Trimble Business Center

I have two DGNs. One with multiple model spaces and one without. The one with one model space, "11238Qply_Newingto - One Model Space" I am able to successfully import the linework into BC. The one with multiple model spaces,"11238QPLY_Dover - Mutli Model Space" I am not. Is there a trick to importing a DGN with multiple model spaces without have a Bentley product? 

If that is the only difference between these two files then this may be correct - I am not that familiar with all the Microstation options - when you say Multiple Model Spaces - are you referring to the Views (PLYs) of the same Model (which the Multi Model appears to have two Views at least saved) whereas the Single Model only has One View Saved (the Default), or are you referring to Multiple Models in the same DGN file in some way - can you give me a little more detail as to what you think the difference is between the two - if the Multiple Model Spaces are just views of the same data then I guess we should be able to still Import the data (and that would be a defect if correct). If the Multiple Model Spaces is more than Viewing Controls then I guess this may be more tricky to resolve at our end.

I will reach out to a contact that I have at Bentley / or a Customer to see if I can get more detail on Model Spaces tomorrow - in the meantime it appears that you are correct that we cannot read the Multiple Model Space file that you have shared with me - I can have the dev team look at that to see if it is a simple / quick fix or something more problematic.

Alan

Thanks for the reply Alan. I hope this helps clarify.

OK thanks for the confirmation - that is what I did also and I guessed that was what you were referring to as I saw that same difference - I will get someone to see if that is the cause of the issue or not tomorrow

Appreciate you taking the time to clarify

Alan

OK - I had the Dev Team look at this and we have adjusted the Importer to accommodate this type of file. You will see that hopefully in the Dimensions Product Release.

Alan

Thank you for looking into this.

This has really been an issue here in IL/MO for this past year.  It seems the DOT updated Microstation or has changed the way they design in Microstation.  DGN files supplied as of late, have had the multiple views or model space.  BC-HCE only imports one view and misses all the remaining view.  Thanks for the post, reply and update.

I have seen this as well.  When the dgn file gets imported, only the active model tab data comes in with it.  A workaround is to 'export and save as' for each model tab (using a fence) and then import each of the created files.  Although, I have seen situations where 4 out of the 7 models in Microstation were matching the plan while the other models were clearly abandoned and not removed from the source file - so be careful of that.  I would love this problem to go away though - the blanket drag and drop is one of the best features about TBC.

Agree 100% on the drag and drop.  A BC-HCE user would miss a lot of good information supplied by a DGN if they did not open the file in Microstation or Civil 3D (import DGN) as of late.

Hi Alan,

Has this fix been released yet? Im trying to import a dgn with multiple model spaces and it is still only bringing the active model space. On import the only import option is to add layer prefix as far as i can see. Is this possibly something on my end? 

We did address one problem relating to this a while back, however these things change all the time and Bentley Users seem to regularly come up with ways to cause issues - one thing I did find out recently was that DGN files have changed in recent times to use a "ZIP" type approach to their files, such that if you drag and drop a DGN into TBC it is not recognized and will not import - however if you use the Import command it will import. Not that this is the answer to this specific question (at least I don't think so).

If you have files that will not import - you can post them here and we will take a look at them - unless we get the data we don't know that this is exactly the issue - so we run the data through the debugger to see where it fails and compare what we get with what Bentley View and Microstation give us for the same file - that way we have some chance at least to find the problem if there is one. Without the data I have no chance of getting the Development team to look at a "discussed problem" on someones comment that we have an issue unfortunately.

If you cannot share the data publicly, you can email it to me at alan_sharp@trimble.com and I will take a look, reproduce the problem and then ask development to take a look at it.

Alan