On my current assignment, we have been thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to swim.
Additionally, I am on a committee looking to assist our local DOT to migrate to Open Roads From InRoads Ss2 (and earlier.)
For the current assignment, they seem to have thrown together a composite workspace coming from Bentley Civil Imperial and other DOT's. Unfortunately, the agency that this project is ultimately for, does not provide anything other than a pure MicroStation workspace with no element templates. So much of the Open Roads design work is creating elements on non-standard levels or in a worst case scenario, having the workspace force elements to Default is displayed in a compliant workspace environment (level creation disabled).
So I am frequently trying to adjust settings as I work to get a desirable result.
This thrusts me into the subject area - needing an in-depth explanation of many of the settings in the Feature Definition Properties. As a CADD Manager, I want to keep as many items in an XIN file as possible - only extending settings into DGNLIBS that cannot be accomplished from an XIN alone. So I want to use Native Style wherever possible. This allows me to edit my workspace settings using only my trusty text editor - Notepad++.
But in many areas, the help file does not fully explain many of the Feature Settings now in DGNLIB's and also many of the Element Template settings that are extensions from pure MicroStation.
Here is a small example: In the Help file, under the Terrain Modeling Toolset > Terrain Model Analysis > Feature Definition > Notes for InRoads Users is this bullet:
Linear Feature Definitions - You must toggle on one of two linear settings, the Feature Style, Surface Feature > 3-D Plan Surface Display Line Segments or General Line Arc Spiral.
I do not see any location for this in any dialog box. But I do see in the Feature Properties dialog box, a Linear Default Settings that has only mentions in the help file, under the first Feature Definitions topic:
In addition, the behavior of a feature when used is defined in a features definition. This includes if a feature is automatically annotated, naming of the feature, exporting the feature object to the native product, creation of corresponding 3D elements and the option to link a corridor modeling template to the feature.
We need a much more detailed explanation of what these things do, what they effect, etc.
Even the Best Practiced manual does not go into sufficient detail on these topics
