Conventionally, we have been using callouts and clips to make use of automated sheet generation capabilities of MicroStation. Named Boundaries add a whole new dimension to the way we create sheets. It is a very effective and efficient way to automate sheet generation while making use of every inch of available space on your sheet. To Start with, you can divide your sheet in the drawing seed’s DGNlib file into multiple slots. Each one of these slots need to have a specific purpose. We call each one of these slots a Drawing Boundary and the purpose of the slot is denoted by the Type of the drawing boundary.
In the previous editions, we could create only rectangular drawing boundaries, but now with the advent of the new drawing boundary from element tool you can create drawing boundaries of any shape and size. This proves to be a very useful feature while creating Named Boundaries from drawing boundaries.
Once we have the DGNlibs set up, let us learn a little bit about Named Boundaries in general: A Named Boundary is a shape in space with a user specified name. There are various ways of creating named boundary elements, namely, named boundary by drawing boundary, named boundary from two points, named boundary form element, etc. We will make use of Named Boundary from Drawing Boundary method and to appreciate its sheet generation capabilities we must toggle on Create Drawing in the placement tool. When you create a named boundary element or set of named boundary elements from a drawing boundary element, you start by selecting a drawing boundary from your seed sheet models. We can have drawing boundaries of any shape so you can shape your named boundary as per your requirement and have it placed in the model. This feature becomes particularly useful when you are placing a named boundary encompassing an odd shaped intersection on the road or a peculiarly shaped room on the floor. This launches the trusted and resourceful Create Drawing dialog, which has been enhanced specifically to make use of the inherent capabilities of named boundary elements and named boundary group.
Couple of noteworthy enhancements in Create Drawing Dialog include ability to pick desired drawing boundary from existing sheet or from a new sheet, which is about to be generated and this is where the ability to make use of every inch of space on your sheet comes in to picture. The Create Drawing dialog is intelligent enough to recommend few suitable scales to you as well. If you start the create drawing workflow from the Named Boundary tool, you will see a “By Named Boundary” scale in create Drawing Dialog. Picking “By Named Boundary” scale will ensure that generated sheet drawing reference will fit snuggly into the drawing boundary, efficient isn’t it! Automated Sheet generation becomes even more efficient when you decide to create a named boundary group. Once you place named boundary group, the Create Drawing dialog will show “Optimize for” in the drawing boundary picker, provided you have more than one drawing boundaries of same type in the target sheet or seed sheet model. The “Optimize for” option places your drawing references in the vacant drawing boundaries without the need for you to explicitly pick them, no matter how many named boundaries you create. This is really a big time saver!
What makes this scenario really flexible and intuitive is the Named Boundaries dialog. You can do a multi-selection of named boundaries from named boundaries dialog and launch create drawing dialog at your will.
This Wiki was originally created by Mark Penn