Advantages of Microstation to AutoCAD

Good Day!

I just wan to ask the advantages of microstation to autocad. what are the things that microstation can do but autocad cannot do?

Thanks and Best regards

  • First of we dont want to get into any frivolous competition about my cads better than your cad and its all about personal preference and a lot to do with what you first learnt what to do on what package and how much good training and feed back you got / get when learning... that said lets not have a flame war,  after all this is a microstation devotee forum so we are bound to be a  little biased hahha...

    There is so much I like better in msnt   but  its all pros and cons here are a few I like best..

    1. Mst can have Multimodel spaces.

    2. Mstn can handle really really really big rasters and load quickly I had a 8 gig aerial photo very high res loaded in mstn in under 3 seconds on a crappy network too... 

    3 Mstn can handle really big files ie cad 3d  very fast to open..

    4. Mstn can make Imodels

    5 Mst  can export to lots of different formats and can import heaps of different data formats..

    6. Mst  has  very intuitive  data dialogs that  pop up and wait to be populated by numbers  in particular accudraw... ( acad now has similar feature) 

    7. Mstn polygons have fill / hatch as an attribute ie on or off so you dont have to draw two elements  just one poly .. reduces errors when measuring areas in bulk selections...

    8 .Mstn is very easy to customise and make workflows to suit the task or even the type of drafting without a cad manager doing it for you..

    9. Custom Function keys are my  favourite feature next to xyz import export tool you can make your own F key menus for almost any task or keyin string ie one for electrical Fkey menu and other completely different  one for everyday drafting etc...

    10 The batch processor tool can do so much  when used with scripts and  macros its killer application...

    11. script files are easy to learn and  make and  can do enormous amounts of fast batch work over  loads of files...

    12 VBA macro recorder and editor easy to use and edit but you need to learn programming VBA to do really complex stuff...

    13 . Mstn Basic Recorder is very easy to read the  code  and you dont need to be a programer to make simple macro recordings ( not continued in new CE Mstn)

    14. Mstn Referencing  files and nesting is really much better than acad overlays and xrefs  and in survey or civil this probably the single most best feature

    15. Mstn Geographic datum tools for reprojecting or using survey datums in real world coordinates...very very cool for survey and mapping  and civil projects work need real coordinates and data drawn in real world coordinates from surveyors etc.

    16. Mstn Can make Dtms or 3d mesh and surfaces from points or contours

    17 Mstn 3d is much easier to use than basic out of the box acad

    18. Mst is just better (IMHO) .. well I've invested over 20 years using and learning it .. I have tried acad for 6- 12 months at a time over several editions at different employers and its very good but i find I do a lot of typing but in msnt  I do more with less effort.. most of the time.......haha!

    What I dislike  about mstn

    crappy text tool need complete over haul

    Notes tool could do with ohaul too as it uses the text  features

    Dimensions tools needs  total over haul its like the  programer never consulted a drafter as to how to dimension stuff

    No dynamic blocks like in acad we have DD cells and parametric all too hard to do unlike acad dynamic blocks much easier..

    Custom line style creation is just way too difficult too complex but very powerful, acad simple linestyle creation is way too easy.. we have no equivalent in mstn its the same tool  from 20 years ago and it was way too hard and too many steps back then and remains the same today.. fortunately  you can import stuff from other packages very easily...so unless you really  have to make new linestyles you dont need to bother with this crappy complex tool.....

    Mstn Help file is still after 20 years not good enough to learn how to do complex stuff  where as it seems acad web  site is better at finding  adequate help quickly and easily .. to be fair Bentley  learn site is great but  not all free access without subscription and hard to search for specifics....

    Lorys

    Started msnt work 1990 - Retired  Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )

    But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE  update 16 (10.16.00.80) 

    MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.
    click link to PM me 

  • As Lorys said, this is a very subjective question, and for the reasons stated.

    Just on the basics of creating drawings (ie, not looking at vertical products), I find MicroStation much more productive than AutoCAD. Fewer inputs to accomplish the same task. Less time waiting for the program to load, graphics to update, etc. It's a number of little things, like being able to simply copy an element from a reference file, or turning off a reference with just a click.

    Are there things that AutoCAD does better? Absolutely. Are there things in AutoCAD that drive me crazy? Absolutely.
  • I don't have a lot of Autodesk experience, but if I compare my work with my colleagues:
    -MicroStation has a powerful history tool;
    -Pointclouds are pretty easy and fast to view;
    -Lot's of file format's can be opened (!);
    -Clash Control tools;
    -Schedule Simulator;
    -Solar Study tools;
    -Redlining tools (not sure);
    -MicroStation has some really good visualization tools, like a traffic simulator, a tool where you can draw with Cells (like trees) and a Stamp tool. The Render Engine (Luxology) is pretty good (a little dated but I suspect some improvements looking to the developments at Luxology (compared to MR / IR)).

    So I think, if you have to draw technical drawings, it depends at you're personal preference. If you are looking to an al-round program (2D, 3D, 4D, visualization, animation, data, simulation), MicroStation wins.

    Of-course Autodesk has extra program's which could do all of this, but AutoCad itself seems to focus especially to technical drawing-work.
  • References: Controlling reference live nesting is something for me that Acad will never do.
    To do the same thing there is crazy work time to something that in MS we do with a click.

    Attach a reference by design history, by group, by saved view... some of the examples that I believe Acad will never be able to do.

    Having full control of the aspect of the final sheet. I can have a single element disregarding level, color, line style, line weight that are in level manager - by level attributes or by overrides. Now that we have display rules - much more powerfull.

    Controlling view independently - for example when starting a line command we don't need to activate the other view to end the command in a different window area of the work.

    If we want to do BIM we have AECOSim that runs on top of MS and the way of work it's the same. In Acad we have to jump to Revit and everything is new there.

    I can open directly Dwg and don't need to convert/import to continue working. In Acad if you have a Dgn you will be spending TIME to get to work.

    With Luxology I can render real nice views of our work. In Acad again you have to jump to Max/Maya/others.
    Of course that kind of programs are top of the line in the Vizualization area. Let's see what Bentley will give us now that we have a direct "connection" to E-On.

    Compare PDF quality/size/information versus with a PDF created in Acad:
    www.youtube.com/watch

    You can create PDF with real 3D inside a sheet. In Acad that's not possible as far as I know.

    Unfortunately Clash and Schedule Simulation are removed in CE edition:
    communities.bentley.com/.../110484

    José

  • Unknown said:
    If we want to do BIM we have AECOSim that runs on top of MS and the way of work it's the same. In Acad we have to jump to Revit and everything is new there.

    Revit isn't Adesk's only BIM - Adesk Architecture still exists and is widely used, runs on top of Acad just like BD runs on top of MS, is excellent as a Single Building Modeler (i.e. without serious data/quantities/reporting, which is what turns SBM into BIM). A certain other Acad clone also runs its newly-redesigned BIM on top, in similar manner.