Autocad to Microstation

Hi,

I have 2D .dwg drawings for electrical substation (no 3D). Job is done but now customer want them in microstation.

Can some one please suggest me whats the best way to do this?

Are there any good tools (because i got about 150 drawings) or just save as and open?

any help greatly appreciated.

thanks.

Why? Can't the customer import dwg or dxf files?

Our Proj. manager just found we are supposed to provide drawings in microstation by contract terms! our team is new incl. manager and no one knew about this because it was signed long before.so as you said may be they can do that but we are bound by contract to provide them in microstation.thanks for help.

Well you can try to put it back on them. Microstation has a batch conversion utility that takes dwg files and converts them to dgn format. Your other options are:

1) Buy a conversion program and do it yourselves.

2) Pay a reprographics firm to do the conversion for you. Ask for references.

3) Find a willing partner over at the Microstation help forum who would be willing to do the conversion for a) free or b) some small fee (or at least something less then choice number 2 would cost you).

BTW...the next contract better be reviewed very carefully before accepting its terms.

Thanks lot! Ohh yeah next time no more such mistake!

Can you please explain how this can be done "Well you can try to put it back on them. Microstation has a batch conversion utility that takes dwg files and converts them to dgn format."

because i can have access to microstation if needed and if that can solve this

thanks lot.

Are you referring to the batch conversion utility? If so take a look at this:

http://www.axiomint.com/mst/200710-tip-convertV8.htm

I dont know if Mechanical has it, but Vanilla AutoCAD can export to dgn (or at least 2011 can). I dont know if there is a batch process for it, but if you dont have very many, you could just do it manually.

To confirm the above and to add that the Export option includes V7 DGN and V8 DGN.

Ok; first, Batch conversion did not work. after few trial & errors i realized my autocad is 2010 while V8 is 2004. I saved cad as 2004 and it worked. I am not sure that was the reason for failed messages but thats how i got around it.

For exporting; it asks me to select seed file which i have no idea. Appreciate your help.

Thanks ReMark.

You're welcomed Don. Glad you found a way and thanks for updating us.

hi, this is more of microstation Question but i had this going so asking here

How do i change background from white to black?

I tried workspace-preference-check/uncheck Black background to white

but nothing changing.

thanks in advance.

For exporting; it asks me to select seed file which i have no idea.

That's how Bentley call template file.

hi, this is more of microstation Question but i had this going so asking here

How do i change background from white to black?

I tried workspace-preference-check/uncheck Black background to white

but nothing changing.

thanks in advance.

That's strange. It works at my end.

Try to create another MicroStation user and see if it works there.

Thanks Edwin.

I found solution for background. because these are converted drawings it is taking dwg color table as default. I changed value for black to 0,0,0 in color table and its all good.

My next Q is my viewports from dwg are coming up as reference in dgn and its all locked. How can i edit things like Fonts etc?

MicroStation handle viewport differently compared to AutoCAD. It is a reference, so you need to open the file to edit it.

However, because you open AutoCAD drawings, I believe they are self-referenced. MicroStation supports self-reference (you XREF'ed a file to itself), so check the model. They original drawing should be there.