Product:	MicroStation
	Version:	10.15.00.74
	Environment:	N\A
	Area:	Reference
	Subarea:	N\A

Problem

Have you ever wanted an option for the drawing production outputs to be a single 2D flattened file with references merged.

For Example

A simple example may include say 500 drawing models (5km of road with cross sections every 10m) where groups of 10 drawing models are referenced onto a sheet model in a single DGN (50 sheet models). The drawing models contain nested references to external files. The request was to export to DGN with only the sheet models but everything merged and without any remaining references or additional non-sheet models. The reason this was required was as a simplified single design file is so it can shared with other drafters and many other disciplines and move the document through an ISO 19650 workflow that requires the Shared document to be static. It is also a common deliverable requirement to provide static DGNs without reference.

Solution

Well now you can do this as a post process when performing  production.

There is a new hidden configuration variable that can be used in MicroStation CONNECT Edition (Update 15) and above.

If you set the configuration variable:

_USTN_MERGE_INTERNALREFERENCES_SAVEASV8 = 1

then references within the same file will be merged when using Save As DGN / Export to DGN.

This means that when you export a profile sheet model to V8 DGN the drawing model will be merged into the sheet and the resultant DGN will have plain MicroStation graphics without reference attachments.

Note: remember to use export options to set external references to merge.

See also

Export to plain graphics - No reference

OpenRoads Designer - What's New?

Other language sources

Original Author:

Andrew Bell