Working Units

Consists of controls that are used to set “real world” units of measurement for your design models. MicroStation recognizes Metric and English units, either of which may be selected from option menus. Additionally, you can create your own custom units, by relating them to the standard units (Metric or English). Changing between the units, used in a model, makes no difference to the size of geometry in your model. Alternatively, changing the Resolution setting in the Advanced settings does change the size of existing geometry in the model. In practice, the Resolution setting will rarely, if ever, have to be changed from the default.

You can have different Working Units assigned to different models, contained in the one DGN file.

When you define new Working Units, you must select File > Save Settings (or the shortcut <CTRL-F>), to save the new settings.

Working Units category controls

Unit Names

Contains controls used to set the Master Units and Sub Units used in the model.

Master Unit

Lets you select, from an option menu, the largest unit in common use in the model.

(Master Unit) Label

Lets you set the standard abbreviation for the measuring unit selected as the Master Unit. By default, a label is suggested when you select the Master Unit. For example, if the Master Unit is Meters then the default Label is m. If required, you can key in a substitute label.

Sub Unit

Lets you select, from an option menu, the smallest convenient unit to use in the model. The Sub Unit must be smaller than the Master Unit chosen. For example, if the Master Unit is Meters then the Sub Unit might be Centimeters, or Millimeters.

(Sub Unit) Label

Lets you set the standard abbreviation for the measuring unit selected as the Sub Unit. By default, a label is suggested when you select the Sub Unit. For example, if the Sub Unit is Centimeters, the default Label is cm. If required you can key in a substitute label.

Custom Units