I’ve been a user of Rhino for years in architectural design (predominantly footbridges & sculptures), alongside using Microstation.
The only thing that I would say that Bentley do better in terms of modelling (in my humble opinion) is handling reference files. I would absolutely love to not use worksessions (with an additional file) and import as blocks, etc… but instead use a reference manager similar to Mircostation which is much more intuitive (again, in my humble opinion… but would be pleased to hear other opinions on this!).
I wondered if anyone else has this craving and whether handling reference files could be something that could be looked into more in the future?
Can you elaborate on what the typical behaviour and feature-set of Microstation is, that makes it more intuitive?
I think many of us do not use Microstation, yet are keen to know what it does better than Rhino.
As I understand it, worksessions were set up for multiple users to interact with a model, whereas reference files in Microstation are really for single users to better organise their models so they don’t end up with single files with many layers.
Below is an example showing the Microstation reference dialog box (a) (ok, the interface is hideous but let’s skip that bit!). In this file, there are several other models referenced into the file which contain things like setting out geometry, models from other consultants, etc… In this ‘reference manager’, one can do things like make them snapable or not, editable, etc… You can also do something called ‘live nesting’ whereby, the model you reference in might itself have models referenced (you can change this nesting depth).
Finally, you can also change what levels (layers) are displayed on the referenced files (b). This is really quite handy to be able to do, and I envisage a tabbed layer box of some kind in Rhino that would be very useful.
Hope that helps to explain how reference files are handled in Microstation a little bit. Let me know if you have any other questions. As I say, I think its a very useful feature, and if done simply without bloat would be a great addition to Rhino one day.
In my experience the one thing I miss is to be able to control the visibility of nested references. Mircostation has the ability to set a value for deep down the nested reference tree you look. It’s not just an all or nothing thing. Also having the ability to turn snapping on and off for specific reference files is nice.
[quote=“johnharding, post:3, topic:32276”]
As I understand it, worksessions were set up for multiple users to interact with a model, whereas reference files in Microstation are really for single users to better organise their models so they don’t end up with single files with many layers.[/quote]@johnharding Have you tried Worksession? It may have been originally intended for groups of users but I find it very useful as a single user.
[quote=“johnharding, post:3, topic:32276”]
Below is an example showing the Microstation reference dialog box (a) (ok, the interface is hideous but let’s skip that bit!). In this file, there are several other models referenced into the file which contain things like setting out geometry, models from other consultants, etc… In this ‘reference manager’, one can do things like make them snapable or not, editable, etc… You can also do something called ‘live nesting’ whereby, the model you reference in might itself have models referenced (you can change this nesting depth).
[/quote]The Worksession manager panel allows the active file which can be edited to be changed on the fly, and files can be attached and detached on the fly. The files show up on the Layers panel and the any reference file can be turned on or off as desired, as well as individual layers.
[quote=“johnharding, post:3, topic:32276”]
Finally, you can also change what levels (layers) are displayed on the referenced files (b). This is really quite handy to be able to do, and I envisage a tabbed layer box of some kind in Rhino that would be very useful.
[/quote]Already included with Worksession as noted above. Just go to the layers panel.
Thanks David. For some reason I didn’t catch the worksession manager which is a bit bizarre… I’m not entirely sure why but thank you. I guess a couple of useful additional features might be:
Live nesting
Clipping reference files (as opposed to just limits)
Scaling, rotation, etc…
I still have a problem with having two files instead of one, but that might just be me
Just going to bump this, as I think people miss the importance and versatility of the Microstation Reference Manager.
We would love if ‘Insert’ worked as expected for stacking plans for example, but it tends to throw everything out into different rotations and positions.
Worksession manager is ok, but as above won’t let you control clipping/nesting/etc. We also find it difficult to manage the extra file type. Even if a rhino file just automatically loaded a previous ‘Worksession’ it would be a great start!
