Trimble Business Center

I remember that Trimble released some features where you can reference files similar to Civil 3D. Does anyone use those features? How well do they work?

We use them quite a fair bit albeit the limited functionality they implimented. Hoping that future updates will bring improvements and some polishing! Its not like referencing is a new concept as nearly all other cad packages do it in some form and some do it better than others.

Referencing relies heavily on the view filters for the referenced file to dictate what is displayed and cannot be adjusted without reopening the referenced file, so you may need to create a lot of view filters for different data you want to display. Terramodel (not supported since 2007) allows you to manipulate what is displayed from a reference file without reopening the reference file!

Referencing a surface is good and volumes can be run against a referenced surface without it increasing the file size of the main file, great if you have an existing surface you regulary run volumes against etc without duplicating the surface. Surfaces are dynamic so if a change happens in the referenced surface it filters through to any other project that uses it as a reference. Bad in that you cannot see the extent of the surface unless you set it up as a view filter in the referenced file as turning the referenced surface on doesnt display the ttm in any of the views except surface slicer.

Data that is referenced in is snapable if you want to pull distances however you cannot select the line to view any attributes of a line (ie name, layer etc.) Think referenced services file, can snap distances and work out depths but you cannot access information as to service type/size or layer etc.

Sharing data between referenced tbc files is best acheived using rockpiles RPS copy/paste but again you will have to open the referenced file up in order to select data to copy into file you want it in. Crazy that you have to pay for third party add on, you can export out to vcl but is slow and clunky process, not to mention generates excess data.