Main functions

Fast recall of Saved View

If «Display Saved View in» option is turned on, then when user switches between records in Saved View List, then MP Saved View Manager activates Saved View. This Saved View is activated in View, which number you can choose in “View Number” option (it resides on the right side of the option item).

By default the list of Saved Views consists of Saved Views of the current model, all models of the current file and all references attached to the current model.

You can change the models of Saved Views being taken from, using the Settings dialog, which can be opened with key-in MP SELECTOR SETTINGS

By default if you choose Saved View of non-active model of the currently opened DGN file, then model of the Saved View becomes active in the View, where Saved Views are shown (but if Saved View belongs to the current model or reference model, then there will be no switching between models in the View). So you can simultaneously work with two and more models, each of which will be active in it’s own view.

If this way of switching between Saved Views looks inconvenient to you, then you can change behavior of switching to simple display or complete switching between models of Saved Views. You can find more details in the “Settings” issue.

Create

«Create…» button creates Saved View.

Delete

«Delete» button deletes Saved Views selected in the Saved View List. If you have deleted required Saved View by mistake, you can try to undelete it by means of MicroStation Undo command (you should restart MP Saved View Manager after Undo to make sure that deleted Saved Views become available).

Import

The button calls functionality which imports Saved Views from another files.

Thumbnail Creation

Thumbnail is a picture, which is shown by default in Windows Explorer after user navigates to DGN file name. Also Thumbnail is shown in MicroStation Manager. You can make creation of Thumbnail from of the most informative view of design file a rule. So this will help you to find your files faster. The searching time can decrease in several times.

«To Thumbnail» button allows to create thumbnail from selected Saved View. Please take into consideration that this functionality renames the selected Saved View to «Preview».

Rename

The button helps to rename Saved View or change Saved View description.

Create JPG from Saved Views

Sometimes it is very interesting to create some pictures (images) from design file and send them, for example, to colleague as memo, so he could estimate his mistakes and never repeat them again. Or you can send images to your customer, which has never seen MicroStation, so he could estimate accuracy of your assumptions.

Or, for example, you may want to create gallery from fitted views of all your file models.

In this case you can simply select all Saved Views you want to create images from and press «Create Image…» button. The following dialog will appear – it will help you to create images:



Here you need to choose output folder for created images, images format and number of the View that will be used for images creation. Please note, that pictures size depends only on the size of the View. If you want to make images bigger then you need just enlarge the View sizes.

Create ‘Teleport’ - HTML-report

If you work with huge amount of DGN files and each file has several models, then the task to find required file may become very difficult. Of course you can catalog all files and use naming standards, but even these actions will not help you when you will try to find file which visual form stays before your eyes, but you have forgot the name of it …

This problem is especially frequent with cell libraries, which often contain dozens or hundreds cells and you need to find the best fitting for you.

The right workflow in this case is to create HTML report, which can be used not only as static set of pictures, but also as Teleport – when clicking on the image we are transporting to MicroStation which opens for us the required DGN file, required model and required view. Sounds fantastical, but button “Report” of MP Saved View Manager allows us to generate such reports.

«Report» button opens dialog which creates report for all selected saved views in the Saved Views List:



Enter report file name to «Report File» field. Note that all pictures, which will be used for report file creation, will be stored in directory “<report file name without extension>.files”

Options for view selection and file format have the same meaning as in “Create JPG for Saved Views” functionality. Please remember that you need carefully define the size of the selected view since images sizes depend on it.

"Use Preview" option allows to create reports with small preview images. The generated with this option report will display small pictures with sizes set in "Preview Height" and "Preview Width" fields. When user will click on small preview pictures this will result in showing full-sized images. That option allows to look over more Saved Views on a page and retains possibility to look at the image in details. "Group by File Name" and "Group by Model" options group Saved Views in report by file name and/or model name. These names will present in report as headers.

MP Saved View Manager creates report after you press "Ok" button. After it will be generated, the application will ask you whether you want to view the report.

The report may have the following appearance:



If you will click on the preview image or image name, then the full-sized image will be shown. "Activate Saved View" will switch to MicroStation and open file lighting.cel, open proper model and saved view in View 1.

It should be noted, that you need to call HTML report from MicroStation, if you want to use "Activate Saved View" feature (it works the same as MicroStation’s "HTML Author…" reports). The easiest way to do that is to drag-n-drop HTML-report to MicroStation or call it with help of "Engineering links".

Clip References by Saved View boundary

MicroStation supports very convenient mode of reference files attaching. It is called as "Attach by Saved View". This mode clips reference by Saved View boundary. Actually when you need to attach large design file and you need only to review only small area of data – the mode is very useful.

But such attachment has very important disadvantage – when you will change boundary of Saved View in reference file, then nothing will change in master file. The reference file clipping boundary stays as it was right after attach. You need to reattach reference file or manually create new clipping boundary. MP Saved View Manager can by means of "Clip Reference" button:

• refresh clipping boundaries of reference file – bring them in correspondence with the current boundary of Saved View
• set clipping boundaries of reference file in correspondence with another Saved View of the reference file

You need to select proper Saved View and press "Clip Reference" button to perform this action.

Temporary switching to Saved Views

"Switch to Model" button allows to temporary switch to the currently selected Saved View. MP Saved View Manager activates file and model of the selected Saved View, so you can make some editing actions. When your editing actions are finished you can return back to the original file/model/place by pressing the following button:



After pressing it, you will return to original place and MP Saved View Manager main dialog will be reopened.

Bulk creation of Saved Views

Many MicroStation V8 users have already opened for themselves the convenience to work with multi-model DGN files. And, of course, all users use cell libraries, which are, per se, DGN file with many models.

Sometimes some models become outdated, some need actualization. In this case you need to look over the whole file at a time. You can generate report for this with MP Saved View Manager. But creation even simply fitted saved views for every model may become exhausting work.

Bulk creation of Saved Views functionality was developed especially for this purpose. This function automatically creates fitted saved views for every model of design file. The operation can be called from main dialog menu "Operation"-> "Create Saved Views for Models…".

By default it works in the following way: it loops through all models of the currently opened design file and creates Saved View named as "FITALL_<Model Name>" for fitted view. Besides if model is 3D, then the Saved View is in isometric orientation. You can change types of processing models (exclude models which can’t be placed as cells, exclude "Sheet" models) or change naming rules for created Saved Views. The settings controlling that are on "Create Saved Views" page.