active model:

• REFERENCE VISIBLEEDGES ALLATTACHMENTS CACHED
• REFERENCE VISIBLEEDGES ALLATTACHMENTS DYNAMIC

Watch this brief video that demonstrates how this key-in can be used:

Using these key-ins will not only set the visible edge display but also reload all reference with the desired visible edges settings to either cached or dynamic. Also, the key-in REFERENCE VISIBLEEDGES ALLATTACHMENTS SYNCHRONIZECACHE is added to reload all references in the active model which have their Visible Edges option set to Cached.