[CE14.2] Behaviour of Move to Contact with Accudraw

Hi all,

I've got an issue with the Move to Contact tool. I would expect it to work the same as the move function in regard to direction and accudraw etc. Using Accudraw compass in the "side" mode, the "Move" command correctly moves the object in the global z direction. However the Move to Contact tool always moves in the global XY plane, regardless of the orientation of the Accudraw compass. 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

  • Hi Adam,

    I recently had to move several thousand simple 3D buildings meshes with the Move To Contact tool and discovered a number of odd behaviors with that command. The buildings were basically 3d meshes based on the footprints and heights of actual buildings. No details at all. All of the buildings were at the same elevation and needed to be moved down vertically to touch the ground below them.

    Here are my observations and my workarounds:

    1. The buildings were meshes and the command wouldn't move them. Solids, shapes and lines would move but had an unwanted XY shift. 
    2. My first workaround:
      I converted the meshes to Smart Solids. Now the command would move them but even though I provided a perfectly vertical vector they still had an unwanted XY shift of over 5 feet.
    3. My second workaround:
      Increasing the Solids Working Area from 1 kilometer to 10 kilometers reduced the XY shift slightly but it didn't eliminate it. Through trial and error I kept increasing the Solids Working Area until it was 100000 kilometers and then the XY shift was acceptable ( < .16 feet ) but it wasn't eliminated. This also had a similar effect on positioning of shapes and lines.

    Even though you are not moving solids my second workaround may help your situation.

    There is no reason we should need to change the Solid Working Area to make the command work.

    This is needs to get fixed by Bentley because my workarounds are not acceptable.

    Regards,
    Ron

    I'm using MicroStation CONNECT Edition - Version 10.16.02.34

    Answer Verified By: Adam Turner 

  • Hi Adam,

    We fixed a similar problem recently. Could you please share your test case and we can confirm if it can fix your problem.

    Regards,

    Katherine

  • Can you share the test case for review? If so please use the link below:

    David,

    That link is to the "MicroStation Programming" community. It has nothing to do with sharing a test case.

    Can you provide a better link?

    Regards,
    Ron

  • Increasing the Solids Working Area from 1 kilometer to 10 kilometers reduced the XY shift slightly but it didn't eliminate it. Through trial and error I kept increasing the Solids Working Area until it was 100000 kilometers and then the XY shift was acceptable ( < .16 feet ) but it wasn't eliminated. This also had a similar effect on positioning of shapes and lines.

    Hi Ron,

    Increasing the Solids Working Area size so that the elements were actually within the Solids Working Area worked perfectly and now it functions as expected. In my case the elements are located at coordinates with values between 1x10^5 and 1x10^6 which might explain why increasing the working area helped?

    However it still seems like odd behaviour and I think I would still consider this a bug.

    Thanks for your help!