CADconform for MicroStation Readme

CAD Platform Support

CADconform is supported on most Bentley platforms. Generally, if the platform supports running third-party MDL applications, then it should support CADconform. Examples of Bentley platforms that do not support third-party MDL applications would be Bentley Redline, Powerscope, or Bentley View. Of the platforms that do support MDL applications, these have been broken into two main categories:

MicroStation-based platforms, such as Bentley Navigator, PowerInroads, or AECOsim and MicroStation itself.
PowerDraft-based platforms, such as PowerCivil, PowerSurvey or PowerMap, and PowerDraft itself.

The reason for this distinction is that although PowerDraft can run third-party MDL applications, it does not support third-party DLLs. This means that although CADconform will run on these platforms, it must run a subset of the full application specially compiled for PowerDraft and with reduced functionality.

A breakdown of the Bentley platform support is shown below:

Supported Bentley Platform

Unknown V8i Platform

This installation type should be used in circumstances where a V8i platform is used that is not explicitly supported by the installer. For example, prior to CADconform v8, promis-e was not supported by the installer, even though it worked properly once manually configured for promis-e. Installing CADconform on an unknown platform creates the configuration file required to be copied into the correct location of the platform. For MicroStation this would be the "\MicroStation\config\appl" folder. The configuration file for an unknown V8i platform will be created in the CADconform server location under the "Config" directory, for example:

C:\ProgramData\Altiva Software\CADconform\Config\CADconform Custom.cfg

This file usually only contains two lines: one line to define the server path and another line to include the server's network settings configuration file, which is described below.

The CADconform Network Settings configuration file

CADconform installs several different standard MicroStation configuration files in the "Config" subdirectory of the server. The network settings configuration files provide MicroStation with the installation path of CADconform, and need to be read in before CADconform can successfully load. These files are created automatically by the installer. There is one file for each platform, named as below:

Networked_Workspace_Settings_for_MicroStation_2004.cfg
Networked_Workspace_Settings_for_MicroStation_XM.cfg
Networked_Workspace_Settings_for_MicroStation_V8i.cfg

An example config file for MicroStation 2004 may look like this:


#
# This sets the install directory of CADconform Client locally.
#
CADCONFORM_CLIENT_DIR = $(APPDATA)/Altiva Software/CADconform Client/

#
# This sets the install directory of CADconform Server on the network. 
#
CADCONFORM_SERVER_DIR = //PIERS-DELL-D830/CADconform/

#
# This sets the current version of CADconform that we are on. This version is used to define the directory name used to locate the executable files.
#
_CADCONFORM_SERVER_VERSION = 80010

#
# This sets the name of the current CAD platform, and is used for locating required files.
#
%if defined (_VERSION_8_11)
	CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM = $(_ENGINENAME) V8i
%elif defined (_VERSION89)
	CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM = $(_ENGINENAME) XM
%elif defined (_VERSION80)
	CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM = $(_ENGINENAME) 2004
%else
%error "ERROR: Unsupported $(_ENGINENAME) platform for CADconform. Please delete (or rename the extension of) this config file to resume $(_ENGINENAME) without CADconform."
%endif

#
# This points to the directory containing the executable files on the server
#
CADCONFORM_SERVER_BIN_PATH = $(CADCONFORM_SERVER_DIR)bin/$(CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM)/$(_CADCONFORM_SERVER_VERSION)/

#
# This sets the location of the global administration config file.
#
_CADCONFORM_CONFIG_FILE = $(CADCONFORM_SERVER_DIR)Config/$(CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM).cfg

#
# This sets the location of the 'CADconform' menu file.
#
CADCONFORM_MENU_FILE = $(CADCONFORM_SERVER_DIR)Menus/$(CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM).menu

#
# This includes any local customisations of the settings in this file performed by the current Windows user.
#
%if exists ($(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_DIR)Config/$(CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM).cfg)
%    include $(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_DIR)Config/$(CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM).cfg
%endif

#
# This includes the config file to check if CADconform should automatically load. If it doesn't exist yet then automatically load CADconform.
#
CADCONFORM_STARTUP_FILE = $(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_DIR)Config/$(CADCONFORM_CURRENT_PLATFORM) Startup.cfg

%if !exists ($(CADCONFORM_STARTUP_FILE))
	_USTN_FIRSTDGNFILE > CADCONFORM
%endif

#
# These lines tell MicroStation where to find executable program files as well as adding CADCONFORM
# to the list of available MDL applications.

#
# The files are first looked for locally, and then pathed back to the server if not found.
#
%if defined (CADCONFORM_CLIENT_BIN_PATH) && exists ($(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_BIN_PATH)CADconform.ma) && exists ($(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_BIN_PATH)AltivaLib.dll)

	MS_MDLAPPS > $(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_BIN_PATH)
	MS_LIBRARY_PATH > $(CADCONFORM_CLIENT_BIN_PATH)

%else

	MS_MDLAPPS > $(CADCONFORM_SERVER_BIN_PATH)
	MS_LIBRARY_PATH > $(CADCONFORM_SERVER_BIN_PATH)

%endif

The network settings files are only used when doing a network client install. They contain the same settings as set in the file named "CADconform.cfg" which is automatically created in the "MicroStation\config\appl" directory when using the installer to do a client install.

Including the CADconform configuration file

A "Client" type install will usually install the configuration file into the "\config\appl" directory of the CAD platform, to ensure it gets run automatically at startup. However, if the CAD platform is unknown or the client needs to be installed either manually or distributed via a networked configuration file, then the appropriate file will need to be manually included instead. This can be done by either copying the file into the correct location, or including the config file directly from a network-based workspace configuration file.

To include the appropriate configuration file, simply add these lines to the end of the appropriate configuration file.

%if exists (Networked_Workspace_Settings_for_MicroStation_V8i.cfg)

%   include Networked_Workspace_Settings_for_MicroStation_V8i.cfg

%endif

Alternatively, you can copy/paste the actual contents of the network settings file to your own configuration file. Note that the contents of this file do not specify any particular MicroStation platform, they are separate for each platform only for convenience sake so that each platform can have its own settings.