AutoCAD/Microstation Issues

Ok, here's the scenario. I work with AutoCAD Civil 3D Land Desktop Companion 2009. My company works with roadway design and we are doing topography locations for a new 4-lane highway. We have a consultant company that I deliver my information to that is working with Microstation V8. We are having two issues with the conversion process.

#1) When the consultant company converts our AutoCAD file (which I save back to AutoCAD 2004 format) they do not see any points in their file. All they get is linework, text, hatching and symbols. For our purposes sending them the points is a necessity.

#2) Recently, when converting our file they found that a section of work we did for them on one end of the project matches up with the previous work, however the other section of work (which is 2 miles away) is off by 3 feet from the original work we provided them. I have checked everything on my end and can find nothing wrong. The consultant company has no knowledge of AutoCAD and I have no knowledge of Microstation so we can't figure out where the problem is in the conversion. Any ideas??

Jaelin

I've been mashing out these same sort of issues on a similar project. I have yet to figure out why the file comes in a few feet off, but we just leave the baseline in the drawing as a point of reference so they can move into place. I think it has to do with the drawing origin and/or limits. Not sure.

On the points can you export all your points to a point file which they could then import? Are they using plain Microstation or a civil product like powercivil, geopak, inroads, etc.? Are you just saving as to R2004 format or are you exporting to AutoCAD back to R2004 format?

Check out this thread over at theswamp to see what we've been discussing. There are some links to useful information there.

intelliCAD has DNGdirret and DWGdirrect and can open microstation and autocad files maybe that can help you

Are you using a UTM system of coordinates?

If so, have you allowed for Scale Factor? You do know that 100 feet on the drawing DOES NOT equal 100 feet on the ground.

On one project, the effect of scale factor may not prove to be significant, but when you are joining two projects which are two miles apart, then scale factor could have the effect that you are experiencing.

As an aside, the ignorance of scale factor can have dire effects. I can remember a ground exploration drilling hole going through a tube tunnel in London. The next train along WAS suprised!

Learn about scale factor, perhaps that is a good project for the New Year.

I've been mashing out these same sort of issues on a similar project. I have yet to figure out why the file comes in a few feet off, but we just leave the baseline in the drawing as a point of reference so they can move into place. I think it has to do with the drawing origin and/or limits. Not sure.

 

On the points can you export all your points to a point file which they could then import? Are they using plain Microstation or a civil product like powercivil, geopak, inroads, etc.? Are you just saving as to R2004 format or are you exporting to AutoCAD back to R2004 format?

I do use the baseline to cover myself with this issue which normally works. The problem is this is not a straight move issue but it seems to be a scaling/stretching issue. I give them one file containing two sections of work 2 miles apart. One section comes in perfect the other comes in 3 feet off. They have yet to reply back to me what the baseline is doing.

I can export to a .txt file to which they can reimport the points however it gets very aggravating that I can't find a way around having to do this.

We save back to AutoCAD 2004/LT2004 or AutoCAD 2000/LT2000 formats depending on the client.

intelliCAD has DNGdirret and DWGdirrect and can open microstation and autocad files maybe that can help you

Thanks I'll take a look at this.

Are you using a UTM system of coordinates?

 

If so, have you allowed for Scale Factor? You do know that 100 feet on the drawing DOES NOT equal 100 feet on the ground.

 

On one project, the effect of scale factor may not prove to be significant, but when you are joining two projects which are two miles apart, then scale factor could have the effect that you are experiencing.

 

As an aside, the ignorance of scale factor can have dire effects. I can remember a ground exploration drilling hole going through a tube tunnel in London. The next train along WAS suprised!

 

Learn about scale factor, perhaps that is a good project for the New Year.

We use the Florida State Plane Coordinate system, Florida West Zone. When the points are brought into my drawing from the field they have already been applied a scale factor and, in the case of this drawing being a topography, the scale factor has not changed from what I gave them before to what I am giving them now. Basically, what is going on here is we have provided them a 2 mile section corridor of topography for the proposed road. Now they are requesting a 200-300 foot section of additional topography on each end of that 2 mile corridor. So it's the same project, same job, same scale factor, etc. it's just now were sending them just these two little areas to insert into their master drawing.

I'm debating the possibility that the consultant may be inserting the drawing to a specific point and might be using the wrong measurement unit system(i.e. feet, inches, meters, etc.). To me this would throw a scaling problem into this especially if they are picking their insertion point rather than inserting to the original coordinates.

Thanks for all the input!!

Yes be sure that your AutoCAD units and their Microstation units are set the same. How are they going about bringing your stuff into their master? Are they converting your file to dgn and then referencing it in? Are they doing a straight import into their master? I've notice different results on the method used. I have also noticed different results between a saveas, an export, and a Map export from AutoCAD. You might try each of these and send them the various files for testing. Also try an export to dgn. You should be able to export to v7 and v8 Microstation. Ask them for a copy of their seed file as when you export via Map you can designate that seed file.

After exporting them be sure to name them so they know what each file is. I did this a week or two ago and named them with "(file export to R2000)", "(map export)", "(saveas to R2000)", etc. as an amendment to the filename so they knew exactly what each file was.

I'll try some of these ideas and see what happens.

From what they're telling me, they are trying different methods to import my drawing. He mentioned opening in MS and saving as and he mentioned doing an import but with both he got the same results.

I typically wblock the specific information out to a file. However, when asked whether I want to "Include AutoCAD Map information in the export" I select no. Could this make a difference??

Thanks for the help!

I don't think so. I believe that relates to Map items only and would be used for transferring to other gis products like ArcMap or whatever it's called.

Be sure to set your insert units when you wblock it out.

It really is a strange monster we're dealing with. I had the folks on the Microstation end of our projects export a dwg file from their v8 dgn and I used that as my base dwg. I added my stuff and saved, exported, etc. and sent it back to them. Like you they said it came in a few feet off. You would certainly think that if the units were the same the file would come directly back into Microstation without hassle.

You might also have them test out just referencing the dwg in to their master file as opposed to converting it. See if it has the same problem. As I recall the problem remained when we tried, but I'm not fully sure. It would be so much easier if we had v8 to do the testing on our own.

if it means anything i take DGN files from our civil guys and apply google map screen captures to texture then after importing to rhino and do fly over animations with bongo

If anything in the drawing are ARX objects, you need to enable proxy graphics for other software to see. Actually, if you create a DXF it will also be missing the ARX objects without proxy graphics.

As for as units, MicroStation V8 introduced the concept of a DGN file being unit aware, but the guys writing the code were not civil or survey savvy so it only understood International Feet and Metric units. It was necessary to adjust certain files to add US Survey Feet to the mix. When working with DWG files, it is also necessary therefore to specify US Survey Feet, not simply feet. Over small distances the numbers are not significant, but over miles or more significantly, when dealing with State Plane Coordinates, the numbers get larger.