Can I Remapping Levels and have the Levels Not be ByLevel?

Question

Good Morning Folks, 
 I am using MicroStation V8i Select Series 4 and am trying to save a dwg to dgn while using the Save Options to implement a Remapping XLS file, so that I can convert Level Symbology to my standards. I can get the elements in the resulting dgn to be on the correct Levels but all the Level Attributes are &ldquo;ByLevel&rdquo;. Is there a way to have all the Elements&rsquo; Attributes after remapping not be &ldquo;ByLevel&rdquo;? 
 As a simplified example, I can produce this output after remapping, see the &ldquo;ByLevel&rdquo; (illustration #1) 
 
 But what I want is to have this as an output after remapping, NO &ldquo;ByLevel&rdquo; (illustration #2) 
 
 If there is a way to do this please show me how to set up the &ldquo;Remapping&rdquo; XLS file to do so, please? 
 
 Thank You for your time,

Tim Hickman · Answer

If you do nothing to the file upon translation it should all come over as you need it to (levels, etc...) What I think you want to control is the actual color of the elements (for example). Instead of them being "bylevel" for their color - I think - you want them be an actual color (IE: "bylevel" color is blue, you want it to actually be blue). 
 If this is what you want, it can be accomplished during the translation with the use of the "color mapping" tab in the spreadsheet and not level mapping. 
 In the first column (the color column) use brackets to distinguish the bylevel color (IE: [6] ) and then for the V8OutputColor you put the number needed (IE: 8) - So in this case it would map all elements that have a bylevel color of 6 (what was in the brackets) to a MicroStation color of 8. No levels involved. 
 The same can be done with Weights, and LineStyles. 
 I think this is more of what you are looking for since you mention not using bylevel symbology or overrides. 
 hope this helps.

Grot · Answer

Thank You MaryB and Ron, 
 To answer your question MaryB, "yes" the original dwg has it's layer attributes set to "ByLayer". 
 So I will use Ron's trick of getting all the 'remapped' levels to go from "ByLevel" to being set per element. 
 I was wondering if I was missing something about the functionality of the "remaptemplate.xls" file, and I just didn't have it setup correctly. 
 Thank You Both,

Lorys · Answer

what happens if you want two objects of different colours live on the same level and are not by layer in mstn but were by layer in acad and lived in 2 different bylevels? 
 The only time not by level in mstn should be used is to have same level different colours we used to do this because only 64 levels were available but now days we can hundreds of levels per discipline so for me bylevel is better...

Grot · Answer

Morning Tim, 
 Yes, that is what I was looking for in functionality of the Remapping XLS file. This is great. When in doubt have two approaches to an end. Ron's key-in is still good. 
 Tim I must have missed the "bracket" / [] qualifier in the 'help' file I saw the '%' and the '*' but not the "brackets" are there other qualifiers to be aware of? 
 Thanks Again Tim, and everyone

Can I Remapping Levels and have the Levels Not be ByLevel?

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