Level Display on multiple sheets

When creating multiple plan-sheets of a road in ORD CE, isn't it possible to manage the level display for all sheets at the same time..? 

I have 27 sheets for a 30 km road and it seems really pointless that I have to open every single sheet to hide the same 10 levels, over and over again.. And if, for some reason, ORD decides to not save these level display settings (even though I keep hitting "save settings"...), I will have to do the same thing next time I open the file.... 

Parents
  • I don't know how OpenRoads sets up the sheets, but in the past, I have gotten around this by creating a "collector" drawing which references all my design files. I control level display (among other things) from here, using Global Display. That Collector is referenced into each sheet with Live Nesting to a depth = 1 and "Display Overrides" set to Never.

    It's still possible for sheets to get out of sync, but it certainly makes a good starting point.
    Also, take a look at the design file setting REFLEVELOVERRIDES. This should probably be set to ON. This is analogous to the AutoCAD setting VISRETAIN. If it is OFF, it will not save any reference level display changes. Drove me NUTS until I found out about it. You can look it up in the Help file for more information.

    If OpenRoads will not use a collector by default, you may be able to go through each sheet and repath your design file to the collector. You'd still have to open each sheet, but you may be able to get away with only doing it once.

    Centralizing and controlling level display for large numbers of sheets has been a bugaboo for us for years. We haven't got it all figured out (because there's always something...) but this approach has worked best for us so far.

    MaryB

    Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918
    Power InRoads 08.11.09.918
    OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2

        

  • Rikke:

    It would appear that the settings for the sheets and referenced drawings are as per the Sheet Seed.dgnlib which is used to create them. I venture a guess that if you go to your dgnlib sheet seed and make "universal" changes to it (them), the settings will propagate as new sheets are created. The notion is analogous to any seed file; that is, when creating a new model from seed, the seed's settings are propagated to the new model. 

    Mark

    Mark Anthony Plum
    Chief Technology Officer
    1601 N.W. Expressway, Suite 400
    Oklahoma City, OK  73118
     
  • Hi Mark,

    Thanks for your suggestion. The problem with your solution (in my case) is, that the levels I need to hide might not be the same on all sheets, so a "universal" change won't really help in this case.. 

    Also, a lot of my levels has been adopted from the dwg, I've gotten from an extern company and converted into dgn, so these levels are not in my standard library..

    I'm more interested in a "hide this level on these sheets"-type of command.. :/

Reply
  • Hi Mark,

    Thanks for your suggestion. The problem with your solution (in my case) is, that the levels I need to hide might not be the same on all sheets, so a "universal" change won't really help in this case.. 

    Also, a lot of my levels has been adopted from the dwg, I've gotten from an extern company and converted into dgn, so these levels are not in my standard library..

    I'm more interested in a "hide this level on these sheets"-type of command.. :/

Children
  • You could probably write a script file to run through the Batch Processor if the levels in question are the same on every sheet.

    There are three ways to turn off levels - View Display, Global Display and Global Freeze. You can look them up in the Help to see which one will fit your needs best.

    The key-in command for turning a level off is:
    LEVEL SET DISPLAY OFF [file:file-spec] <level-spec>

    where [file:file-spec] identifies the file containing the level and <level-spec> identifies the level in question.

    The key-in command for freezing a level is:
    LEVEL SET FROZEN ON [file:file-spec] <level-spec>

    These key-ins can also be used for ON or TOGGLE, in case you need to know that.

    Here's from the Help:

    A “level-spec” format is very general and can take one of the following forms:

    • A single level-name, or a level-number.

    • An expression such as “lev*”. When specified as an expression, then level specification matches all levels that pass the expression. The expression “all” matches all levels.

    • A level-filter. When specified as a level-filter, then the level specification matches all levels which pass the filter.

    • More than one of the above separated by a space.

    Also from the Help:

    The “file-spec” format can take one of the following forms:

    • The word “all” which matches the master-file and all reference attachments.

    • A file-name or logical-name, which matches one or more of the reference attachments. The file-name may also match the master-file.

    • An expression, which may match a file-name or logical-name of one or more of the reference attachments. The expression may also match the master-file.

    • A series of file-names separated by the “->” delimeter, where the series of file-names represent the path to a nested reference. For example, “file:ref1.dgn->ref2.dgn->ref3.dgn->ref4.dgn” represents the path to a nested reference (ref4.dgn).

    You can look up more about the Batch Processor in the Help file. If what you need to do is more complicated, you may have to look at a VBA routine. There's a whole forum about programming that could help you figure that out.

    MaryB

    Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918
    Power InRoads 08.11.09.918
    OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2