Named Boundaries and Plan Production

We are having some issues with understanding the ORD Plan Production tool set and controlling level overrides in the drawing or sheet models.  When we create a series of plan and profile sheets, we start with a fresh 2D seed file, reference in the necessary reference files, turn on/off levels or set level overrides for the plan set’s needs in the design model, and then use the ORD Named Boundaries workflow to create the drawing models and sheet models.

 

The problem that we are having is none of the level overrides are being honored in the resulting drawing or sheet models.  Additionally, if we need to make any changes to the level on/off settings or additional level overrides from the host design model, none of these changes are dynamically shown on the drawing or sheet models.

 

We typically have hundreds of plan and profile sheets for projects and having to manually set the level on/off or overriding symbology is not a workflow option.  Our preferred workflow would be to have a single design model used for controlling all of the sheet model level settings.

 

Is this a known problem with ORD Plan Production?  Thanks in advance for any help.

  • Hi Chris,

    I've been looking for a solution to the exact same issue and have found that adding this config variable to your workspace seems to do the trick:


     MS_LEVEL_DO_NOT_OVERRIDE_DESIGN_LEVELS_IN_SHEET = 1


    In ORD I can now control the level display in my 3d model and see the cross section drawing and sheet models are synced automatically (or with reference reload if the cross section drawing/sheet models are open in a view).

     

    This is what MicroStation Help says it does:

    Controls the overriding of design model level properties in sheet and drawing models. If set to 1, the level properties of a design model and its reference attachments cannot be overridden in a sheet or drawing model. They will be the same as when the design model is opened directly.

     

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2023  |  Microstation 2023.2  |  ProjectWise 2023

  • Thanks Mark for the help.  Unfortunately this didn't fix our problem, but did result in another weird other issue.  When using this variable we are not able to edit the "drawing" or "sheet" model reference file levels, which is the intended result of the variable, but we also noticed that the the displayed reference file level settings in the "drawing" and "sheet" models don't match any of the level settings set in the same model.  As I said, it's a really weird issue.

    I'll keep the question active to see if anyone else has ideas.

  • hmm...perhaps another level variable somewhere interfering with the process? We've been using it for months quite successfully, but I suppose different workflows may give different results. We can edit the levels but they "reset" back to match the source model.

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2023  |  Microstation 2023.2  |  ProjectWise 2023

  • Another option could be to set up MicroStation Display Rules. 

    This can be done in a dgnlib and made part of the workspace. 

    Display rules can control what should be on and off as well as line styles, weights and colour.

    You can set up as many as you need for all different drawing types. 

    communities.bentley.com/.../display-rules-series-part-1-thematic-mapping

    Regards

    Chris


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

    Associate Director – Digital

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  • Thanks Chris.  The workspace is setup by the client DOT (via Bentley), and I was hoping to hear from the community that may there was a easy toggle, variable, or other setting that may be causing the issue.  After checking a few things, it appears that the client supplied "sheet" DGNLIB may be causing the issue, though we are still new to the ORD Name Boundary sheet workflow and cannot find the actual problem in the workspace.

    Possible issue and fix:  When the PnP workflow tool creates the "drawing" and "sheet" models, the "drawing" models do no appear to have the correct "orientation" view settings created/saved during the initial sheeting process.  This shows up as blank in each model/sheet.  We've found a workaround via creating the PnP sheets with the same workflow, then going to the design model and "Update Saved View Settings" in the "Saved Views" dialog box for each view, and the in each "drawing model" re-selecting the correct "orientation" saved view in the "Reference" dialog box.  Once this is done for each view/model, the sheets automatically sync to our "nested" models level settings.

    The fix is not ideal and takes some time in each model, but this will have to do until I meet with the client and Bentley to demonstrate the issue.