Creating a MicroStation Alignment Drawing (v8i)

Before you begin

If this is the first time an MX drawing has been transferred in this project, check the project directory for a file with the project name followed by a .MSS extension.  If this file does not exist, see a member of the CAD/D support staff before continuing this procedure.

Creating the Drawing

The alignment drawing for MicroStation is created in MX from the NHAlign-v8i add-in.  See the documentation for more details.  Once this process is complete, Exit MX.

Open the newly created Native alignment drawing in MicroStation.  Levels from the ALI.csv level library will be imported when the NHAlign program is run later. It is no longer necessary for the operator to do this step.

However, due to a bug in the current version of MX v8i, tag data is not in the Native copy of the drawing and must be added by the operator. Select Tags > Define from the Element menu.

Click on the File menu on the Tag Sets dialog box. Then Import > From Tag Library... Navigate to N:\CADD\CADD\V8i_workspace\Standards\data\ and select nhdot-v8.tlb. When the "Import Sets" dialog appears, hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and select each item in the tag set list. Click the "OK" button. Close the "Tag Sets" dialog box by clicking the red "X".

Editing the Drawing

At this time the drawing needs to be edited to reformat the alignment to NHDOT standards.  This is done with the NHAlign macro.  This macro can be started from the NHDOT pulldown menu or use the key-in vba run modNHAlignV8i.main.  At this point, the macro will modify the text associated with each alignment.  It will also delete unnecessary graphics from the drawing.

This program should be followed by the CurveData VBA program  to add curve data annotation to the alignment curves.  This macro will prompt for the name of the alignment report file created by the MX NHAliReport add-in.

If this data needs to be copied onto another drawing containing previously created alignments follow these steps:

• open the earlier alignment drawing
• attach the new drawing as a reference file
• select the file in the References dialog box
• use the Merge Into Master command to add the newly created alignment to the earlier alignment drawing. 

Using the Copy Attachment command instead of Merge Into Master will lose tag data attached to the alignment.

Known Issues

1. Occasionally, transfers from MX will create point elements on the MicroStation drawing.  They can usually be deleted by running the delpt macro.
2. The macro does not work properly when a curve is more than 180 degrees (such as a loop ramp alignment).  Until further notice, the alignment will have to be manually drafted.