CADcaster

We have defined the wall structure horizontally. Now we are going to make another wall type that define how is the wall defined vertically.
Activate wall tool. We are going to make some modification to wall type we created in this tutorial.
We are going to make a different type of wall for them. With those walls selected, click element properties > type properties. Let’s create another duplicate for the brick wall type. Click duplicate and give the type name: ‘vertical compound brick wall’.
Click edit button next to structure parameter. These steps are exactly the same like what we did before. But this time, we are going to work by looking at the section view, not floor plan. Change the view from floor plan to section. It’s at the bottom of this dialog box.


You will see the preview become like this. You can zoom and pan the preview just like in your model. Use scroll button to zoom and mid button to pan the view. Alternatively, you can use the steering wheel by clicking the magnifier button at the left bottom of this dialog. Zoom until you see the wall layers and the wall bottom.

In the right bottom of this dialog, the’ modify vertical structure’ tools are now active. Click split region.

In the preview dialog box, move your pointer until you see the tool tip showing layer 1: exterior finish. You should split it 1000mm from the wall base.

Click to split it.
You can select the split line and adjust the height by activating modify tool. You can press [tab] several times to cycle between overlapping objects.
Now on the wall layers list, click the exterior finish to select it. Click insert to add one more layer. With the new layer selected, click assign layers in modify vertical structure group.
What are we going to do is to assign the new layer to the bottom part of the exterior layer. Click the bottom layer.

You should see the color is now different. Now change the layer function to finish 1 [4] and the material to a new material. Use one of an existing stone rendering material. Don’t forget to make a duplicate first.

Now we have defined different materials for exterior finish. Now we are going to add a sweep and a couple of reveals.
Click sweeps from modify vertical structure tool group. Click ‘add’ to add a new sweep. Download this file. It contain sweep and reveal profile. Click load profile then open wall sweep.rfa.
Change the profile to wall sweep: wall sweep. Change the material as necessary. Change the distance value to 1000. Change the ‘from’ field to base. The last one, make sure the side field is set to exterior side.

Click OK. Review your wall sweep. It’s the rectangle 1000mm above wall base.

Now we will add some reveals. Click reveals button.
Load the wall reveal.rfa for our reveals. Click add, and set these properties:

1. Profile: wall reveal : wall reveal
2. Distance: 1200
3. From: base
4. Side: exterior

We’ve just added one reveal. Click duplicate twice to add two more reveals. Change the distance to 1350 and 1500 consecutively. Click OK. Review your wall. Close all the dialogs and review your wall in 3D view.

Source: CAD Notes – Vertical Compound Wall
Go to Source: CAD Notes

I had this question several times: can we automatically label our coordinate in AutoCAD? If you are Civil3D user, then you most likely will suggest them to use C3D. But can AutoCAD actually do it? YES!

I saw many people use AutoLISP to do that task. It works great. But sometimes you may want to have your own labeling symbol and format. So, why not using field?

Creating a reference object

First, we need to create an object as a reference point. It can be a point, a circle, or any symbol you want it to appear. I use this symbol.

I prefer to use point or circle. We can easily use the point position or circle center.

Creating an Attribute Definition

After we have the reference object, we need to define an attribute definition. You can activate it by clicking it on your ribbon, home tab, block panel.

Or simply type ATTDEF then [enter].

Let’s define our attribute. Give the attribute tag, prompt like below. In default field, type ‘X Y = ‘ then click insert field.

Change the field category to objects, and in field names, select object. Click select object button to define the object type. Select the circle, don’t select anything else!

AutoCAD will list all available properties. Select center (or if you use point, select position). Because I only use it in 2D drawings, I don’t need it to display Z value. I turn it off. Change the format if necessary.Click OK.

Click OK again to close the define attribute dialog box. Place your attribute definition in desired location.

Optional: Define Adjustable Leader

If you don’t want to have leader in your coordinate label, you can skip this step.

I add a line that will be used as leader.

 

Create the Block

Now we can define the block. Click create from ribbon, block panel.

Select all the objects, and define the center as insertion point. Activate Open in Block Editor on lower left of this dialog. We are going to add some ‘dynamic’ functionality. Click OK.

AutoCAD will show the edit attribute dialog. We don’t want to modify it as it is updated automatically. Just click OK.

Add the Control Grip

What we want to do is adding a grip control, so we can modify the text (and optionally leader) placement. In block authoring palette, activate the point parameter.

Now place it where you want the grip appear.

Now activate the stretch action.

Select the point parameter, create the stretch frame like below, and select the line and attribute definition. [Enter] to end it.

Now we are done! Save this block and close block editor.

Using the Label

How we can use the label? Just insert the block, and click on the point you want to show the coordinate. After you have one of the block in your drawing, you can copy it and place it on several points you wanted.

Because we add a control grip, we can move the text and leader position!

Becaus
e we use field, if you move your points, the value will be automatically updated! Very cool, isn’t it?

Why Attribute Definition? Why not Just Use Text?

You might ask this: why not just use text with field? I know we can insert field within text, single or multiline. But it doesn’t work. You may want to try it by yourself.

Apparently the field will consider the reference point always at 0,0,0 when you create a block. It works if you don’t create a block from them, but I believe you want to use it as reusable content, aren’t you?

Source: CAD Notes – How to: Label Coordinate in AutoCAD
Go to Source: CAD Notes

After creating your 3D model in Revit, of course you want to show off your model. Why not? It’s easy. You may already have several cameras in your project right now!

In this post, we will discuss about placing and fine tuning our camera. And we will also discuss how to create a 3D section by controlling the section box.

Placing Camera

You can place camera by activating it from your ribbon, View tab, Create panel. Click the small arrow near the 3D view, and click camera button on the drop down menu.

Then you can define the camera by two clicks: the camera position and target position.

After you define the camera, Revit will automatically open a new view. This view will show you what your camera see. Mostly we need to modify the view. Make sure modify is active, click the view boundary. You will see the blue grips on the rectangle sides. You can resize the boundary by dragging the grip.

You can fine tune moving your camera around by holding [shift] + mid button.

Bird Eye Elevation View

That’s how we can place the camera. Pretty easy, I guess. But sometimes we want to get the ‘wow effect’ by placing the camera in high or low angle. Try to place another camera, but before you define the position, look at the option bar. We can define the camera height. By default the offset is 1750mm (for metric) above active level.

So if we want to see from high angle, we can set the from level to the highest floor level. And high value in offset field.

Moving Camera Position and Target

We can move the camera position by using [shift] + mid button. But that’s not easy. An easier way is dragging the camera position and target. We can open 3 views (plan, elevation, and the 3D perspective) and work on those views. Click tile in Views tab, Windows panel.

Now find your 3D perspective view in your project browser. Right click, and select show camera from context menu. Now you can see your camera in plan and elevation view.

You can move your camera and target by clicking and dragging it. Vertically on your elevation view, and horizontally on your plan view.

Now, can you create a low angle camera?

Tips: You may need to turn off crop view if your camera is outside the clipping boundary

Creating 3D Section

Now create a new 3D view. It can be perspective or standard 3D view. Right click anywhere inside the view, and click view properties.

Find the section box option under ‘extents’ section. Activate it.

You will see a the section box. Resize it until cut your model. Click and drag the arrow.

 

Here is mine.

And this stair 3D section.

 

Can we render the 3D section? Why not!

If you decide to play around with perspective view, it might be quite difficult to control. You better try with parallel projection first!

Source: CAD Notes – Playing With Revit Camera
Go to Source: CAD Notes

When we place drawing elements, we need to reference to an existing point. We need to place a point exactly at the end of a line, midpoint of a line, center point of a circle, et cetera. In MicroStation, we use AccuSnap to do this. You have used AccuSnap for snapping your data point to a line end before, now let’s get to know it better.

AccuSnap only active when MicroStation is asking you for a data point. It means when you need to place a drawing elements or define a data point during modify or manipulate your drawing elements. When MicroStation doesn’t ask you for data point, AccuSnap is not active.

By default, the AccuSnap mode is set to find key points. Key points are different for each object type. For example, key points for lines are the end points and mid point. Key points for circle are at its octants (every 45 deg) and its center point.

Open a new drawing, create several objects in it. Rectangle, lines, circle, arc, et cetera. Don’t worry about their size. We just use it to understand the AccuSnap behavior. We will do a drawing exercise on the next tutorial.

Try to activate a drawing tools. Let’s use Place SmartLine. Move your pointer close to those objects and see when and where the AccuSnap appear.

Overriding Snap Mode

During the design, we need to use more snap tools than just the key points. Don’t worry, MicroStation has enough snap tools you can use. You can override the default snap mode by clicking the AccuSnap button on status bar.

Or if you feel more comfortable with toolbar, you can show the button bar. Click the AccuSnap button and select button bar.

How come the toolbar only showing a few snap mode, not as many as in snap menu? Right click on the toolbar, and activate other mode you may need. Or, simply click show all. There you go; you have the entire snap mode you can use!

Active Snap and Default Snap

How do we know which snap mode is active? Active snap is shown as a pushed button. When you see the center point button is pushed, then the active snap is center point. But there is more.

See the key point snap button? It’s also pushed, and it’s shown in gray. The grayed button means it’s the default snap mode.

Activate Place SmartLine. Try to override the snap mode to center point. Click on a circle to snap to its center. After defining a data point, the key point will be back as the active snap mode. This is very useful if you only need to change the snap mode for a point, and still want the key point as default snap mode.

On the snap menu, the default snap mode will have a blank circle on the left of it. While the active snap mode have a filled circle.

If you need to change the default snap mode, you can do one of these:

1. Double click on a button in snap toolbar
2. Click the snap button on status bar, hold [shift] and click on a snap mode you want.

If you have finished playing around with the default snap mode, make sure to switch it back to key point.

Tentative Snap

Do you remember which button is the tentative snap button? Yes, press the left and right button together. I know some of you may not feel comfortable with it. I will show you how you can choose another button for at the end of this post. Let’s just use the default for now.

If you move your pointer close enough to a key point, you will see this point.

It’s almost like the snap point, but it’s not yellow. It’s a dashed cross. If you move your pointer closer to that point, then it will change to snap point.

Let’s move your pointer until you see the tentative point. Click the tentative button. MicroStation will show you which point you are attempt to snap. The tentative point becomes a large white cross, and MicroStation highlight the object. If you see it is snapping to correct point, click data point to accept it.

This is important if you have a lot of objects in your drawing. You can review whether you are snapping to correct object or not. If it’s not, click reset (right click) to cancel it, and try it again.

Changing the Tentative Snap Button Assignment

If you still feel uncomfortable with clicking two buttons at once, you can change the button assignment.

Access MicroStation menu: Workspace>Button Assignments… MicroStation will open a dialog box. Click Remap Buttons.

In button mappings dialog box, select the tentative button. As you can see, currently it’s invoked by left button – right button chord. Move your pointer to button definition area. Click any button you want to assign a new button.

Many MicroStation users use mid button as tentative point. It’s a long story You will lose the pan functionality from the mid button. But you still can use pan scroll by pressing [shift] + data point. It’s not exactly the same with pan view. If you don’t like the pan scroll, you can change the button assignment from pan scroll to pan view. It’s your choice!

Source: CAD Notes – Precise Input: Using AccuSnap
Go to Source: CAD Notes

It’s been a while since I wrote my last dynamic block tutorial. Besides of using parameters and actions, there is one thing left: using visibility states. You can hide and show some (or all) objects and save them on separate visibility state.

Let’s take a dynamic block sample from AutoCAD. I use the trees block. Insert it to your drawing, and click the down arrow in the block. You will see a list of trees. Try to change it to other type of tree.

What it does is hiding objects that form the palm (plan) and show other objects. Let’s try to create our own visibility states.

These doors are actually have a same door type. The only difference is the door on the left can be opened to inside and outside. And the other one can only be opened to one direction.

*What do you call them? single swing and double swing door?

Create a drawing like the door on the left. Make it as a block. Then open it in block editor. You’ve been doing this several of times, haven’t you?

We can’t click any button in visibility panel yet. To enable the visibility states, we need to place visibility parameter first. You can find it in block authoring palette, parameters tab.

Place it near your block. Pick a good spot, so you and others who will use it can find it easily.

Click the visibility states button. The visibility states dialog box will open.

By default, we will have one visibility state with name VisibilityState0. Select it, and click rename. Rename it to double swing door (or something you prefer).

Click new to create a new visibility state. Give it name single swing door. And make sure you select the leave visibility of existing objects unchanged in new state. Click OK.

AutoCAD will automatically set the new visibility state as current. If the single swing door is not current, select it and click set current. Click OK to close the dialog.

Now we will hide some lines. Activate make invisible from your ribbon.

Select all the dashed line that showing the door swing. [enter] to accept.

Click visibility mode to see/hide the invisible lines as opaque lines or hidden. You may want to set it as hidden to see applied changes clearly. But sometimes you need to see the invisible objects when you need to change it to visible.

Test your visibility state. Change it from one to another in visibility state list.

If everything is working fine, you can save the block and close the block editor.

Source: CAD Notes – Dynamic Block Tutorial #5: Controlling Visibility
Go to Source: CAD Notes

We are getting to the end of this tutorial. We have created our Revit model. We have the plan views, elevation views, section views, schedules, and you might already experiment with perspective views. This is the basic information we can present in a sheet.

I consider the basic tutorial ends here. There are more, but we will discuss them separately. I will post them under Revit tips, not in tutorial anymore.

Now, we will prepare our views, and placing them to a sheet. Then, we will plot it.

Preparing your Views

Let’s make a check list. There are 3 things you need to consider before placing your view to a sheet. Open your 1st floor plan.

1. Check your view name. This view name will be used as your view title.
2. Check your view scale, change the scale if necessary. We use 1:100 at the moment. But if you want to use other scale, change it now.
3. Check your annotations. If you changed your scale, you might see the annotation don’t appear properly. Either too close to each other, or too far.
4. Check your view crop region.

Checking your Crop Region

You can show/hide your crop region by clicking the button under your views.

Click and drag the crop region control until you get what you want. This is similar to arrange your viewport in AutoCAD. Make the crop region close enough to your model.

Do it for every view you want to place on sheet.

Placing Views on Sheet

Before we place views on our sheet, we need to create a sheet. You can create new sheet from view tab, sheet composition panel.

Revit will open a dialog box, asking you to select a title block. By default, you will only see one title block: A1 Metric (or A1 maybe, if you use imperial). Select it, and click OK.

Revit will automatically open the new sheet, and the view button in sheet composition panel become available. Click it, select your view. Let’s place 1st Floor Plan. Click add view to sheet, and click your pointer at your desired location. Easy right?

But it’s not fun. People always like to show some magic, especially when you are doing a presentation. You can also click and drag a view name to your sheet from project browser!

Place every view you want. Plans, 3D, schedules, etc!

Creating Revit model might be a bit hard to learn. But placing views is easy

Now pay attention to your section and elevation symbol. Revit will automatically renumber the reference and sheet number! Now we are start talking about BIM. Change your sheet number, and see that this reference number will be also updated!

Printing Your Sheets

You can plot them using the same tool as any other Windows application: the print button or [ctrl] + P.

There are some options in print dialog box, but I think they are not really different with other applications. Play around with them, use dwf or pdf as output, so you won’t waste paper, until you are certain you are going to plot it.

Source: CAD Notes – Placing Views to Sheet
Go to Source: CAD Notes

Creating schedule from your Revit model basically is just the same. You can count any data from your model. It can be door/window schedule, where you can show how many doors/windows. Or it can be wall schedule, to show wall length, wall area, or wall volume. You can also showing rooms area in your design. Almost everything! In this tutorial, we will create a door schedule. You can try to create different type of schedule later. They’re all just the same steps!

If you haven’t open your Revit model, open it now.

Schedule basically is also a view. So you can find the schedule tool in View tab, create panel.

Click on schedules, you will see several tools related to creating schedules. Let’s just select schedule/quantities.

A new schedule dialog box will open. There are many categories you can select in this dialog. Because we are going to create a door schedule, select door from category. Click OK.

On the next dialog, Revit will ask you which fields you want to include in your schedule. Add these fields:

• Level
• Family type
• Count
• Cost

You may add several more if you wanted to. You can add them by selecting them then click Add –>. You can arrange their order by clicking move up/move down.

You should already see your schedule. Before we continue tweaking this schedule, input the door cost. You can change it directly on the schedule table cells. Revit will ask you a confirmation, whether you want to change all cost for the same family and type. Click OK.

 

Now you will see your schedule like this.

 

Every door instance is reported here. Our schedule hasn’t group and sum the same item yet. We will fix this. Right click on your table, select view properties.

Revit will open a dialog box. Find sorting/grouping under Other category, and click edit… button right next to it.

• Let’s sort our schedule. Select sort by Level for the first category. Check blank line option for this category.
• And then for 2nd category, select then by family and type.
• Uncheck Itemize every instance to deactivate it. Don’t click OK. We haven’t finished yet!

Now let’s move to formatting tab. Select count field. Then check calculate totals to activate it. Why not, we want to see total number of our doors! Do the same for cost. Our schedule should show the total cost, isn’t it?

Click OK. You should see your schedule now grouped nicely like this.

Source: CAD Notes – Creating Schedule from Revit Model
Go to Source: CAD Notes

When you start a Windows application, most of them will create and open a new file. But not MicroStation. MicroStation have two types of file: 2D DGN and 3D DGN. DGN is stand for design file. Not limited to DGN, you can also create a new DWG file. If you are not familiar with this file type, it’s AutoCAD file. We will discuss how you can create your own workspace, create new files; and save file and settings.

Creating Workspace

You can create multiple workspaces in MicroStation. If you need to design different drawings for different industries, you can set each of them in a separate workspace. This will avoid you to arrange tools and interface each time you need to create drawings in different industry. You can also use workspace if you have multiple users working on the same workstation.

Let’s create a new workspace that you will use for this tutorial until the end. Open your MicroStation. If you already open it, close your file. You will see MicroStation Manager.

From user option list, select new…

 

MicroStation will ask you to give description for this user configuration. Type MicroStation tutorial then click OK.

We have defined a user configuration for this tutorial. Now let’s create a new project.

From project option list, select new. Give name for this project: MicroStation Tutorial Files. And give description: Tutorial files from www.cad-notes.com. Of course, you can use your own description

MicroStation will create a folder at this location (for Windows Vista):

C:\ProgramData\Bentley\MicroStation\WorkSpace\Projects\MicroStationTutorialFiles

If you use Windows XP, you can find it in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Bentley\… folder.

Preparing Tutorial Files

I have prepared all tutorial files we will use. Download them here, extract, and paste them into the folder. The zip file contain two folders: DGN and CELL. Select both of them, copy, and paste them inside MicroStationTutorialFiles folder. When Windows ask you to overwrite those two folder, click yes. Those folder is still empty anyway.

Up to this point, you have set user configuration and tutorial project. It may look complicated, but trust me, it’s not You will love using workspace. Try to change the users and projects that available on the list. Then change it back to our tutorial project. Very good for navigation, right?

Workspace can help you to manage your files for different users, different project. But it doesn’t mean that you have to save all files in that folder. You can still save your files to your desktop, C:\data folder, etc.

Create New File

Let’s try to create a new file. On the upper right of MicroStation Manager, you should see new file button. Click it.

Give the file name My First Drawing. Do not click save yet. Check the seed file. If it’s not showing seed2D.dgn, click browse and select it. Seed file is a drawing you can start with. Other applications call it a template file.

Click save. You will see MicroStation created a new file with that name. Select it, and click open.

I know, it’s a bit different with other applications. But it’s not difficult, isn’t it?

Set your Working Unit

MicroStation works differently in handling working unit compared to AutoCAD. I feel like I have to write about this at very early stage, so if you are an AutoCAD user, you don’t get confused.

While in AutoCAD you can work with any working unit, and change it later, you can’t work that way in MicroStation. You have to define your working unit at the very beginning. Before you start drawing. You can check your working unit by accessing menu settings>design file. Click on category working units on the left.

By default, in country using metric, MicroStation will define the master unit (MU) as meters and sub unit as millimeters. If it’s not your working units, change it now. After you finish, click OK.

That’s how you create a new file. I’ll stop right here now, and we will discuss more about working units.

To Understand Working Units

Have you copied the tutorial files to our tutorial project? Click open. You should see several files if you have copied them. Find working_unit.dgn and open it. Don’t laugh at the design Yes, it is a very simple drawing.

See the dimension. They show measurement in mm. Open design file settings, and change the MU to meters. Close the dialog and see what happen.

The dimensions are showing meters now!

Now try to activate Place Smartline.

Click anywhere on your drawing area, an look at the AccuDraw. It’s showing measurement in meters. Click several times to draw lines. Right click to finish. When MicroStation ask you to choose right click button function, just let it be default value. Click OK.

Try to change the working unit again. Now try to place smartline again. You will see the measurement showing different scale, even you create approximately line with same length! Now it’s using the new working units. So don’t forget to check your drawing unit first!

Saving File and Settings

Close MicroStation. Did MicroStation ask you to save your design file? No. You placed some lines before, when you open the file again, you will still see the lines. Even you didn’t save the file. MicroStation automatically save it to your file, every time you create an object. It can be a good news for you, or maybe a bad news for some of you. However, I still recommend you to save your file regularly by accessing file>save or press [ctrl] + S.

But now look at the dimensions. We have change the working units to meters (or you may have changed it to something else) but it still showing millimeters! You need to save settings separately with saving file. There are a lot of settings you can save. We will get to this later. You san save the settings by accessing menu file>save settings or press [ctrl] + F.

Source: CAD Notes – Working With Workspace and Design Files
Go to Source: CAD Notes

Room is one type of information you can add to your Revit model. That’s why we call it building information modeling (BIM). It’s not just lines and text. It can hold a lot of information in your building model. This time we will define rooms in our design, and create a room schedule.

Let’s open again your project file. Open 1st floor plan view.

Defining Rooms

Activate room tool from ribbon> home tab> room & area panel. Move your pointer to your floor plan. you will see it’s highlight your rooms. Revit will automatically recognize your rooms separated by walls. Define rooms for rooms as you see below. Simply move your pointer inside a room, and click your mouse. Revit will place the tag automatically. If you don’t like it, uncheck the ‘tag on placement’ option on option bar.

Room Separation Line

There’s one room left. We don’t want the living room defined as one large room from front through the back. And we want to exclude the stair area from living room. But Revit can’t recognize them as separate room because we don’t place wall there.

We can separate them by placing room separation line.

This will activate sketch tool. Simply draw lines that separate the rooms. Snap the line to existing wall, and draw it to the next wall. Feel free to define your own room.

After you finish, try to activate room tool again. Place the room definition when you feel it’s correct. Pretty easy, right?

Renaming Rooms

By default, Revit will name your rooms by ‘Room’, and tag it sequentially from the 1st room you define. This is not correct of course. Who wants to have all rooms named by ‘Room’? We can rename it by clicking the room tag to select it. Then click again on room name (or tag number) to rename it. After you’ve done, hit [enter].

 

So what if I don’t place room tag? How can I rename the room? Easy, select the room (not room tag, you might need to press TAB to cycle between objects). Click on element properties from ribbon, contextual tab.

You can change the room name, room number, and other data available.

Room Legend

Let’s try to place room legend. But first, right click on your 1st floor plan name on project browser. From context menu, select duplicate view>duplicate with detailing. Rename duplicate with something like ’1st floor legend view’. It’s already active by default.

Activate legend tool on your ribbon, room & area panel. You will see the legend on your pointer. Find a place where you feel appropriate, click to place it there.

Revit will ask you which scheme do you want. Change the color scheme to Name, click OK.

You will see your floor plan become like this.

Do you want to try this tool to your 2nd floor plan?

Source: CAD Notes – Defining Room and Room Legend
Go to Source: CAD Notes

I wrote this tutorial years ago, while I still working in a Bentley reseller. I wrote it in Indonesian, when it’s still V8XM. I decided to rewrite it in English, and update some screenshot with V8i. Thanks for my partner, I can get 30 days trial to do so. I know there are not many MicroStation tutorial available. That’s why I decided to share this on my blog. I hope this tutorial series will be helpful to you. Enjoy!

MicroStation Manager

MicroStation is a Windows compliant software. As any other software, you can start it from Windows start menu, double click the icon from desktop, or clicking the icon in quick launch if you put it there.

When you start MicroStation, you will see a dialog box: MicroStation Manager.

Not like another popular CAD platform, MicroStation allows you to select user, project, and interface at this dialog. You can find these options on lower right of this dialog.

 

Let’s change the user to examples. And change the project to building. What we just did is we set the folder to examples>building at default location. This is where is it on Vista. If you use XP, you will see it on different folder.

Let’s just open folder drawings, and select file BSI300-GroundFloorPlan.dgn. You should see it because it’s included in default installation. Open it.

MicroStation Interface

This is how MicroStation looks like. It’s not as complicated as this actually. I just arrange them closer so you can see all components in limited image.

Menu

I assume that you already get used to Windows applications. Menu in MicroStation work just the same. You can access all MicroStation tools and settings through available items in MicroStation menu.

Task Navigation

Task navigation is where your tools are.

You can change active task from tasks list. Let’s say you need to give your objects dimension. If you want to focus to dimension tools only, you can switch the active task to drawing>dimension. You will only see dimension tools in active task.

Main tasks are the tools you will see no matter what your active task is. Main task mostly consist tools related to objects manipulations and modifications.

See several icons next to active task title bar? You can change the display by clicking it. Choose which you think suit you most.

Now try to click the icon. That will activate the tool. Yeah, aren’t all Windows application works that way? But now try to click on Place SmartLine tool, hold your mouse button. What do you see? You will see all similar tools to create lines! You can select any other tools you want.

Try to click the ‘open linear as toolbox’ from the selection. That will open a toolbar for linear tools.

Activating and Using tools

Now you already know how to start MicroStation. You know where you can access MicroStation tools. You just need to click on a tool from the list to activate it.

So how do you know what tool is active? You can see it from status bar and from tool settings.

Tool settings will show you only settings related to active tool. In this example, place smartline. Try to click several points in your drawing area. There you go! It’s easy isn’t it?

Next, we will learn how to work with files.

Source: CAD Notes – Introduction to MicroStation
Go to Source: CAD Notes