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)

Hi JPLN, I'm not agreed with you, i don't think there is only one user prefer this "arrangement".

you don't know how much we are disapointed from this product (ORD). this product is a disaster.

you know that until now we use SS2 because we are waiting a bettre upgrade that will never coming.

I won't debate too much between SS2/OpenRail.

My point of view is not because I am Bentley but because I have demonstrated/trained people for more than 10 years now on Rail track SS2 and before on MX (same kind of data management). I love it and people who have adopted it are, for most of them, pleased with it. I am also sharing your experience with using OpenRail, I am not producing but I am supporting it and users problems are my problems. 

However, and @Alex Marina Nelson is right, the market demand is for a "toy" not a product for engineers (and it is good to challenge editors). It is not new that more and more people who are using our products are drafters. They are used to draw not to design.
Rail Track was not so well received from new people even we can convince by the capabilities.
File management, drawing is not the data, it looks old (isn't it ?), it is 32bit,  are some of the feedback we were receiving.

Keeping SS2 technology, look and feel, was not an option.

So OpenRail is there. OK not fully ready for all of you. To my experience stability is quite good with 2018-R4 but some capabilities are still missing. We know. We are working on it. And believe me, I am really concerned in France. OpenRail one year anniversary is on April 1st. Just one year old product.
Yes you, and I, have to learn new workflows, unfortunately also new crashes. But it does open so many doors...

You can continue to use Rail Track as long as it is better for you. You can move to "you know who" (there are several so I don't know which one) if you think it is better. If many of you will move then it will mean we were wrong. I strongly believe we are right. We must do better and faster.
That is why I wrote too much again.

Hello;

I am the product manager for OpenRail Designer. I am also a design engineer and used/trained on Bentley Rail Track and before that on InRail for years, so I think I can understand your problems.  Especially, you are right about saying we did not have much interaction during development with our US based rail users. But I am very willing to fix this. You can reach me using my e-mail (kivanc.karakas@bentley.com) and maybe we can set up a call to have a start. I am writing this as a reply to all users (or viewers) in this threat not only to original poster.

Kivanc

Hi Jean Pierre,

Again, I'm not totally agreed with you and I honestly believe that Bentley made big step on the wrong direction.

I feel concerned because I’m really attached to Bentley product (PRT), I’m using since 8 years ago and believe me it ‘was not that easy, especially here in France, to convince my direction to made a such investment.

You should be aware that you are not anymore, the only provider of track design program in France market.

Back to your post, if the market demands for a “toy” we should not made a toy. In my opinion SS2 was the best solution for compromise the demand of drafters and engineers by developing microstation and make all the 3d staffs... and keep PRT as a separate program (operate on microstation) for engineers and designers. Anyway, I think no need to explain to you, you know very well Bentley product and I’m sure about your feeling when the first time you use ORD .

Bonne journée

IN A WRONG DIRECTION indeed!!!!!. Besides the fact that the entire programme mentality/ interface is totally cocked up and turned into yet another cross-pollination between Autocad (yuck!!), and Microsoft (give me a barf bag), it has very little recollection what actual rail engineering is. Definitely clueless about freight rail- industry that pays a lot of money for their projects. In fact, Connect edition is not for engineers at all! I have been dealing with Connect Open Rail Designer, and the more I have to use it, the more I absolutely hate it.

Time to start looking into some other sources/ providers of rail and roadway engineering software.

IN A WRONG DIRECTION indeed!!!!!. Besides the fact that the entire programme mentality/ interface is totally cocked up and turned into yet another cross-pollination between Autocad (yuck!!), and Microsoft (give me a barf bag), it has very little recollection what actual rail engineering is. Definitely clueless about freight rail- industry that pays a lot of money for their projects. In fact, Connect edition is not for engineers at all! I have been dealing with Connect Open Rail Designer, and the more I have to use it, the more I absolutely hate it.

Time to start looking into some other sources/ providers of rail and roadway engineering software.