Solid working area

In Microstation v8i I have an mdl app called SWA that drew a rectangle (in 2d or a cube in 3d) showing the extent of the solid working area. Does anyone know a way of doing this in Connect? It's really useful for explaining to people why they are having problems with geometry that's way outside the SWA.

Thanks

Duncan 

  • it just indicated the area which I understand to be the swa within which the accuracy was high.

    Modeling close to 0 is always a good idea, and wanting to do so in order to facilitate export to another format is a reasonable requirement, so while I understand why you liked this app, it was erroneous that this app would lead someone to believe a solid that is 2 km from the origin when the swa is 1 km is invalid for the dgn format.

    The solids extent is implemented as a scale from uors to solid kernel coordinates, operations on the solid are performed in the solid's local coordinate system, not design file coordinates. I don't know the history of this app, but the reason such a feature doesn't exist in MicroStation is that it would re-enforce the incorrect notion that the swa is a volume centered at 0.

    -B



  • Thank Brian. I'm not sure I was clear. The mdl didn't create any geometry. it just indicated the area which I understand to be the swa within which the accuracy was high. I want to encourage our users to draw near 0 and remap coordinates if required so that when we export geometry to other apps ie Rhino and Revit we can bring it in without issue.

  • Duncan,

    That's not how the solids working area is handled, it's a scale, not a volume. No single solid can have extents larger than the solid extent, but it can be positioned anywhere you want in the dgn*.

    * Keeping in mind that with double precision floating point you have the most accuracy near 0.

    -B