Welcome arrival at the station

21 July 2006

Every summer a new release of Microstation arrives. This year we move to Microstation V8 XM edition. To upgrade is generally an easy decision — subscribers to Bentley’s support programme have immediate access to upgrades, removing any debate about software cost. The decision is simply a technical one.

The .dgn file format has changed only once, when V8 was released in 2001, so we don’t have any data files to update. All previous tools and commands are retained, easing the transition to new or changed features. These can be introduced at a manageable pace, avoiding the pain of a “big bang” upgrade.

Looking under the bonnet, the biggest change is that the display sub-system, the part of Micro-station that processes and displays all the graphics on screen, has been completely rebuilt and is now powered by Microsoft’s Direct X. This has been under development for several years and was always intended to be a V8 feature. Several of the most visible changes are enabled by this rebuild, which is a key foundation for current and future developments.

The use of Direct X ensures a stream of future improvements to Microstation’s graphics capabilities. Direct X software and compatible graphics hardware is continually pushed by the games industry, offering Microstation users access to ever-improving and affordable graphics capabilities and hardware.

3D benefits enormously from Direct X. Provided that you have invested in current graphics hardware, real-time rotation in 3D is smooth and fast, and smaller models are quite respectable, even on more basic hardware. Translucent block models can be produced without any need for rendering, offering a quick route into 3D for those without the time to learn all the visualisation tricks. The visualisation and animation tools have been finessed, and the many small improvements add up to a significant step forward.

The first thing you see in the new interface is a radical change to the main drawing tools. This will take some getting used to. For transition, the current “Classic” main toolbox is available so we can take advantage of the immediately useful and obviously useable XM features without having to learn to use the new interface’s workflow first.

In the new interface, the main toolbox now contains only eight icons compared to 18 in the Classic main tool frame. The first reaction to this is: “Hey, where have all my tools gone?” The answer is over to the right-hand side of the screen where the tasks toolbox is docked. All the familiar toolboxes appear here, accessible by scrolling up and down with “page up” and “page down” keys. Two of the intended benefits are to release screen space for drawing and to reduce time spent mousing around open toolboxes. How well this works will depend upon the adaptability of users and the amount of time they spend using Microstation. People who spend most of their working day at the cadface will benefit from the effort needed to learn new methods. Less frequent users may be better off staying with conventional toolboxes and familiar icons. We’ll see how this works out in practice.

Overlaying the main tool and task icons are letters and numbers. These are placed there by position mapping, a novel concept that offers rapid keyboard access to tools. Each tool icon is labelled with a keyboard character; any tool can be quickly initiated with one or two characters. Gaining familiarity with sequences will obviously need time and effort. Interestingly, Microsoft has gone in a similar direction with Office 2007. Its Ribbon displays tool icons in task-related groups. Pressing the Alt key sprinkles shortcut characters all over the icons.

“Tasks” are a major feature of the XM interface, but they are not just for saving screen space. The real object of tasks is to enable the construction of sets of tools that will present people with sequences for particular tasks, such as preparing a planning application location plan. These sets can include both standard and custom tools.

System managers will welcome the automation made possible by Windows-compliant installation tools. Microstation’s already excellent network configuration facilities are extended to control XM’s enhancements. Tasks and the new element templates are used in the totally updated customisation interface to make adding custom tools and menus very straightforward, especially for project specific contexts. Existing customisations are easily imported.

Some of the highlights from the extensive list of improvements and new features include:

• New element attributes of transparency and priority, enabled by Direct X. We can make any element translucent and control the order in which they are displayed (at last!). Colour is now 32 bit, enabling gradient fills and colour books — Pantone and RAL are both included. These will all have an immediate benefit, as Photoshop can be taken out of the workflow for much presentation work.
• All level selection pop-down menus can be configured, which will be useful to those of us using British Standard-level naming.
• Model navigation has been added to the status bar for quick movement through recent files using web browser-style back and forward icons.
• Design history has come of age. Major revision points can be set and it can now be configured to display revision letters that correspond to current practice.
• PDF files can be referenced and DWG support includes read/write any version up to 2006.

What will version 9 bring? Bentley’s Generative Components (on general release from September) emerged from an experimental parametric toolset, while Bentley recently acquired two well-known structural analysis programs. Both developments point to a more intelligent future for cad, where the computer may actually aid the design, rather than simply being a smarter pencil.