MXROAD V8i (SELECTseries 4) - Discontinued Support and use of Input files

We recently received an email with respect to an update to the Bentley Support Policy.  Many people in the office took this as a discontinuation of MXRoad but it is unclear if this is the case.  However, we do note that MXROAD V8i (SELECTseries 4) will have "expiring support" from 1st July 2019 https://www.bentley.com/en/desktop-applications i.e. it will be unavailable for download and that "Connect Edition" and "Open Roads" will replace MXROAD.  However, a lot of our designs use input files and we are concerned that this may not be supported. Having not used Open Roads, can you advise whether input file functionality is or will be available?

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  • Hi Richard,

    OpenRoads Designer is a completely new product. There is no linemode option within it. It does not use MX Commands.

    You will still be able to use MX in the future, but it won't be developed any more, and we will still be providing support for the foreseeable future.

    The intention is to transition users to ORD.

    I'd be happy to discuss specific requirements, if you want to drop me an email. simon.pegg@bentley.com I'd be happy to discuss with you.

    Simon Pegg

    Bentley Civil Support



  • Agree with John Keating wholly! Used MX for nearly 30 years and is a proven tool for providing designs quickly. I am currently using it for all designs on one of the UK's maintenance contracts. For our work output, we have two options, either MX or Civil3D. I've use OpenRoads before and was too cumbersome, and at that time so full of faults that I understand it was abandoned in favour of Civil3D after I had left. By the looks of it, I will finally have to jump ship and go down the Autodesk route of products!

  • Adrian.

    Give OpenRoads Designer one last try before jumping to C3D. Its completely different to the OpenRoads Technology add-on you used before. Yes it's had it's issues and there are still some. 

    Interestingly, enough you can still import alignment input files into OpenRoads Designer and you can use Parametric Constraints in Corridors and Linear Templates as a text input to replicate MX Design Inputs. And these controls are far superior to C3D.

    We've developed Excel formulas to convert MX input files for design offsets into parameters for ORD.

    To sum up. Not perfect, not as good as MX but better than C3D IMO

    Regards

    Chris


    AECOM Roads UK&I Digital Engineering, Design & Solutions Lead | Sector Information Management Lead

    Associate Director – Digital

    OpenRoads Designer 10.12 | MicroStation 2023 | ProjectWise CE 10.3.4 | ContextCapture | ProjectWise PowerShell 2023 | ProjectWise WSG API | Generative Components | OpenBridge Designer 10.12

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  • Hi Mate, unfortunately they don't get it and never will as they have never actually built a job. MX gave me a competitive edge over all the 12D lemmings out there. In business you need to to differentiate from your competitors not follow them. You can't beat first principles when it comes to any application. My last 20 years has been major projects, LCT, M2 widening, Pac Hwy various and now Westconnex. All these jobs are road reconstruction. Try and design a road widening to match existing using a template. 

    Bentley is not interested, they're running a global business and we MX users are simply not plentiful enough to have a say. That's why its all about BIM, they're trying to create demand for new product sales. Back to VBA and LISP for us, although I am sure the gurus in the big design houses will come up with something clever to get us through to retirement.

  • HI Guys, Very interesting conversation showing that it is so hard to satisfy all of our users. Not a surprise at all. I started with MOSS in 1991 and have been supported it (technical/Sales) until 2008. I agree the MX command language is superior to any other product. Detailed cross sections are not that easy to produce except by an expert.

    However, I don't believe Bentley is pleased to abandon any product and does it with no regard to the users.
    Even during the glorious era of MOSS it was not easy. Looked as too difficult, for programmers, ...
    It evolved to bring more interactivity. Less and less users were looking at linemode. And many input files were there just to automate the design because there were no intelligence in the models. What is very good and we should find a way to bring this in OpenRoads, is that if you read your input file 30 years after, you can still understand what is being done especially if you comment it.

    The market was/is looking for something else even existing users were (and are) still pleased with MX.
    No choice for Bentley.
    The concept of BIM has not been invented by software vendors. Users are asking for it.


    However, most of what is being done in MX can be done in OpenRoads including string modelling (and extension of crossfall).
    Many things that MX was unable to do is possible in OpenRoads.
    New workflows to be found.



  • I'm quite open-minded to any software and I embraced using OpenRoads when we adopted it for the scheme in Sydney. I think at the time, we were working with a product that wasn't polished. I much prefer the interface of ORD to Civil3D, but it was frustrating at the time attempting to design something with tools which were not working. There were endless crashes when creating vertical alignments, applying levels tools, and problems producing cross sections. Not to mention the problems with reference files. I'm sure these will have all been addressed in some way by now.

    Having said that, Paul Cusack and Alan Benger in Sydney were excellent in trying to get these problems ironed out at the time.

    My former colleague in Sydney today says he hasn't used MX much for about a year, they use '12d and Civil3D in their office, saying 'maybe openroads down the track when it is better', but didn't rate civil3D at all.  

    I will revisit ORD and see how it performs compared with how it used to.

    I also have a concern where schemes have been put on the back burner because of budget constraints, only to be resurrected a few years later, which does happen in public schemes as funding gets reallocated. What is going to happen with these schemes? If licencing is removed, these will have to be redesigned. You may be able to pull some reference string information, but all the intricacies will be lost. If a software is going to be abandoned, it should at least be forward compatible with the software replacing it.

    We have schemes now which won't even have started construction by the time these licences are withdrawn? What does Bentley expect us to do with those?

  • I think peoples perceptions of the software are down to past experiences. OR didn't perform for that job I worked on but Civil3D was used to complete it. On the other hand you used Civil3D successfully for council work, but not major highway work.

    How are you finding OR with schemes of considerable length? What length are you dividing your schemes in to? References were a problem and took an age to load, and still attempting to load after they had been removed and the drawing purged. This was a major source of crashes. I'd be interested to know if this issue has been resolved.

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  • I think peoples perceptions of the software are down to past experiences. OR didn't perform for that job I worked on but Civil3D was used to complete it. On the other hand you used Civil3D successfully for council work, but not major highway work.

    How are you finding OR with schemes of considerable length? What length are you dividing your schemes in to? References were a problem and took an age to load, and still attempting to load after they had been removed and the drawing purged. This was a major source of crashes. I'd be interested to know if this issue has been resolved.

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  • definitely true...

    We are now limiting our corridors and the design files more for the practicalities for multiple users working on a project vs. processing as we used to with the v8i OR version. Usually 2.5km performs pretty snappy.

    We did a 30km Pacific Highway project in OR SS4 (in the MX environment), but started getting out of memory errors with too much processing and corridor lengths (but still delivered the project thankfully). This issue is now redundant due to the 64-bit nature of the new standalone ORD version and many of the legacy issues, like the one you mentioned, no longer exist since the software was rebuilt in the new standalone version. There are still some minor bugs that are annoying, but nothing close to what we had in the original versions...

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2022 R3 (10.12)  |  Microstation 2023  |  ProjectWise CE 3.4

  • Cheers Mark,

    I'll bear that in mind.

    I am going to give ORD another try in my own time, based on one of my schemes I'm working on. I need to bottom this out, I don't want to be pursuing Civil3D if its not going to perform as expected.

    What is the cross section output like nowadays? You will probably remember when OR wasn't very friendly when selecting which features to display. Every time it processed, the 'features' never retained the same name, so was requiring manipulation every time to produce cross sections. Has this been corrected? Is it now a straightforward process?

    Regards,

    Adrian.

  • The drawing production side of things is completely different. ORD has a new drawing production engine so you dont "export to native" anymore and use MX, Inroads, etc. to create your drawings. The new engine is based on dynamic sectioning of your 3d model that can be considered overcomplicated, but I can see where they're heading with it.

    There's some pretty good info here about it:

    https://learn.bentley.com/app/VideoPlayer/LinkToIndividualCourse?LearningPathID=113449&CourseId=129681&MediaID=5015000

    I know there's some work happening to add some automation to the process so some potential here, but we are still missing the concept of a nest input file process that would punch out dozens of sets of sections over lunch..

    .

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2022 R3 (10.12)  |  Microstation 2023  |  ProjectWise CE 3.4