MicroStation Basics for Building Designers - Chapter 7: Working with Cells

Cells are symbols that allow you to re-use existing geometry that you regularly use in your designs without the need to redraw the geometry each time it is required. A cell may either be 2D or 3D and can vary from simple to quite complex. Cells are saved in a cell library that may later be recalled for repeated use in any design file.

https://youtu.be/CxFVrnMzbqQ

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Part 1 Place Cells, Doors and Windows Placing symbols, or cells, is performed using the Place Active Cell tool. There are a variety of settings to control size, rotation, and AccuDraw can also be useful in aligning cells correctly. In this video, you will start placing door and window cells along the exterior.

https://youtu.be/fEObsov7ZTI

Symbols provide the ability to place objects in your designs that may be used to identify specific features without the need to recreate these graphics each time they are used. This increases quality and speeds drawing production while allowing for consistency within and across projects. In MicroStation, symbols are known as cells and are stored in cell libraries.

https://youtu.be/jgeZlhfZ-EM

Part 2 Creating Furniture Symbols In this video, you will create cells of furniture and equipment symbols that will be placed on the floor plan.

Part 3 Placing Cells Furnishing the Floor Plan In the previous video, furniture cells were formerly created and placed into a cell library. Those cells will now be used to further embellish the floor plan.

https://youtu.be/S_46M2WL9EM

After being placed onto the floor plan, there was design flaw in the hostess station that will need to be address. Also, it was discover that the exterior door cells need to have some of the symbology changed to match standards.

https://youtu.be/B3zvosLS4HA

Part 4 Updating Existing Cells Rather than delete and recreate the cells, the cells may be edited and the existing instances of the cells in the floor plan globally updated.

Part 5 Document a Cell Library Documenting the contents of a cell library is often a necessary task but can be a tedious process that is prone to errors and update issues. If new cells are added or the graphics of a cell are updated, the documentation needs to be updated as well. In this video we will “document” a cell library using Place Cell Index.

https://youtu.be/GJ-4z-CEg7E

Challenge Exercises are designed to further solidify those same workflows and procedures that were covered during the lessons. However, these Challenge Exercises are not meant to be a step-by-step, directed, "click here" exercise. Rather, they begin with a small amount of guidance and a general understanding of the outcome.

https://youtu.be/3_OxBwc-Q5k

Challenge Exercise for Working with Cells This allows you to take charge of your own learning. We guide less, you explore more. It lets you test yourself, to see what you have learned and mastered.

Parent topic: Building Designers