converting down and to Microstation

[Maverick91]

I've got a series of drawing packages with alignments and profiles. I've been asked to send them to one of our other offices. There, they have generic AutoCAD, r2011, so I have to export them and downgrade them. Then the other office has to send them to our client, who is working in Microstation. What's the best ways to do all this converting? TIA.

[tedg]

I've got a series of drawing packages with alignments and profiles. I've been asked to send them to one of our other offices. There, they have generic AutoCAD, r2011, so I have to export them and downgrade them. Then the other office has to send them to our client, who is working in Microstation. What's the best ways to do all this converting? TIA.

I don't know what any of that may do to the civil stuff like alignments and profiles but..
For the AutoCAD:
Assuming they have the object enablers you could just saveas to the AutoCAD format I belive AutoCAD r2011 is "2010" file format correct?

For MicroStation:
If they have a current version of MicroStation (V8i etc) they should be able to just "open" the AutoCAD files... (again, not sure about the civil stuff tho...)


Just my take on it, maybe others have better info.

[BlackBox]

You could always try the DGNEXPORT Command.

[Maverick91]

You could always try the DGNEXPORT Command.

True, but we're not doing the converting to DGN. I'm looking for tips and ideas to keep things clean and easy for our client.

[BlackBox]

I've got a series of drawing packages with alignments and profiles. I've been asked to send them to one of our other offices. There, they have generic AutoCAD, r2011, so I have to export them and downgrade them. Then the other office has to send them to our client, who is working in Microstation. What's the best ways to do all this converting? TIA.

You could always try the DGNEXPORT Command.

True, but we're not doing the converting to DGN. I'm looking for tips and ideas to keep things clean and easy for our client.

For external use -

Perhaps I am mistaken; given that we have the technology to do so built-in, we provide our clients with working files in the format they need to work, rather than providing them DWG (for them to then convert on their end). Again, this is my situation, and may not apply to yours.


As for the internal use -

Not sure of how your employer's licensing stands, but if you're on subscription, simply upgrade your vanilla AutoCAD folks to AutoCAD 2013. Be sure to incorporate the AutoCAD 2013 Civil Object Enabler, so you no longer need to save down at all.

This would allow for you to simply work as-is internally, and convert (if you so choose) for client use. Lemon squeezy.

[dan493881]

Your best bet is DWG. I have found that converting to MicroStation using DGN export is not great. MicroStation is very good at importing DWG files.

If you are using civil 3d export your files to AutoCAD. If your client is using MicroStation XM you will need to give them 2007 version of the file. If they are using v8 or v8i you should be ok with 2011.

If colours are importent they will need to change the colour table in MicroStation to the AutoCAD colour table as the colour tables in both products are very different.