This probably belongs in the "Everything Else" forum, but I know most people don't look at that. It also should probably be an "Idea" but I'd like to see if anyone else is interested before bothering with that.
I would love a discussion forum here where people who are more familiar with AutoCAD could get more targeted responses by the "bilingual" folks who can "speak" AutoCAD to better help them understand their issues AND those of us who are primarily MicroStation users might be able to get some advice on which AutoCAD functions will do what we can easily do in MicroStation.
I have to work in both softwares, and it is incredibly frustrating to figure out how to do certain things in AutoCAD. I have posted before on the AutoDesk forums, but nobody there "speaks" MicroStation. It is very hard to explain what I am asking. I always love the answer "What are you talking about? Why would you want to do that?" (Because I do it every day).
I would love to find some place where I could explain in MicroStation terms what I want and have someone answer in AutoCAD. Or even if I can speak AutoCAD, I'm honestly more comfortable with you folks over here :-)
Or would it be against the MicroStation forum policies to ask the occasional "In MicroStation I can...How do I in AutoCAD?Thank you.
Done!
Here's the link, in case anyone else would like to chime in or offer suggestions: https://communities.bentley.com/help/f/communities-feedback-forum/232018/forum-for-autocad-microstation-users
Thank you.
MaryB
Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918Power InRoads 08.11.09.918OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2
Yes Mary, you've brought up a very good topic. Both Bentley and Autodesk talk a good game, but neither is really interested in cross platform users. I used AutoCad, for a couple years, but I only did Civil3D roadway design, so I never really got good with basic drafting skills in AutoCad. One thing that helped, might help when posting in the Autodesk forums, is a list of terms. But there are a lot of functions that don't cross over. The workflow is just completely different.
We used to have a fellow here, Don Fu, who was their only Microstation DWG expert. Phil Chounard also started life as an AutoCad tech, but they're both long gone. I'm afraid we're screwed on this.
If you're using both programs I can only sympathize, I did that for a while, I was miserable. My first approach was to simply edit and cerate DWG right from Microstation (they claimed it would work). This approach was a Fail. I might guess after 5-10 years you'll overcome all your current issues, I'm sure it will be painful.
Connect r17 10.17.2.61 self-employed-Unpaid Beta tester for Bentley
Bob Rayner said:We used to have a fellow here, Don Fu, who was their only Microstation DWG expert. Phil Chounard also started life as an AutoCad tech, but they're both long gone. I'm afraid we're screwed on this.
Haven't seen that two guys many years...... I remembered that Bentley Staffs were nice to share how to enable some of functions which were disabled when you were editing with DWG. So that you could work something out with the DWG where AutoCAD couldn't but MicroStation could.
I used MicroStation between 2002-2006, just getting back into it. I used AutoCAD between 2007-2022. I'm confident enough in both. However, I do remember hating AutoCAD at first. Now I'm struggling a bit with MicroStation although time and experience will fix that.
In truth both software's have their advantages and disadvantages. I've always found MicroStation to be a solid product that was perhaps a little locked down. Whereas AutoCAD can pretty much do what you want it to. It'll just crash every hour doing so.
I definitely appreciate the capabilities of dynamic blocks in AutoCAD though. They can be extremely useful and really minimise the amount of blocks you need to make and manage.
I haven't played around with key-in/scripting in MicroStation yet but that was another thing that was good about AutoCAD was the ability to write and test Lisp routines within command line.
Michael Leeson said: I've always found MicroStation to be a solid product that was perhaps a little locked down. Whereas AutoCAD can pretty much do what you want it to.
That's an interesting take, I've always found the exact opposite from my unfortunate interactions with AutoCAD.