Which legacy dgn's do I bring to OpenRoads? Which do I throw out?
In a perfect world (Cost Plus, overtime pay, "whenever you're done is fine with me", groupies), I'd throw out most every graphic model and "go all in" with OpenRoads Best Practices.
But what if you're legacy project is at 90% and you only need to tweak one profile? And it's due tomorrow?
50 Shades of Grey in between (is that what the book is about?).
Cover sheet models, location maps, details sheets are all mostly static and can be used as-is, yes?
Unchanged sheets models can be used as-is, yes?
What about plan sheets models with little change; just some tweaks?
What about Plan and Profile sheet models? What about the plan drawing models? The profile drawing models?
Remember, we're primarily trying to save the callouts. Time sink callouts, and we ain't cost plus.
For a Profile that's being extensively reworked, we might as well just leave the legacy profile model untouched, unused. Right?
So that's my situation. We have hundreds of InRoads utilities projects that won't stay dead.
Each project typically has one .dgn with everything in it. Models and models and models... 2D Design Models, 3D Design Models, Sheet Models, 2D Design Models with border cells and design references. Etc. Etc.
The gut reaction (not mine, NOT mine) is to open a new ORD seed, attach the main design model of the (sole/master) dgn and merge to master. Then a Import Model from File on the whole kit and kaboodle.
Your "new" master dgn, looks just like your old monster dgn. ((except that I've seen the new models referencing the old legacy file models - surprise!).
All new stuff referencing all dead stuff. What can go wrong?
So the obvious stuff (I think. What about you?)
And, of course, it's all due tomorrow...
I'm also thinking that when the djinn was asking what wish to grant, I might have been imprecise and said "I just want a career where I'm surrounded by models" instead of "groupies". And we all know how genies are...
thanks for staying with me through that.
-jeff
IMO, if a project is over halfway done, I would leave it in the original software. While things might come across OK, I wouldn't risk it. The time it would take to update things, fix the updates, find the things I missed the first time through...If my design is mostly done, I would leave it as is. Not to mention I have decades of experience with V8i and can probably do what's left faster than I could rework it in ORD. There's just not that much budget left.
Less developed projects, it's a toss up and would probably depend on the complexity of the project. I've had large but simple projects, and I've had small projects with a ton of complex constraints. Simple, it's a no brainer to convert, as long as the workspace is entirely ready to go. Small complex projects...I may leave in native, depending on my experience level and comfort with ORD. There are projects I might convert if I were the lead, but leave native if someone else is doing the bulk of the work. While modeling is great, there are going to be a few projects where we can hand-draft it faster than we can figure out how to model the whole thing. My client doesn't ask for digital files - just PDFs - so we can still get away with that kind of corner cutting when things are tight.
Oh, I HATE it when people don't understand about federation. I mean, I will once in a while do a single design model (like, I had one cul-de-sac...) but I'm still a huge proponent of treating every project like a "big" project. If we use the same process on every job, scaling it up for a large project is moderately painless. Doing projects all different ways is a good recipe for losing/breaking data, corrupting files, and other nonsense when "some" people don't know where to find something. Get a plan, stick to the plan, and everyone always knows where to find what they are looking for.
I do like the fact that the design is stored in the DGN file. I've seen people accidentally delete ALG files, I've seen them update the ALG but not redraw the data, (InRoads) update the corridor but not recut the cross sections...The single source is nice, and very WYSIWYG. Things update automatically, so your information is always up to date.
MaryB
Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918Power InRoads 08.11.09.918OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2
Hi Mary,
Thanks for your thoughtful response (as usual!).
I spent a good portion of my career as an InRoads evangelical, but now I find it an abomination. "What do you mean I can't trust the graphics?!" Administer it was a WHOLE LOT easier, though...
(I would wager that a dgn might be more likely to be accidentally deleted than an .alg, .dtm, or .ird - those extensions are like snake rattles. DGN's need to be differentiated manually (hopefully there's a convention).
Moving the design forward has a point somewhere on the decision spectrum; maintaining or redoing the sheets has a different point on the spectrum.
It would be nice to have some metrics like;
I've been fortunate not to have done a lot of sheeting and annotation revisions, so my guesses on the work effort on those are almost random.
There seems to be differentiation as to what models the staff here are migrating forward (plan sheets, yes; profile drawings, no). I'm wondering if there are some "trends of success".
Thanks,