Annotation of contour lines for export outside the Bentley universe

The automatic annotation of Terrain contours typically does not survive export in a format other than DGN, and in particular saving as DWG.

Solution:

To overcome this, it is possible in a few steps to generate "fixed" contour annotation.

The procedure is as follows:

NOTE: all the steps can be automated by saving the commands in a VBA Macro.

1. Configure the Terrain to display only the contour lines to label

 2. Run the Drop Element tool with "Application Elements" selected to drop the terrain element down to individual linestrings

3. Assign the linestrings a linear Feature Definition that will annotate the elevation at an interval along line.

Click on this link to download a DGNLIB that has an example linear Feature Definition definition "P_Courbe_de_Niveau_Annotation"

4. Annotate the elements

5.    Drop Complex the Text Nodes

• Select all text nodes (via the Element Selection tool):

• Drop the Text Nodes into text:

This last step is necessary to honor background masks:

Comparison with the original automatic annotations:

In TrueView:

Printing from TrueView: Masks are honored:

Link to the DGNLIB:

 https://communities.bentley.com/products/road___site_design/m/road_and_site_design_gallery/276580