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?

  • Don't be frustrated man.

    With using the template, you could not only easily design a road widening to match existing, also you could control the overlay / inlay / milling depth / analyse and optimize existing crossfall etc, anything you could image in a corridor style model.

    And you could still rub12D on the ground with ORD even in QLD.

    And the 12D users will never have the chance to say "we could do trimesh while MX is a line string model" to you anymore.

    Trust me if you don't you could trust Mark.

    / HP Zook17" E2286M, 64GB, RTX5000-16GB, 3TB SSD

  • 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

  • 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.

  • Hi Chris, hope you're well.

    I've got more excel converters for MX than you can imagine to help automate one thing or another Slight smile

    You can't import whole designs though and all the intricate details you created with code. You're probably ok in that a lot of your designs are from scratch and thus simple to replicate. Some of our designs have intricacies along the whole scheme and tweaked as such to meet tight constraints. Being able to transfer alignment input files isn't good enough. We don't have the time or budgets to be converting past 'on-hold' designs or even ongoing designs which will be on site after the withdrawal of mx licences. Any design software should be forwards compatible without redesign.

    I'll be interested to see why we are being given Civil3D/MX as preferred design tools, when you are using OR. I think I need to get to the bottom of this, because I don't want to pursue one route, only to be told to switch down the line.

    Cheers.