Original Article Date: June 2002

Updated:  July 2011

MicroStaton V8:  The graphics below shows a few elements in the active file and a few in the reference file - but which is which?

 

To simplify the volume of on-screen colours, turn on Level Overrides from the View Attributes dialog.

 

From the reference dialog, select Settings > Adjust Colors. By playing with the Value, Saturation, and Hue sliders, you can make any colour selection you'd like.  In the sample below, you can easily see that the light purple elements are in the reference.   

 

 

 

By changing the Update Sequence, you can control which elements are "on top" which may help with your analysis.   In the sample below, the light purple elements are in the attached reference which is drawn on-screen first.  The active file, which is displayed in black, is then drawn on top. 

 

 

And here's a variation where I've bumped the override weight for the reference levels.  In this case, those elements that display in a heavy purple symbology are in the reference, while those that are thin and black are in the active file.   I find this display to be the most desirable since it's very clear what element is in what file.

 As you can see, with a bit of experimentation, the possiblities are endless.

 For those of you in the V7 world, you can mimick this by using Level Symbolgy as described below:

In the graphics in the slide below shows a few elements in the active file and a few in the reference file....but which is which? That's pretty hard to tell just by looking at the screen and that's why we'll set up the Level Symbology to compare the content of the files.

Go Settins > Level Symbology and set all levels to green (or colour of your choice).  Then turn on the Level Symbology switch from the View Attributes dialog.

From the Reference Files dialog, select Settings > Level Symbology and adjust the colours for all levels of the attached reference file to be red (or colour of your choice).

When you refresh your screen, MicroStation will draw the elements of the active file first in green followed by the reference file elements in red. Since the reference file elements update last, only those elements that do not live in the reference file will remain green on your screen as shown below.

AskInga Article #88