How to stop references in drawing models from shifting?

We have noticed if named boundaries are moved or adjusted the drawing model references shift.   

Is this new version 10.09 considered a beta version? If so, we should all be nervous.  I noticed in the first versions of ORD the drawing model references weren't even in the correct location when Bentley was trying to promote the software back in 2018.  I brought it up at a conference,  stating to them this software is not usable if coordinate data is unreliable. There was little concern , stating the label tools would produce the correct data.  Since then the new versions created drawing models in the correct location, but if you adjust the named boundary in the default model or a container file the drawing model references using the named boundary still shift.  Causing us to constantly check the drawing model references.  I am very concerned a small adjustment in matchlines could cause a shift and we won't catch it.  Large projects have hundreds of sheets ,  this can be an overwhelming number of files to manage and QC.

Is there any solution to this problem?

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  • Hi Zane,

    We use this in production quite successfully. How do drawing models shift? Are you physically picking up the named boundaries and moving them to a different spot - this will shift the Drawings as you suggest, but I'm not sure why you would ever do this and is not how the software is supposed to work.

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2022 R3 (10.12)  |  Microstation 2023.1  |  ProjectWise CE 3.4

  • Are you serious?  

    I work on large interchange projects, matchlines and sheet limits are always changing from preliminary to final design.   Sheets are being added and extended.  Lets say a new pond gets added and you have to adjust the sheet limits.  Or the alignment gets extended, (this never happens) and you have to shift all the sheets by 100'.  So you are saying I should to recut sheets if I make the smallest modification to a named boundary.  

     How do drawing models shift?   Go into an existing file with a named boundary and modify a named boundary associated to a plan view.  Then open the corresponding drawing model and check the reference settings. The x,y coordinates will be off.

    I'm not sure why you would ever do this and is not how the software is supposed to work.    - Really,  named boundaries are static.  Bentley design named boundaries to never be moved or modified.  

    Regards,

    Zane Pratt


    Civil Designer

  • As do I - the dynamics relate to the contents of the model frames and annotation (to a certain limit) and not the Named Boundaries themselves.

    How would you expect the software to know what you want to do? As you shift the boundaries of one drawing, would you expect it would automatically adjust all following Drawings and Sheet Models automatically? The process you want would require the reference attachment to move itself automatically - what about instances when Named Boundaries are references into seperate Drawing files?

    We have accepted the fact that Sheets need to be recreated on alignment changes and as you said, it doesn't happen too often. Just like before ORD, you have the same option to manually move References around. It may not ne the dream of full automation, but it is getting better and is much more advanced than other options.

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2022 R3 (10.12)  |  Microstation 2023.1  |  ProjectWise CE 3.4

  • Not sure you totally understand what is going on.  After creating a sheet from a named boundary, any modification to the named boundary will shift the references in the drawing model.  This makes all coordinate, station and offset labels bogus.  This is a liability on our end if the designer/drafter doesn't catch it.

    I expect the software to hold the references in the drawing model at xy=0,0 no matter what.  The named boundary should move in the drawing model not the reference files.  Makes sense to me.  Civil 3d has sheet cut features that adjust automatically why can't ORD.

    We should expect more from Bentley not just assume what they are doing is always correct and well thought out.  Like I said earlier in the post.  The first releases of ORD had the references in the drawing model moving and rotating to some odd location.  Bentley didn't have a clue this was a problem.  I know because I brought it up.  They must of finally realized this was an issue. Since then they have made it so the references are at 0,0 but now updates to the named boundary throw everything all out of whack.

    Regards,

    Zane Pratt


    Civil Designer

  • I for one am with Zane.  I honestly can NOT think of a benefit of PLAN Drawing Model system - especially since they don't remain geo-referenced after being moved (as Zane was saying).  To all my designers, I explain the PLAN Drawing Model as the "middle-man with no real purpose".  Why don't PLAN Named Boundary elements just behave like AutoCAD Viewports in the Sheet Model?  It honestly just needs to be a way to show the Default Model as clipped and at the correct rotation and scale in the Sheet Model.  Why introduce whole other model containing unnecessary and confusing nested references. This stuff is NOT beginner friendly and greatly steepens the learning curve - not to mention the whole system is BROKE and needs workarounds.

    And then Mark says this "but I'm not sure why you would ever do this and is not how the software is supposed to work." So how are new Users supposed to know you have to recut sheets when an alignment is edited?  Does the software give warnings? Why would the User NOT just move a Named Boundary? It seems like the intuitive thing to do and wouldn't involve reworking sheets (especiacally because some sheets can have a lot of call outs and notes that would be a pain to re-create or copy)

    A PROFILE Drawing Model make sense kind of more sense, but this also a broke model.  When the Adjust Profile Named Boundary tool is used after Sheets are cut, the Profile Grid will NOT move.  The Named Boundary is moved (ask you can visually see), but the Grid annotates the original location.  Basically, if the Grid needs to move or be resized, a whole new PROFILE Drawing Model (and Named Boundary) has to be created. Seriously?  AutoCAD can quickly swap out Profile Grid sizes and exaggerations - and guess what - you don't have to dedicate serious effort to getting the sheets back in order.

    Also anyone notice that Alignment and Profile Annotations are BROKE and will re-generate to their original positions randomly.  I work on highway jobs.  Annotations often overlap with another element and has to be moved.  OKAY - go through the alignment and profile - readjust some profile and PC/PT labels etc.. - come back in to the drawing a week later and all that work is gone.  TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.  Between my firm and my client we sunk way too may hours in workarounds for displaying basic stationing annotations.  AutoCAD doesn't seem to have a problem with this - how is stationing labels that hard? I thought this was a ROADWAY DESIGN SOFTWARE? We need a reliable way to station an alignment.

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  • I for one am with Zane.  I honestly can NOT think of a benefit of PLAN Drawing Model system - especially since they don't remain geo-referenced after being moved (as Zane was saying).  To all my designers, I explain the PLAN Drawing Model as the "middle-man with no real purpose".  Why don't PLAN Named Boundary elements just behave like AutoCAD Viewports in the Sheet Model?  It honestly just needs to be a way to show the Default Model as clipped and at the correct rotation and scale in the Sheet Model.  Why introduce whole other model containing unnecessary and confusing nested references. This stuff is NOT beginner friendly and greatly steepens the learning curve - not to mention the whole system is BROKE and needs workarounds.

    And then Mark says this "but I'm not sure why you would ever do this and is not how the software is supposed to work." So how are new Users supposed to know you have to recut sheets when an alignment is edited?  Does the software give warnings? Why would the User NOT just move a Named Boundary? It seems like the intuitive thing to do and wouldn't involve reworking sheets (especiacally because some sheets can have a lot of call outs and notes that would be a pain to re-create or copy)

    A PROFILE Drawing Model make sense kind of more sense, but this also a broke model.  When the Adjust Profile Named Boundary tool is used after Sheets are cut, the Profile Grid will NOT move.  The Named Boundary is moved (ask you can visually see), but the Grid annotates the original location.  Basically, if the Grid needs to move or be resized, a whole new PROFILE Drawing Model (and Named Boundary) has to be created. Seriously?  AutoCAD can quickly swap out Profile Grid sizes and exaggerations - and guess what - you don't have to dedicate serious effort to getting the sheets back in order.

    Also anyone notice that Alignment and Profile Annotations are BROKE and will re-generate to their original positions randomly.  I work on highway jobs.  Annotations often overlap with another element and has to be moved.  OKAY - go through the alignment and profile - readjust some profile and PC/PT labels etc.. - come back in to the drawing a week later and all that work is gone.  TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.  Between my firm and my client we sunk way too may hours in workarounds for displaying basic stationing annotations.  AutoCAD doesn't seem to have a problem with this - how is stationing labels that hard? I thought this was a ROADWAY DESIGN SOFTWARE? We need a reliable way to station an alignment.

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  • ok, so the reason I have a differing perspective may be that  I view the Drawing models as intermediate models that we do not really use, except to add manual details like dimensions, notes, etc. We use the Sheet models for all outputs, DWG, PDF, etc. I could be wrong, but I believe this is the intent of how the tools were designed? I could be completely wrong on that, but explain why my experiences are a bit more positive. This is something we explain to all our users and has made the process a bit smoother.

    The reason for this is that the Sheet model outputs are always consistently created with 0,0 at the origin and can be swapped in and out of titleblocks, etc. without adjustment every time. This is also why we have no issues with the Plan sheet side of things - adjusted Plan Named Boundaries keep the Drawing model origin in the same spot to avoid the need to regenerate the associated Sheet model.

    Although I appreciate what you mean with the Drawings being out of "sync" with the real world co-ordinates, changing this workflow would actually make those of us with Sheet workflows have do additional work. We dont consider the Drawing model to be something we would ever deliver to anyone for "real" world information, the same way as a Sheet model.

    I agree that adjustment of Profile Named Boundaries is a problem and i'm definitely not debating that there are not problems with some of the drawing production tools, because there definitely are, but i have a differing opinion when it comes to Plan drawings.

    Regarding Annotation, that is a slightly different issue and I can't say I disagree with the issues, but that is a product of attempted automation gone to far that will probably get "fixed". This randomness is the product of doing anything that initiates a recalculation of annotation. 

    I find it amusing that Civil 3D is always the alternative that keeps getting brought up. As an organization that has tried it and wasted a lot of effort trying to get it to work efficiently, you may get smoother drawing production workflows (which i disagree with), your opinion may change when it takes you 45 minutes to open a simple highway DWG set with those drawings and then kick yourself after the last fatal error means you need to reopen it again.

    Regards,

    Mark


    OpenRoads Designer 2022 R3 (10.12)  |  Microstation 2023.1  |  ProjectWise CE 3.4

  • Mark,

    If you create annotation in the sheet model.  How do you used labels? They don't seem to work in sheet models. We can't even track station and offset in sheet models. 

    I agree with you that annotating in the sheet model would be easier if not for the difficulty in placing coordinate and station offset data.   Also it would be a hard sell for me to convince people to not annotate in real world coordinates like v8. 

    Right now we are working on a project with many sheets and all the annotation is in the drawing models.  Adjustments are being made to matchlines and sheet limits because of design changes and all of the drawing models are shifting around causing problems.

    Regards,

    Zane Pratt


    Civil Designer

  • This whole drawing model thing has been around a long time.  I played with them in the 2004 edition.  I believe the original drawing model intent was a tool to create 2d views from and 3d model.  A saved view could be created and referenced in a new 2d drawing model.  This allowed designers to annotated a 3d view in a 2d space.  Then, this annotated 2d drawing model could be referenced into a sheet.   For civil projects, this doesn't work so well.  We have 2d plan models we are referencing into a 2d sheet.  We don't need a drawing model for plan views. Cross sections and profiles make since (if they worked).  I could live with the plan view drawing model as well if it worked. 

    This whole OpenRoads plan production system is broken.  It is sad, because we are paying price.  Bentley has no clue the struggles we are going through with this software.  I honestly don't think they care, because they would have fixed these issues years ago.

    I will be totally honest, plan production with OpenRoads Designer can take 2 to 3 times as long as v8.  Constantly redoing profile annotation. Plan and profile annotation automatically updating for no reason.  Drawing models moving. Confusion about live nesting.  The list goes on. 

    They should call ORD 10.09 the Guinea Pig Edition.  That is what I feel like.  Good luck to everyone.

    Regards,

    Zane Pratt


    Civil Designer

  • I strongly agree with Zane's statement that "plan production with OpenRoads Designer can take 2 to 3 times as long as v8", which is why my preferred workflow still involves creating plan sheets in model space and printing using Print Organizer.

  • Is your coordinate issue not resolved by going into the drawing model, opening the reference file attachment dialog, and for the attached design model resetting the X and Y offsets to zero?  I have found that I can insert vertices in the named boundaries and this has no effect on the drawing model station and offset annotations.  But, if I change one of the four corners of the original named boundary, then the station and annotation offsets do change.  However, if I then reset the X and Y offsets to zero, then the station and offsets return to their correct values.  So, as others have noted in other threads on this topic, it would seem that the workflow is to reset your X and Y offsets after revising named boundaries.  This doesn't seem too onerous since the named boundaries are likely being edited one at at time anyway.

    If 100s of boundaries have to be moved for some reason, then this would be tedious.  It would be nice if there was a batch process for resetting the offsets, or to check that this has been done, as a quality control check.

    Karl Dauber, PE
    Advance Consulting
    Laurens County, SC
    karldauber@advconsult.net
    www.advconsult.net
    www.linkedin.com/in/karldauber