scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

caddcop — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 17:22:12 GMT

Did you ever check the model properties for Line Style Scale. There are two settings possible and one known issue is that all reference files should share the same setting. Having some set one way and others set the other is a recipe for never ending line style scale issues. And generally, the active file setting gets applied to all reference files, so even if all reference files are set to match each other, a different setting in the master file will cause issues.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:29:19 GMT

I'm glad you were able to get everything up and going.
You're right - maybe next time just start by merging your "bad" drawings into a "good" blank file. There's nothing wrong with fixing things if they can be fixed (and sometimes they can). But sometimes they just can't, and I'm glad you have a workaround now.

I know I have seen posts here before about writing in the survey points, so hopefully a search will find you a good direction.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:52:15 GMT

I managed to finally get the Fenceline to convert using the process of compressing, deleting the workspace, etc. The Gaurdrail would not convert, so I tried copying the entire file from the reference into the Seed file and it magically worked.

I think that is the process I should have tried right from the start.

For some reason the drawing was hanging on to these old linestyles.

The 2 Topo drawings look wrong on their own (linestyles are tiny even at the 1"=40' scale, but somehow when referenced into a drawing of the exact same scale they look good.

So for now I think I'm good.

I still have a lot of questions about a lot of things, but I'll try to figure them out on my own unless I get really stuck again.

I now need to figure out how to write my point "Decorations" to graphics through the multitudes of steps and things I have to create.

Thanks for your help and patience.

Andrew

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 23:22:30 GMT

Well, it does answer some questions. It may not point to a solution, but it tells me part of what ISN'T the problem.

This confirms that the linestyle is indeed applied ByLevel, and not per element. I've chased all sort of scaling issues before where someone drew an element on the correct level, but set the linestyle when they drew the element. They set it to the same linestyle AS the level, but the level no longer controlled that independent line. Trying to figure out why some lines responded to the ByLevel controls, but not "that one" had me going in circles. I wanted to make sure that we didn't accidentally have that situation.

I'm glad you were able to fix your R/W drawing. No idea what that was...

Strange question...if you try that same reference Merge into good clean file with bad drawing "A", does that solve the scaling problem?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 21:48:19 GMT

I was able repair the R/W drawing by "copying" everything into the Seed File.

Yes, I had to export the Alignment out of the bad file, then import it to the repaired file.

Very strange as I created the R/W drawing from the Seed file. Anyway the scale change to 1"=40' repaired the R/W line style.

Now back to my Fenceline problem. Both files show the linestyle properties to be the same. I have the same problem with Gaurdrail. i guess I'll try to change that style to "0", compress out the linestyle, then purge the workspace, then attach the style again and see if it changes. I think it's somehow still hanging on to the SS4 linestyle from the photogrammetrist. These are their lines.

I know I've already done this, but it's all I can do.

I'm attaching th screen captures of the fence line from the 2 different drawings. Nothing to learn here. They are the same.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 20:00:05 GMT

You should be able to reference your R/W drawing into a "clean" drawing and Merge Into Master.
But I cannot say that your ORD geometry will be retained as design information. I just haven't done that often enough to know.

Are your linestyles ByLevel, or are they applied to each element?
Can you show a screen shot of the properties (including linestyle scale) from one "bad" line in Drawing A, and the same information from a corresponding line in Drawing B?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:51:26 GMT

i am using Projectwise and have been all along, except when i created all the feature definitions, symbologies and templates for importing my survey codes.

All the settings are exact for both reference files and the main drawing... all set to "Master".

You can see by the image that several of the linestyles are correct from one file to the next, I'm now only having trouble with fenclines, guardrails, and the R/W line from the R/W drawing.

In order to repair the R/W drawing, i was thinking of opening the Seed file and copying everything from the R/W drawing into the seed, then saving this to a new name. I hope my ORD alignment and the labels will copy?

I still can't figure out why the Topo looks different when referenced, when the Master is the same sacle?

Thanks for all your help.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:13:05 GMT

You said you are working on your files locally. If that is the case, you are not in the ProjectWise environment.

Have you tried working on your files straight through ProjectWise? As in, open ProjectWise Explorer, and open the file straight from there? Does that make any difference? If things look fine for the engineer but not for you, that could be the difference, and we may be chasing our tails trying to fix something that actually works in the right environment.

There are one or two more factors that can affect linestyle scales when referenced into another drawing, and those may be set differently between the drawing that looks good and the drawing that doesn't as attachments.

Drawing A (the one that looks bad when referenced), Drawing B (the one that looks fine when referenced) and Container (the files both are referenced to).

In the Container, open your reference dialog, highlight Drawing A and look at attachment settings (or properties - I'm not in ORD today). One of the settings is "Global Linestyle Scale". This can be set to Reference, Master or Reference*Master. What is the settting.
Now look at the attachment settings for Drawing B for "Global Linestyle Scale". Are they the same, or are they different?

There is also a setting in the buttons along the bottom for "Scale Linestyles". Is that the same for both drawing attachments?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 18:49:37 GMT

I'm using projectwise because it supposedly loads all the resource files.

Then our engineers can access my files to do design.

I spoke with one engineer who referenced my Topo and R/W drawings. The Topo is split into 2 drawings as they are large. We see that most of the linestyles do in fact look good in his drawing which i don't understand. The fenceline however is huge in one drawing and looks good in the other (you can see it at the join between the 2 files. I've checked both drawings and the same scale is applied in both, the same linestyle set for the same levels. The linestyle scale is set to 1.0 in both. I've tried setting all linestyles to "0" then compressing unused linestyles, then importing the linestyle DGNLIB again. The size doesn't want to change.

The lines in my original Topo files do not appear correct, the fenceline is tiny in both. Yet, when referenced into the exact same scale drawing 1"=40' they appear, and one of the files is actually looking correct. I don't understand this. They should appear the same if the scales are the same in both drawings. Here is what I see.

Oh and my R/W drawing, still has only CUSTOM 1:40 as the only available scale. I purged the workspace, then it reloaded when I opened the drawing. Still no way to change the units. I used the same 3D seed file for the Topo. I have no idea what happened to the standard scale pull down.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 23:33:30 GMT

If you are working locally, outside of the ProjectWise environment, then you aren't using that environment, nor any of the resources defined by it. And if you don't have an identical environment set up on your local computer, then you won't be using the same files and things may not be defined correctly. One of the main selling points of ProjectWise IS the managed environment, so that users don't have to worry about resources - they just come through as defined.

May I ask why you are using ProjectWise if you do everything locally?

I mean, there are definitely reasons to work on things locally - I've done it when dealing with slow connections. To do that sucessfully, you probably need the same workspace setup locally. You can load local files even if you are in the ProjectWise environment. I'm working with a client on their ProjectWise network, but I still can use my local/network cell libraries when I need them.

If you open the files from ProhjectWise explorer, do you see the same problems?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 23:00:04 GMT

It is the same project. Yes it's all within projectwise.

I'm checking the scale under Drawing, or Drawing production, or many other places.

How does one load this scales.def file?

Maybe I need to purge the workspace, exit, then reload?

I'm very new to projectwise, I usually work local, load all my library files and such because all my survey codes are company specific.

The workspace must not be loading I gather?

Again, I'm not sure how to know if it loads properly or at all.

I use Seed files which have levels defined and I always end up having to load all the cell libraries. Not sure why these don't load.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 22:13:53 GMT

Is this all on ProjectWise, and is it all the same project?

The scales.def file should be the same across the workspace, and accessible from every drawing. I've never seen one that had only one scale and not all the others. Where are you checking the scale - in the model dialog, or somewhere else?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 21:51:38 GMT

Well... I think the DGNLIB's get loaded automatically, but I used "Import" in the Level Manager to see if re-importing would make a difference. It didn't seem to.

Do you know how to see what Workspace is currently loaded?

I'm having trouble with another drawing where the scale is set to Custom 1:40, and no other scales are available in the drop down.

Is there a way of getting this list to populate?

Andrew

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 21:25:09 GMT

You import your DGNLIBs? They don't just apply automatically?
Yes, at this point, you may have to reach out to your DOT standards guy. He may be aware of issues and know how to work around them, even if he hasn't had time to fix them.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:54:17 GMT

Well... I wasn't able to open without a workspace, and I don't know how to see what workspace is loaded, but

I did use the level manager to import the dgnlib for the levels, then for the linestyles, and it seemed to do something.

Unfortunately all the lines look the same, a mix of dashed and un-readable at 1"=40'.

Oh and I did do a compress of levels before importing the dgnlibs for the levels and linestyles.

I'm at a loss here. It seems as if the linestyles are not built at the correct scale at 1 to 1, such that they scale correctly

at any other scale. I'll have to try to ping the DOT guy who built this, but he never responds.

very frustrating.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:33:05 GMT

Oh, this is in ProjectWise? That complicates things a little.

I haven't used ProjectWise regularly in a long time, but it seemed to me that there was a way to Copy Out or Export a drawing that could be re-uploaded later. But I'm sure that also is controlled by your permissions, which I'm not equipped to speak about. I'm also not sure which option allowed the drawing to be reuploaded later, and which severed all connection. You may need to review how ProjectWise works to figure that out.

I know that if you open ProjectWise navigator and open your drawing from in there, it automatically opens with the proper workspace. That's part of the ProjectWise Managed Environment. If you want to open it with "No Workspace" you will probably need to remove the drawing from the ProjectWise environment to someplace local so that you can open it without the supporting workspace.

If your linestyles were set ByLevel, and those ByLevel definitions come from a DGNLIB file, then you should be able to Update your levels From Library to get them back to their correct, default state.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 20:26:45 GMT

How do I know the Workspace is even loaded? Is there a way of seeing this?

How do you open a drawing from projectwise without a workspace?

I have changed all the linestyles to 0 using the level manager.

I hope I don't have to re-assign ever level to the correct style?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 19:39:25 GMT

Without a drawing, it's hard to tell what is defined where, but you are correct that, without the workspace, it would be hard to see what things really need to look.

When you say "the current workspace linestyles", are these linestyles different from the ones you would normally use in ORD? Do they have the same names, or are they different?

Are your linestyles ByLevel or are they set individually for each element?
If you draw a new element ByLevel, does it look correct?

If your elements are all drawn ByLevel, but your linestyles are bad:

You can change the ByLevel linestyle scale through the Level Properties dialog from the Level Manager. Pick one level and start playing with it to see what happens. Sometimes I have to go really small, or really big, or by a factor of 12 up or down. Once I know what scale works for that level, I can often apply it to the rest of the levels; most often most of them are "off" in then same way.

I have had instances in the past where my DOT linestyle definitions (which normally come from a DGNLIB orRSC file) had gotten imported (badly!) into the file itself. What I had to do at that point was to set every level to linestyle "0" - the Microstation default, then open the drawing with No Workspace (so that the only resources were what was saved to the drawing). Then I Compressed the File, with the option to compress "Unused linestyles" ON. At this point, I exited Microstation, then reopened it with the correct workspace. Then I could Update my Levels from Library to reset them to the correct definition. That process might work for you.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:42:37 GMT

I'll insert a PDF image here, but you can't see much. Most of the linestyles are too small to see. Some of the lines from the photogrametrist are visible. The drawing is set to 1"=40'. You can see at that scale the cells appear reasonable.

Do you want a copy of the drawing? I would need to upload many other files and this is all within the DOT workspace.

the dashed lines from the photogrammetrist are on various levels (lane line, double yellow, etc.).

I guess if I could convert these to the current workspace linestyles I can then figure out how all these need to be scaled

to make them appear at 1"=40'. Right now, it's a mixed bag of SS4 and ORD lines and linestyles.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:31:03 GMT

To change that Tag to a text element, you will need to go back to the original cell definition in the cell library. There you can use the command mentioned earlier to drop that tag to a text element. Then you can go back into your design file, make sure that cell library is attached, and use the Replace Cell toll in Update mode to revise all those current cells. Then you should be able to edit them as text.

Could you post a small sample portion of this drawing so that we can better see what's going on?

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:23:56 GMT

Hi Chuck.

When I follow this, my linestyle scale does appear as "varies". I try to change this to 1.0, but it won't hold.

It just goes back to "varies".

My cell that I described will not open in the text editor. The properties are "circle" and "Tag".

Not sure how to change the "Tag" to "Text" within the cell.

I have another problem. A R/W drawing in ORD with the scale set to "Custom" 1:40.

If I try to change it, there are no other options. When i go to working units, it claims to be "custom"

and I cannot change it to "US Survey Feet". I can see the greyed out parameters for the units are US Survey Feet, but I can't select those units. It seems locked on "Custom".

Also, I could not modify the "notes" for my invert labels. I had to re-create every one again.

So many issues...

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

caddcop — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:01:33 GMT

This image shows after I selected all of the linear elements. Even though this action results in Cells being selected, I can expand the linestyle params and could edit them from "Varies" to 1.0, if I wanted to.

But note, there is no text elements in my cells, or this might not work. In actual practice, I would click on Cell in the Element Type list, to unselect any cells before moving on. I would next select the line style tab (third tab from left, top row) and see what line style names are listed, and possibly thin the list further. For example, by removing line style zero, many of the "Varies" entries change to an actual numeric value that can be reviewed before editing.

BTW, double clicking on text in a cell should open the text string in the text editor.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 15:54:30 GMT

You can edit the text in a placed, normal cell without dropping it, with the Edit Text tool. Just create the text in your cell as regular text, and you will be able to edit after you place the cell.

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

Andrew Kempe — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 15:36:18 GMT

Hi Mary and Chuck.

I was able to drop the tags to text. I could not find any Tag editing tool.

My objective with this is to have a cell (circle) with the word "MISC" as part of the cell for all the survey codes that do not fit a specific code. Then, I'd like to be able to simply edit the text to describe what the shot is. I made the cell, I thought it would work as I hoped.

If there is another way (easy way) to make an editable cell (on the fly), I'd love to know.

As far as linestyles, I tried following the steps Chuck recommended, but once the "things" were selected, the scale was not editable.

I am still left with linestyles of varied scale, even though the scale is all set to 1.0.

If I could do a "Replace" (like I had to do with every cell) that would update all the linestyles to that in the workspace, that would be awesome. At this point, I have no idea how to make these update. It seemed as if the "update fields automatically" might be the answer, and it did appear that some lines did change, but I see scaling issues remain. The text along the lines is either too small or too large depending on if it was created in SS4 or ORD.

Am I really stuck with this? I have miles of corridor I'm trying to convert/repair.

Thanks in advance.

Andrew

RE: scaling or replacing SS4 Lines and line strings in ORD

MaryB — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 19:56:22 GMT

You can leave them as tags and edit them with the Edit Tags tool. You can also try the command "Change Tags DropText" to drop tag elements to text elements (but I can't recall if that works with cells - possibly not).

And no, note elements are not very manipulatable. Changing style or scale doesn't often work the way I think it should.

"Update Fields" shouldn't afftect your linestyle scales. But in between "Propogate Annotation Scale" and "Update Fields Automatically" is the setting for Line Style Scale. This can be set to "Annotation Scale", or set to a scale factor of your choosing. This does affect all custom linestyles, though, so if half of them look good and half of them don't you're going to have to dig deeper.

And yes, It's possible that your DOT has changed things between SS4 and ORD. Or they didn't when they should have.