Level Number Map

As has already been explained here by a number of people this concept of the old level number map containing the limited 64 levels was something that was replaced with the Level Display dialog. This is due to the major change in operation between V7 and V8 DGN file format where the amount of levels that can be defined in a file are now virtually unlimited. The concept of the numbers against each level is also a concept that only really remains as a legacy workflow due to these old concepts. I would suggest having a closer look at the operations of the Level Display dialog as it should not be too much of a difference to turn levels on and off like you did before. As you stated the Level Name you have in your design file are still the numbers so you can just a click on each of these levels to turn them on or off.

https://docs.bentley.com/LiveContent/web/MicroStation%20Help-v15/en/LevelDisplay.html

As has already been explained here by a number of people this concept of the old level number map containing the limited 64 levels was something that was replaced with the Level Display dialog. This is due to the major change in operation between V7 and V8 DGN file format where the amount of levels that can be defined in a file are now virtually unlimited. The concept of the numbers against each level is also a concept that only really remains as a legacy workflow due to these old concepts. I would suggest having a closer look at the operations of the Level Display dialog as it should not be too much of a difference to turn levels on and off like you did before. As you stated the Level Name you have in your design file are still the numbers so you can just a click on each of these levels to turn them on or off.

https://docs.bentley.com/LiveContent/web/MicroStation%20Help-v15/en/LevelDisplay.html

Hello Andrew:

Yes, I realize all of what you said is correct. I am not trying to change anything or say anything is wrong. I just like using the old style Level Display box as it worked so well for me. If I was tech savvy I would recreate it but I don't know how to right any sort of code. I was just hoping there was someone else that wanted the 'old way' like me and had already recreated it.

The only thing I would disagree with is, if like me one never uses hundreds of levels, and they have a 'mental system' of knowing what parts are on one level due to familiarity and the relatively low number of levels, than the old display mode using numbers works really well and quick. Easier to pick a circle than go to the list and scroll down to find it. I also had the level display set up in a 10 column grid and work  in sub-assemblies or parts by row. So I have one assembly in levels 0-9, then the next assembly will fall into 10-19 and so forth. Just made things quicker and easier for me. I also use 10 colors, so if I am in level 24, I know it is yellow. Helps to quickly know which level I need to turn on/off.

Will keep going with what is available until a clever guy like you comes along to help me out!

Peter Singleton said:

than the old display mode using numbers works really well and quick.

Yes, but it does not automatically mean that the names-based system cannot work similarly efficiently. In my opinion it's mostly about configuration and work organization, even though it's always complicated to compare two different ways how to work.

Peter Singleton said:

Easier to pick a circle than go to the list and scroll down to find it.

The situation can be changed to simpler using proper naming and filters (named or dynamic).

Often, when I need to check model from a user and there are huge amount of levels defined in dgnlibs (or even existing in the file, but not used), the first step is to change the list to display used levels only. From tens or even hundreds levels become just a few used and to scroll through the list is necessary rarely.

Peter Singleton said:

So I have one assembly in levels 0-9, then the next assembly will fall into 10-19 and so forth. Just made things quicker and easier for me.

I assume (but have not tested it) when levels will be named systematically, filters can be defined in such way to filter mentioned groups of levels (e.g. 10 - 19), so the manipulation will be simpler. And when it's the same in all files, to define custom F keys, keyboard shortcuts or menu customization can do some tasks even faster than to select circles in dialogs.

With regards,

  Jan

Mr Bell, as a practicing architect of 25+ years, who started in Microstation when it was still on Intergraph VAX-based Clippers, and who now uses, albeit very grudgingly, Revit, I completely understand what Bentley had to do to the layer system. 

I can claim a more than passing familiarity with the layer system, as I was the one who worked with Autodesk's Tech Desk in 2012 to figure out the massive file bloat when one import something from DGN to DWG with . It was a simple translational issue of line type styles, and we needed a translation matrix.  Without which, something fundamental to the element definition structure "fractured" in the DWG file, and files that should've been less than 500KB ended up at 10MB.  It was an intrinsic issue - meaning once you 'infected' a file, deletion of the DGN import, purging, command line purging, nothing but a 'Ctrl-Z' would save your file.  So if you saved and closed out, you were done.

Forgive my digression.  I'm chiming in because I only used Microstation in Arch School, and in am back finishing my MArch at Pratt Institute, while having just scored my first personal architectural commission.  So I'm looking at this from all sides.

And I can absolutely see the point that a small one-man outfit, who uses the 8x8 grid of yore in a visual manner, as I did myself, it is an exceedingly fast & efficient organizational method that keys into an architect's base training - visual cues. For instance, my first row of eight defined primary massing, the second row the form, the third row, the structure, the fourth row, the lighting - it was visual rational planned with rigor and utterly intuitive.  Just as Mr Singleton describes his own methodology from an engineering perspective - it works. 

And yes, only in small projects, with limited no. of staff on it. The latter is a given, as hardly anyone is fluent in Microstation, however, the former, unfortunately due to it's retained use in all major transportation projects within State & Federal jurisdictions means large projects.  The last firm I worked at, Zyscovich Architects, completed in 2020 Miami International Airport's latest terminal.  There's a dedicated transportation studio of Microstation veterans that take these types of project on at Zyscovich.

BUT this doesn't mean the need for the  simpler organizational grid system must be eradicated.  Surely they're not mutually exclusive.  Sometimes, evolution doesn't require the genocide of a species type, if the evolutionary process folds in the adaptation of the previous evolution.  Simply put, we still have the same five senses the cavemen did, we simply have much greater faculty of interpreting their input. 

So yes, this is hearty "Hear hear!" in response to Mr. Singleton's post.  Perhaps if you read my bio, new as I am to this particular forum community, you might see I speak from a position of some fair experience in both academia & professional practice, with full CAD & Revit fluency too.

I'd be grateful if you could acknowledge this message, and ecstatic if you / Bentley expressed a willingness to revisit the issue with someone who was once offered a job there while he was an architectural undergrad, and who has some knowledge of "what goes on behind the scenes", if you will. And as a professional who's just signed his first major commission, I'm more than willing to find reasons to move from Autodesk to Bentley, but there needs to be some development. 

When I first started using Microstation, there was an elegance to the GUI, borne from it's Unix roots.  I'm now seeing a more blocky cumbersome "Windows" look, that just doesn't have the same slickness.  Facility aside, you can get a lot of attention from your GUI.  After all, at the end of the day, all these programs do the same thing.  They're surface modelers with some parametric capability to claim BIM-worthiness.  We're not talking Solidworks, or Catia, or any of the myriad self written / customized software like Ove Arup developed combining computational fluid dynamics with simple prioritized avatar behavior to model likely human surge directions in sudden, drastic fire events in large spaces.  RWDI's CFD analysis software has been customized with materials science in metallurgy.  You have a huge fan, you were the first, you're still the most accurate, and so please.

Sincerely,

TS Yong

Tet Shin Yong said:

Intergraph VAX-based Clippers

The Intergraph Graphic Design System (IGDS) started on DEC PDP-10 and move to the VAX/VMS computers.  Intergraph developed their own UNIX (CLIX) workstation that used the CLIPPER processor, and to which they ported IGDS.  IGDS stored graphic data in an Intergraph Standard Format File (ISFF).  ISFF was a published file spec, so others could us it, including Bentley Systems.

Tet Shin Yong said:

When I first started using Microstation, there was an elegance to the GUI, borne from it's Unix roots

MicroStation was initially an app for Microsoft DOS.  It enabled a user to view and edit an ISFF file.  The UI was rudimentary until Windows 95 arrived.  MicroStation was one of the first apps. for Windows NT at its introduction in 1993.

From the 1980s Bentley Systems ported MicroStation to a large number of platforms, including various UNIX workstations, the DEC VAX  and a version for the Apple Mac. On UNIX platforms, the UI was implemented using X-Windows technology, which may have been the elegant UI that you recall.

With the introduction of MicroStation V8, Bentley committed 100% to Microsoft and dropped all other platforms.  MicroStation in the 21^st century is Windows-only.  See the History of MicroStation. 

So, to recap, you would basically like to see the return of the old Level display from the MicroStation 95 days etc..?

Unfortunately, I think you will find there is more a chance of 'Hell Freezing Over' than Bentley reimplementing such a feature, there have been many more relevant feature requests which simply have never materialised.

However, if such a feature was absolutely critical, I daresay a competent programmer familiar with MicroStation could be commissioned to recreate it as an Addin using either C#/WPF or perhaps C++ and whichever libraries could provide a GUI.

Screen Menu's are a possibility but I'm unsure if Named Expressions can be used to reflect a Level's on/off state.

Tet Shin Yong said:

BUT this doesn't mean the need for the  simpler organizational grid system must be eradicated.  Surely they're not mutually exclusive.  Sometimes, evolution doesn't require the genocide of a species type, if the evolutionary process folds in the adaptation of the previous evolution.  Simply put, we still have the same five senses the cavemen did, we simply have much greater faculty of interpreting their input.

Well, if you hang around here long enough (or perhaps dig through previous topics related to CONNECT), you will find many disgruntled users who are unhappy with many of the forced changes brought with CONNECT: Poor performance, broken features, bugs galore, implementation of 'The Ribbon' with no 'Classic Interface' option for users to choose, removal of the Menu Bar, removal of tools either replaced with ones of lesser quality/functionality or merged with others. The list goes on, but what is clear is that regardless of complaints, Bentley doesn't care for its user base and only a fool would believe otherwise. Just my opinion of course, some may feel different (and that's entirely their choice), but evidence of the contrary would be heeding the calls to reimplement features like the Menu Bar again yet its continuously stone-walled.

Tet Shin Yong said:

I'm more than willing to find reasons to move from Autodesk to Bentley, but there needs to be some development.

Well, that's interesting but in my opinion, you are about 20 years too late, as MicroStation's heyday has been and gone. As per my previous paragraph, some forum members as so annoyed with the current status quo that they are doing (or at least considering) the opposite (whether it be to AutoCAD or Revit or maybe something entirely different), albeit reluctantly as none of us long-term users are happy to leave an application we have used for so many years. I myself simply refuse to use CONNECT and so remain happily on V8i SS10, but I am also slowly once again creating Annotation Families and a new Project Template in Revit 2022, with the eventual intention of going back to it permanently, after a 3 year break.

Tet Shin Yong said:

After all, at the end of the day, all these programs do the same thing.  They're surface modelers with some parametric capability to claim BIM-worthiness.

MicroStation uses both Solid and Surfaces, but its certainly not a BIM application nor worthy to be considered for such a use. I have used it on Level 2 BIM projects, but its they weren't true BIM projects as the geometry contained no data, just bog-standard solid geometry modelled in a geospatially correct location.

Tet Shin Yong said:

When I first started using Microstation, there was an elegance to the GUI, borne from it's Unix roots.  I'm now seeing a more blocky cumbersome "Windows" look, that just doesn't have the same slickness. 

There's no doubt the Ribbon takes up a lot of screen real-estate, Tasks (unsure if you have seen those in during your absence) also took up space, but it is much more flexible with its resizing. I don't mind the Ribbon in Revit however, perhaps because I've never known anything different there, and I find it works well as I don't have to hunt for what I need. Slick interfaces are a rarity but I believe the term can be applied to Blender's GUI, it offers users customisability that MicroStation users can only dream about, and they're even making headway into the BIM side of things, time will tell if it becomes a relevant player in that market or not.