How to Update Plan and Profile Drawings Once the Alignment Has Changed (second attempt)

In general, I think Bentley was over-optimistic when they say that the "sheets will automatically update".  I have been working in ORD for 2 years now and have to explain to every project manager that the Annotations are broken (dancing annotation issue) and that sheets are static.  When the horizontal alignment is edited, be prepared for quite a bit of rework.  I have seen designers pull their hair out as annotations revert back to their default location (which usually overlaps with other elements). 

The most recent version has options in the annotation group that is supposed to help with the dancing annotation issue. 

Not everything is dynamic. The model is dynamic in plan, profile and cross section. Information on the elements is dynamic and should update automatically. Drawing model annotation such as frames on profile and cross sections are not. You must reannotate.

Named boundaries are not dynamic. As you all say and know, if the alignment is changing you must run into new drawing production workflow.

Yes, in latest version there is new settings that currently applies only on linear annotation definition (will be extended in the future), where the text can be:

- as defined in annotation group (if you annotate again of change the element it will come back as defined in the annotation group

- relative to element: it means you manually changed the location of the annotation and it keeps the relative location and orientation 

- fixed: it means that the annotation you moved keeps its absolute XY rotation location

jpln,

Every now and then I need to get on my soapbox, and today is going to be one of those days. 

"Not everything is dynamic" is a far cry from "Get a live view of the project in sheet orientation. As the design changes, so will the sheets. Make edits directly in the design model and the application will update the sheets." as quoted on Bentley's website. 

If memory serves, ORD was released April 2017, we are five years into the release, and don't have dynamic cross section annotation? The whitespace management that was just introduced works only in plan, while it is cross section that is most likely to have the text overlaps we are trying to address. In the 21R2 release I can't annotate storm and sanitary content with a label I have probably used on every project I have worked on for 20 years in the industry if I want to use US Survey feet, forget about it being dynamic or not. 

The key issue here is that the Keiths, Warrens, and Marks of the world are out trying to generate plans and probably spend as much time overcoming defects, bugs and deficiencies as actually developing the design. While, at the same time, their management is hearing from Bentley that we "Get a live view of the project in sheet orientation. As the design changes, so will the sheets. Make edits directly in the design model and the application will update the sheets." when that clearly is not the case. So, our designers are having to make the case to management that generating design in a model-centric workflow takes more time than "CAD" driven workflows without being able to offer the benefit that has been touted by the makers of civil design software of being able to drive plan production from the model. 

A couple final notes here before I get off my soapbox. First, I think one of the reasons I am passionate about this is I believe the modeling environment in ORD for Civil Design (drawing a distinction here from the D&U workflows) is fantastic. I have very little that I can't model, and model well. Unfortunately the related processes attached to that modeling environment (plan production as alluded to here and quantities) are, to be candid, in my opinion a mess. And all of this is for an environment that is still very CAD-centric a long way from the BIM/CIM/Digital Delivery workflows we desire.

I know that you are likely not responsible for this and may not even have any ability to meaningly influence the state or the direction of the software, but I feel that the evolution of Bentley as an organization over the last number of years, has changed the interaction I used to have of being partners in our efforts to being software vendors, so I no longer have a forum for these thoughts. Sorry to blast this right in here, but I am incredibly weary right now of any attempt to defend this as the end all, be all of design software.

My two plus cents worth.

Steve

It's pretty obvious the Drawing Production side of thing is an after thought and I agree the modelling side of things is fantastic. That being said, all the recent releases have spent most time addressing Drawing production while we are waiting for performance improvements and critical defects to get fixed.

The key issue here with dynamics is the weird implementation of drawing annotation and named boundaries using legacy objects like shapes and text, etc. Is not the way to move forward with dynamics and performance to have all of this use graphics that links to the data it is generating (if that makes sense). If you look at the other Microstation tech, it looks like it all possible to have live section cuts that can be moved at any time and have drawing links that can navigate between models, etc. Seems like a missed opportunity to make the first really 21st century Civil design package...

Steven,

you mention that probably as much time is spent on overcoming defects, bugs and deficiencies as on work. You're right, though a lot of it is done outside working hours as we run out of time trying to sort out issues during the day and have to resolve them to meet project deadlines. The online guidance is poor (searches on many topics result in nothing or very basic descriptions of the commands) and I've pretty much given up logging service requests (some of the help I've received is good, but many requests were never resolved even after regular chasing).

I too think the modeling side of the software is good and much better than Civil 3D, but the drawing side needs work. Unfortunately, It doesn't feel like it's a priority for Bentley. 

Keith

Steven,

you mention that probably as much time is spent on overcoming defects, bugs and deficiencies as on work. You're right, though a lot of it is done outside working hours as we run out of time trying to sort out issues during the day and have to resolve them to meet project deadlines. The online guidance is poor (searches on many topics result in nothing or very basic descriptions of the commands) and I've pretty much given up logging service requests (some of the help I've received is good, but many requests were never resolved even after regular chasing).

I too think the modeling side of the software is good and much better than Civil 3D, but the drawing side needs work. Unfortunately, It doesn't feel like it's a priority for Bentley. 

Keith