Another ‘must have’ annotation element in a drawing is pattern. Pattern is used to show object materials, show section area, and some other purposes.

In MicroStation, we have the types of patterns: hatch area, crosshatch area, and pattern area. Hatch and crosshatch are used for simple pattern, while pattern area is used for complex pattern. If you need to define your own pattern, then definitely you have to use pattern area.

Hatch Area

Hatch area is used to create hatch pattern with parallel lines. You can control the spacing and angle of this pattern.

There are several ways to create hatch area. You can choose the element as closed boundary. You can also pick points to let MicroStation find the boundary using flood, union, intersection, difference, or picking points.

Associative parameter will associate your pattern to your elements. If you move or modify the elements, then the pattern will adjust to the new boundary.

Snappable pattern by default is off. Most users don’t want to snap to patterns since it will make your drawing messy. To many reference point will be found. Only activate it when necessary.

Crosshatch Area

Crosshatch is very similar with hatch, only here you have two parallel lines definitions crossing each other.

Pattern Area

Hatch and crosshatch are used for simple patterns. Pattern area is used for creating complex pattern. You can use complex pattern from cells or .pat file. You already learn about cells, so you will not have a problem using it as pattern. Pat file is extension for pattern/hatch file from AutoCAD. If you are not familiar with AutoCAD and you don’t have custom pattern files from AutoCAD, then you probably will never use file to define your pattern.Cell is easier to define.

Exercise

You can start the exercise by downloading this file: pattern.dgn. Here is how the file looks like.

See how you can do it in our YouTube channel here.

Even if we create our drawings in exact sizes, plot it in certain scales, we still need to add dimensions. It doesn’t make sense if people need a ruler and measure every element in our drawing.

The dimensioning tools are in dimensions tools group.

There are many dimensioning tools we can use. Basically how to use them is just the same. Remember to follow the guides in status bar!

Dimension Styles and Dimension Attributes

Dimension appearance is controlled by dimension attributes. While each dimension can have different attributes, we can manage them efficiently using dimension styles. You can save different attributes settings in each style.

You can access dimension style dialog from MicroStation menu: element>dimension styles. You can have many dimension styles to use in your drawings.

The dimension attributes are grouped into four category: geometry, units, text, and symbology. Each category is represented in a tab. The last tab, advanced, has all of the attributes in it.

Explore the settings available in this dimension style dialog, try to change the values and options. You will see live preview at the bottom of the dialog box.

Basic Dimension Settings: Alignment, Dimension Mode, and Association

Try to activate dimension element

MicroStation will open dimension tool settings. Below is the basic tool settings. You can choose dimension styles and other basic arrangement. If you want to have more settings, click small triangle at the right bottom of the dialog box.

There are many settings that you can change here. Let us discuss several of them.

Alignment

This is how you define your dimension alignment.

1. View will give you dimension aligned with your view. This is useful if you rotated your views and want to have dimension parallel to your view.
2. Drawing will give you dimension parallel to your coordinate (ACS). View rotation will not affect the dimension orientation
3. True will create dimension parallel to your element.
4. Arbitrary will place your dimension arbitrarily. This is very useful if you want to create an isometric dimension.

Association

If you activate association, this will associate your dimension with the element. If you move the element, resize, or do other modification… then the dimension will automatically updated.

Dimension Types

Under location option, you can see what kind of dimension you can create. In this example, you can see dimension types for dimension element.

You can dimension the whole element, create label line, or dimension size perp – line. Try to select a line, change the dimension type and see what will happen!

You will see the dimension types changing, depends on object you select. If you select a circle or arc, then you will see these dimension types.

And this what you will see if you activate dimension linear:

We can also use cells to place point, terminator, or as pattern. Try to open a cell library. You may want to try to create several cells for this tutorial. I created several cells: benchmark point (I will use it with place point tool), arrow (for terminator), and diamond pattern (for pattern). Look the active cells below. I can activate different cells for different purposes. To activate your cell, just select the cell, and click button. If you want to use it for placement, then click placement button. Click terminator if you want use use selected cell as line terminator. And so on.

Placing Cell as Point

Now how can we place point? The place active point tool is under place SmartLine>Points.

After you activate the tool, look at the tool settings. You will see the point type now is cell. You are still able to use element as point type, but now cell become the default point type.

Try to place your cell. You can place it by clicking data point, and the cell will be placed at your pointer position. You may want to try the other point tools and see if you can use active cell too.

Using Cell as Terminator

I created this cell for my terminators. Terminators will automatically find line/arch segments and place the terminator there. The terminator will also be rotated, parallel to the line direction. Remember, you need to create the terminator to point to positive X axis. That is the 0 deg angle, or the terminator direction.

Try to create several lines, SmartLines, arc, etc. Now try to activate the place active line terminator. This tool is under place active cell tool group.

Click data point close to the line end. Click data point again to accept. This tool is very useful for placing arrows or other terminators. Especially if you need to place them with angles like this. You don’t need to rotate them later. Simply click data points!

Using Cell as Patterns

Pattern area tool is under hatch area tool group.

While hatch area only can create parallel lines pattern, pattern area can be used for any kind of pattern. As long as you define the pattern in cell library. We will discuss about hatch area in details later.

Just like the other tools, you can see the active cell as pattern definition.

This capabilities allows you to create any kind of pattern you want. And it’s very easy to do. These are some samples you of patterns using cell definition.

For AutoCAD Users

If you are AutoCAD users, I know you will be trying to find something like edit in-place or block editor. And you will expect modifying the cell definition will update all cells in your drawing automatically. MicroStation cell might be similar to AutoCAD block. But they are totally different animals.

MicroStation cells are library, objects that you use repeatedly. Imagine you are placing chairs when you design an office space. When you realize that you want other type of chair, you do not create chair on your own, but you pick another type from catalog and use it. I guess this makes sense. You keep the first chair model in your library, but you don’t change it because you might need it later. You simply remove it from the drawing (but not changing the definition) and replace it with another type.

AutoCAD and MicroStation have different concept on this ‘reusable contents’, so don’t try to make cell behave like block!

Modifying MicroStation Cell

However, you will need to modify cells. You may need to correct some mistakes, update the library, or for other purposes. How to modify cell library? There are two ways: you can delete the MicroStation cell definition and recreate it, or you can modify the MicroStation cell within cell library file directly.

Recreate the cell definition

AutoCAD users may love this workflow. You can place your cell to your drawing, then drop the cell.

Drop is a tool that will break your element to simpler elements. You created cell from several elements, and drop element will break the cell back to the original elements.

Make necessary changes, then recreate the cell. You need to delete the original cell from cell library first, before creating cell with the same name.

Opening and Modifying MicroStation Cell Library

Another method to do this is by opening the cell library. Cell library basically is a DGN file. You can open it using file>open, then change the file type to MicroStation Cell Libraries (*.cel).

Each cell is placed in separate model. Each model will use the cell name. To switch to the cell you want to modify, access file>models. MicroStation will open model dialog. This model dialog will show you all cells the cell library has. You can double click to open the model, or right click>open. This will open your cell.

Do the modification as necessary on the drawing. After you finish, save this cell library. Now your cells are updated!

Replacing Cell

Now if you back to your design file, you will see that your cells are still using the old definition. They are not changed to the new cell definition. Yes, you need to update them manually. Or change the cell to another cell definition.

You can do that by using replace cell tool.

This tool is called replace cells. However, you can also use it for updating your cell definitions.

Activate the replace cell tool, and take a look to the tool options.

You can use update or replace cell as the method. Remember, you need to attach the cell library. Some cell tools won’t work if it can’t find the cell definition in cell library.

You can also change single cell instance, or update every cell that use the same definition.