Open Rail Designer - Freezes

Unfortunately, the new versions of Bentley civil products including Rail have been mutated and influenced by Autocad, and gotten almost as bad as Autocad/ C3D. it is definitely aggravating to deal with constant crashes and freezes, and with dumb pesky jumpy phantom-style dialogue boxes out of control. Very disappointing but I guess we would have to live with it. Not sure what and who Bentley developers have been catering to lately.....

I understand your feeling. However one answer to what and who developers have been catering to is users and market. Users want only DGN, graphics and dynamic update. No more files to manage dtm, alg, ird, ... Everything must be live.

It means more interactions with graphics so graphic card is important. Sometime hardware is also involved in crashes. As an example, I (and user) experienced issue on Lenovo we don't have on HP and DELL (same files, same software). It also required more RAM especially with x64 OS. I would say that 32go is more likely to be the minimum than 16go

However my Lenovo is running quite well today and I don't experience so many crashes.

You may decrease the number of crashes by taking care of few things:

• file and reference management: reference and set active terrain model in the 2D model
• let OpenRail/Road create and manage the 3D model.
• turn off 3D model display in 2D model to avoid superimposed elements. Most of the time you don't need it to design.
• try to limit nesting with civil dgn. Example: corridor is referencing alignment no nesting, terrain is referenced by its own.
  If you reference civil dgn that have both 2D and 3D model, be sure the current DGN has 2D and 3D models and reference civil dgn in the 2D. The 3D  will be automatically attached to the 3D
• turn off accusnap, when not used, as it is additional interaction with graphics (you can activate on demand by CTRL+SHIFT)

Thanks.

Yes of course I am aware that everything is in DGN now. I wonder who the users are that prefer this arrangement. Working for one of the largest engineering firms and with solid paying clients, I virtually have not come across anyone who likes this DGN- based concept. Then again- maybe this is all right for CAD operators, but even then- our CAD people as well are trying to hold on to SS2 as long as they can. Not to mention that the clients do not accept SS4/ Open Roads/ Rail.

My system, so as everyone's else, is totally up to specs, 32 GB min high performance Dell mobile series (we engineers can't be locked up to any desktops as we work remotely a lot).  But instability withing the programme is getting a lot more severe.

Here are some aggravating and disappointing matters:

1. Everything is locked up to a single DGN with all the symbology etc . Let's say I have to use roadway alignments but I have to display them according to my client railroad's standards. All I need is ALG. I would use my XIN preferences relevant to railroad- not highway industry. However, if roadway uses SS4 way of doing things, I am stuck with graphics and feature definitions. Yet when needed, I can;t easily transfer these definitions from DGN to DGN. The feature definition so as DGNLIB alternative to XIN is awfully cumbersome, and I have to go through re-assigning this definition one by one rather than just  changing XIN preferences just once, when I want to change presentation. Again, mostly geared for drafters than engineers. We just keep importing and exporting ALG and using ALG format as much as possible unless it has to be corridor modelling or terrain and we have no other options but Open/ SS4.

2. Too many needless reference files. Seriously???? Do I have to have all these terrain, geometry, etc referenced in clogging my work space? I certainly never use nesting. Again, maybe CAD operators need that many refs for sheets and other production formats, but not for engineering. I could have one work file for everything- from geometry to final track roadway model with no need to display everything and deal with linework that looks like 'spaghetti bowl'.

3. Dialogue boxes in Open/ SS4 are terrible. Let's take corridor creation. I have to scroll through every little slick one by one just to get to somewhat normal dialogue where I can enter data based on logic and calcs- not on-screen cartoons. If I had a typo or just wanted to change one entry, I would have start the entire process over, it is easier. If accidentally a mouse moves away from the dialogue box field, the box disappears, and I have to start over again! Great productivity. It has never been so agonizing and time-consuming before. It certainly would be helpful to have an option of stable dialogue boxes instead of those little pop-up- and-disappear little transparent boxes that only allow one-at-the-time-entry. I guess simpleton iPhone mentality of being only able to click one button at the time and lacking decision making skills has sifted from a world of teenagers and housewives into professional environment.

4. There is no option to re-assign controlling alignment to a corridor. Let's say I have gone through all this tedious work of template drops, point controls, etc, and then for some reason I have to keep most of it but change the alignment, horizontal or vertical. There is no option to change it, or at least not that I am aware of.

5. Editing ANYTHING within a corridor is a nightmare, especially changing station limits. It is to the point of deleting and starting over. Doesn't seem like a good way to increase productivity.

This 2D- 3D toggling is annoying too: some corridor modelling tools require 2D, some 3D....really?

Toggling between different windows for profile an cross sections???? Seriously?

5. Cross section routine is simply horrible now. Profile routine in SS4 and later is useless. Don't make me go there.

6. No real time tracking in SS4 and later tools. Is this considered as and improvement to graphic interface? Point ID is a joke, and it doesn't allow placement of annotations or simply locking by snap. Point ID data comes as very unstable and unreadable on-screen glimpse of text.

6. Engineers would much rather prefer if option for calculated entries remained available. Our clients are professionals too. They clearly state that when they  review a roadway or rail design, they certainly do not want to see any pretty landscapes with trees and cute little pedaling cyclists, but they want to see numbers, grades, volumes, curve data, distances and bearings, etc.- all in identifiable format. Not to mention DB and other alternative delivery projects when construction companies, partnered with engineering consultants, have no patience for those pretty pictures when we go through project reviews.

Being Bentley advocate for my entire engineering career, and utterly despising Autocad, I have grown a bit disappointed with late changes to Bentley Civil products. However, I have always loved Projectwise.

New workflows to learn and to be comfortable with. I know it is not something we want to do with the pressure of production.
in addition OpenRoads/OpenRail must improve to fill the gaps of functionalities and improve stability.

Forget SS4 which is an hybrid version.

I don't want to argue about all points but if we can improve your user experience then let give some answers.

2. DGN references are just replacing DTMs, ALGs, IRDs for some of the many legacy files used in Inroads. When training people, believe me it is not obvious. As well as understanding that drawing is not the data. It has some advantages for sure and 1. is one of them. Unfortunately it is really something (new) users don't want.
DGN and references is a single way of managing data.

3.You can use ribbon to access commands, properties dialog to change parameters, toolsettings dialog to enter parameters in a single place (I agree you have to accept all of them with the mouse), even Project Explorer. I agree that sometime the popup toolbar behavior can break your nerves. However it is become better and better. The intent is to have an easy access to most relevant actions available for an object.

4. yes there is one: corridor reattach. If you don't find it in the ribbon, it is the keyin.

5. I am a bit surprised by your feedback. The corridor basket allows to easily change stations and other parameters. You can even unlock corridor rule while changing parameters to avoid dynamic update and increase productivity.

5. what are you referring to ? Named boundaries ?

6. what do you mean by Point ID ? Analyze point can be used for tracking and civil accudraw could also be very useful. For example, you can work on your profile and lock the station from the plan view.

6. we don't focus on nice visualization but just provide nice tools like LumenRT for those who want to do visualization.
The focus is accurate BIM modelling/reporting, simplify workflows (yes there is still to do) and accurate and reliable 3D model documentation (plan/profile/cross section).

Thank you for supporting legacy Bentley products. I hope you will find some satisfaction with new generation. I will help as much as possible. I am convinced that it is the right direction. I know about lacks and defects as well.

Thank you for such comprehensive answers and for your patience with users like me.

I know we have no choice but dealing with DGN based ops.

Yes I can access corridor edits via Tasks/ Corridor Modelling. However, there is no command 'corridor reattach'. Searching it in key-in is such a waste of time, and frankly as a long time Bentley user I have always despised key-option. Really, do I have to remember all that and do all the typing when I am focused on engineering tasks? Never been successful finding those key-in commands, and of course you know that one typo bites back.

Where do I find key-in reference guidance/ manual? It seems like a big mystery that only some very experienced CAD/ Microstation operators possess and keep highly 'classified' . Would you happen to have a document or link to it?

Is there a handy reference chart that would let's say take a native Inroads/Power Rail commands and point to the new version/location of it, side by side. Let's say a specific native command and its Open version and WHERE and HOW TO FIND IT.

Another question 'how to': how do I transfer all these feature definitions and element templates from DGN to DGN? If this is, again, part of DGNLIB (by the way how?), would that cause a conflict with projectwise managed workspace?

Sorry for these how-to questions, but I come from engineering background and much more familiar with ALG, DTM, XIN and less with Microstation/ CAD routines. Any custom additions, key-ins, configuration variables..... that becomes a problem, and I never have time or chance to wrap my head around it, as there is always CAD tech Microstation guru around who, when needed, can get things developed and resolved much quicker and with lower hourly rates. It has become a problem for us with SS4/ Open takeover, with its DGN-based philosophy.

When I try to make changes in Corridor Objects, that's where edits to stations or templates cause bad behaviour: it would not keep new entries, re-setting them to either initial or some other strange values even when all locks are off (I had to work with Bentley support on that few times). When I try to change or enter stations in somewhat normal dialogue box, just an accidental move of the mouse messes up this entry, like locking on the field position. Totally nonsense but it happens.

I don't use civil accudraw because it makes everything too 'drafting-like' and constrained where I don;t want it. I would prefer mouse free flowing but the entries mathematically stable in the dialogue boxes.

Regards

Alex