PointScan

PointScan

The PointScan program is the Windows version of a program previously used with GDS & MOSS to produce a report of stations and offsets of surveyed features. The program will read the output file generated from the topo.inp file created by Plan Prep. The report can reference the detail to any alignment stored in MX.

Before you begin

If you aren't patient enough to read the entire page, make sure you at least read through the list of known issues at the bottom. Contact me with any comments, concerns, and improvement requests.
MX must be running before starting this program.

If necessary, add the program to your MX add-in list. If you need help doing this, refer to the documentation.

Running the Program

When you begin the program, the panel below will be displayed. Start by selecting the Reference Model and String. This is the master alignment string that you want the stations and offsets referenced to.

At this point you can choose to have the program read data from one of 3 input formats. The first, SDR File, reads the output from Plan Prep's topo.inp input file, usually called topo.prn and located in the project directory. The second searches through an MX model, and the last input format scans the current MicroStation drawing.
If the MicroStation option is chosen:
- Only cells are scanned, not line features. That may come later.
- The station & offset calculated are at the origin point of the cell.
- If a fence is currently displayed on the drawing, only items within the fence will be scanned. Otherwise, the entire drawing is scanned.
- The program can only search the active drawing, not reference files.
- Tag data is not currently checked. If tag data is being attached to the cells, please let me know and I will try to figure out how to access it.
- For external users: The program will be looking for a MicroStation BASIC macro - cellscan.ba - to run.
Provide a name for the output file. This is the file that will contain your report.
Adjust the number of decimal places for your output if necessary
Adjust the maximum offset of detail to report. The default value is 35m (100').
The Features to Include section provides you some flexibility in determining which features are listed in the report. The options are:

Feature Option	Strings Included	Default Value
Trees	PTDS, PTCS, PBUS	Included
Utilities	PJNT, PPOL, PPWR, PLPT, PLTJ, PLTP, PLIT, PTEL, PANC, PGUY, PHYD, PMHE, PMHS, PMHT, PMHW, PMHG	Included
Bridge	BB,BF,BG,CL,CR,EJ,OB,PEBV,PMBF,RP,TB,TF,TP,WB,WT	Excluded
Drainage	DP, UD, PCBD, PMHD, PDID	Included
Roadway	EL, EP, TW, CR, CL	Excluded
R.O.W.	PBMK, PBND, PDHL, PIPN, PRJM, PSLM, PTLM	Excluded
Other	user defined	Excluded

Check or uncheck boxes as necessary.
Choosing the Other option will display a box showing the features currently included in the selection list and allow the user to add or remove items from this list.
Click the Process Data button to begin reading the data. A message will be displayed when processing is complete. Note that this could take a while on a large project.
You can create multiple reports by changing the output file and re-issuing the Process Data command. For example you could create a report containing only utility data followed by a different report containing the drainage data.

Known issues

MX must be running before starting the program. Note: This does not have to be a "MX in MicroStation" session, MX in Windows will be just fine.
If the MicroStation option is chosen, then the drawing to be scanned must be open before selecting this option.
When selecting the model name and reference string, select them from the pull-down list. Attempting to key-in the first character does not work properly.
Large files can take a few minutes to process. Please be patient.

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