We have been customizing MicroStation since 1985!
From the original UCM (user-command programming) and on-screen tutorials & digitizer tablet menus, to MDL (MicroStation Development Language - ANSI C) and MicroStation VBA, to C# native-code development running under Windows 10, we've pretty much seen it all.
We've written literally hundreds of custom applications; many that perform very simple repetitive tasks, and some that create and contain an entire production environment. Our clients come to us from all over the English-speaking, MicroStation-using world!
The highly-extensible MDL-based environment
used by the City of Calgary to draw and maintain each of their Water, Sanitary Sewer, and Storm Sewer dynamic segmentation networks, with an active link to a custom-designed Oracle database for network and feature management.
Recent upgrades
have included the integration of C# application templates and plug-ins for customized feature management. Approximately 6,000 km of pipe in each network with in excess of 3M features. Ongoing from 1998 - 2017.
Survey Mapping
CGSI has worked closely with Survey Engineering firms to help them develop their CAD workflow in order to increase productivity without increasing manpower. We also jointly developed innovative methods of managing and publishing survey data.
The maintenance functions range from
- CAD conversion
- Data warping and integration
- Mass point filtering and topological cleanup
- On-the-fly conversion of mapping information to different projections
- Publishing of mapping information
- Quality control reporting
Data Capture
We undertook the conversion of over 37,500 manually-drawn engineering block profile drawings to CAD format, while simultaneously populating an Oracle GIS database with 3-dimensional network information. The resulting database contained up-to-date positional information on over 250,000 distinct lines, including street elevations, storm and sanitary sewer inverts, waterlines, and miscellaneous other utilities.
At the same time
A major no-cost side benefit of the conversion project was the automatic conversion of archival Imperial-unit drawings to the conventional Metric standard currently in use (a conversion project worth an estimated $5M on its own!).
Repetitive Task Automation
Using planning techniques that directly involve the end user in the design, CGSI has developed numerous customized software tools that eliminate or radically reduce the number of repetitive mundane tasks involved in day-to-day operations. One example of this is the MessengerWire application.
Tool Description:
The application reads simple ASCII data files and creates intelligent plan & profile CAD data derived from the XYZ point data, and another that was written for a light-rail-transit operation for the placement of the electrical wires on the profile view.