How to transfer level properties and view preferences (including those of references) to other drawings?

I have the following problem:

I have a rather complex project with multiple references with about 300 levels each. The big mama plan with all planning information is referenced into single drawings. In the first plan I made all necessary adjustments as colors, weights in all references (as symbology overrides only) and switched on/off various levels (in the level display box) in order to use it as a "master" for the following derived plans. Now two references have been exchanged and need to be adjusted accordingly in 13 drawings.

When exporting the levels I only get the levels from the big mama plan itself, not the view adjustments and the changed symbology overrides. Saved views seem to be the wrong way, too. I can't just make all the changes in the references various themselves and reattach them as the big mama plan has been attached multiple times with different display choices and visible levels.

Does anyone have an idea as to how to transfer all adjustments in one go? I'd go mad making all adjustments over and over again...

  • I've been able to open level manager, select the reference file in question from the file tree, right-click in the level attribute area to Select All and Copy. I can then open my target file, open level manager, select the reference from the tree, and Paste the level setting into the level manager.

    Global Display and Global Freeze can be transferred this way if the columns are opened. I do not know if you can copy across a view display..

    MaryB

    Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918
    Power InRoads 08.11.09.918
    OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2

        

  • I have never tried what MaryB recommends so I will have to tinker with that one!!!
    Dont know if this is what you are looking for and in this explanation, I will refer to the "mama plan" as a container file will references and the "plans" as sheets:
    control the levels display and overrides in the container file, and then in the sheets where the container file is referenced, set the reference setting "Display Overrides" to never. This will allow the container file to be the display controller for all of those sheets. Works well if you need to maintain the exact same reference level display for 100 sheets all from a single reference that contains references, hence the container file.

  • cant  you  just  save the  first drawing as the next drawing and move the  view... or is it you have  changed something in the refences and and the previuosly ok drawings no longer look right? if  the later, then 3 things I have found works for me...

    1. change or add the  config variable MS_REF_NEWLEVELDISPLAY=1... this allows changes to the ref to come through to nested existing drawings. after chaged restart mstn and recheck the drawing updated...

    2.If 1 has had no effect , then a  little more painful,  got to the master nested file dettach only  the changed refs one at a time and reattach them

    now go and check it worked in all the sheet drags...

    and 

    3. just in case neither of the above worked and your using sheet models, go to the drawings , go to the model and dettach and  reattach the nest....

    Now its only 13 plans now neither of these steps is too much to bare. not a whole alignment plan set of 30  - 100 plans... so take a deep breath and try all the steps one at a time.. and check a few plans at random to see if it took effect....

    If still no joy...then I assume your drawings are all meant to look all  the same just different locations and some text  in the sheets...

    LAST RESORT .....

    Then make a temp folder and  move all your drawings to the temp folder except the first one, make it  look right ie rebuild if you have too

    now do a save as 12 times of the first  drawing.... so all the view settings are the same etc,,, I assume your using sheet models...

    go to the original drawing number 2... open the  sheet model, in ref manager and at the  bottom you will see the scale and coodinates  of the ref attachement and its rotation copy these into note pad,

    return to new drawing 2, deleted all notes ets in the sheet, edit the ref manager settings  for the  nested ref ( copy from note pad), you may  have to delete the clip boundary and reclip...now ref attach original sheet 2  not nested and copy either the  drawing sheet or text or both depends how your sheets work ie with tags or plain text...note you may need to do this in different  order sheet and title block dependent..but you get the idea..

    repeat for the rest of the project..

    sounds like a lot but it isnt  really and you only need to do the exact same thing 12 more times.... so should only take a bout 1 hour...

    The only thing thats a pain is the copy text from the ref manager  settings....to and from note pad...

    I have had to do this many times before  especially when other users or even me didnt  notice we used coincident  instead of world coincident and all the coordiantes are wrong for 30 plans that have already be fully annotated just no grids and NEs .yet and thats how we found the goof...placeing the grid NE number just looked wrong for local datum///..

    Good luck and I hope you only  need to do step 1....

    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 

  • 13 files. If they all want the same attributes from the reference of "Big Plan", fix 1, set references as elements, select and copy. Open the other 12, detach all big plan references, paste in the repaired versions.

    If Big Mama is a DWG, all bets are off!

    Connect r17 10.17.2.61 self-employed-Unpaid Beta tester for Bentley