Cats

When CATS is trying to locate reference files and going through the specified paths (from the options dialog box under the input tab), how many times will it try to locate the file?

• CATS will search all paths listed in the Reference File Path field. The current limitation is 40 paths separated by semi-colon ";". You can select the Trace Reference Paths option in the Parameters Tab to get a list of all of the options tried trying to resolve a reference file path. The output goes in the cats5.log file.

  You can also create a file of logical name definitions to use when you have reference files attach with logical names. The format of the file is:

  name=path;path; ...

  Include one line for each logical name. An example follows -

  ARCH=c:\project\ar\

  MECH=d:\me\;c:\project\me\;f:\bob\me\123\

  Add the name and path for this file as the first line the config.log file located in the cats5 directory.
  

How do I select the levels to be translated from DGN to DWG?

• In the Options dialog, Input tab select the View number to be used for translation. The selection All Levels will translate all levels whether displayed or not. Selecting a view number 1 through 8 will translate only the levels displayed in that view. The view number also selects the levels for reference files in the same way.
  

I'm trying to translate ACAD R13 DWGs to MicroStation DGN files but when I translate my DWG file it only puts the elements on 3 different layers (1,2 & 63) even though I designate each individual layer to go on a specific level, example shown below:

    IF LAYER=SECTIONS

LEVEL=6,

COLOR=0,

FONT=3,

WEIGHT=3,

LINETYPE=0,

    ENDIF
Can you help me? 

• You left off the THEN keyword from a lot of your commands. You can check for errors by setting the Expanded Message File option in the Miscellaneous Options Menu. Then check the cats log file for the error message. Check the commands just before the error message to find the error.
  

I'm trying to translate AutoCAD R14 files to R13 and CATS 5 locks up when I am trying to translate. What is the problem?

• CATS does not support translation between versions of AutoCAD. It only supports translations between AutoCAD and MicroStation.
  

When I use the command:
    "If Filename=* Then FileToRef Endif"
It works great while doing DWG TO DGN conversion. Yet the command:
    "If Filename=* Then FileToXref Endif"
does not seem to convert reference files in MicroStation to Xrefs in AutoCAD. What am I doing wrong?

• The command to use for creating xrefs when translating from DGN > DWG is: "If FileType=REF Then FileToXref Endif"
  When you use filename=*, CATS tries to convert the main file to an xref also and you end up with a mess.
  

I am having some problems translating drawing on a Novell 4.1 Network. CATS resides on the local machine and the drawings are stored on a network drive. When translated they are written back to the network drive. Can you help?

• CATS will work over any network, including Novell 4.1. Here is a procedure to try to isolate the problem.
  1. Check all directory paths for extra spaces or periods. CATS has a problem with these directories, e.g., f:\my data\abc.dgn or f:\project.jim\abc.dgn. CATS 5.2 and above supports long filenames with spaces and periods.
  2. Copy a file to the local drive and translate to eliminate a problem file.
  3. Set the output directory to a local drive to eliminate network write, file create, or file delete privileges.
  

I have a problem with polyline widths. I've tried using the width rule with a test dwg file that has it's units set to decimal and polyline widths set to an integer value - that seems to work ok - however, I now have a dwg file that has it's units set to 'architectural' with an accuracy of 1/16". There are some polylines in the file that have their widths set to 1/16" and I've tried to match these using a series of different decimal values (0.0625, 0.005208333...) and even putting 1/16" directly in the control file rule but I never get it to work. Is there a way to match these values correctly in this situation?

• Use a range for checking, e.g.,
      If Width=(0.0622-0.0627) Then .... Endif
  

I'm trying out the CustomLinetype rule for the first time and I'm getting really screwed up line types in the output file. I'm going from dgn to dwg. Here are the commands I am using. Can you take a look?

If CustomLinetype=CENTER Then Linetype=CENTER Endif

If CustomLinetype=PHANTOM Then Linetype=PHANTOM Endif

If CustomLinetype=DASHED Then Linetype=DASHED Endif

• You have to use the exact custom linestyle name the from MicroStation file. In your case, use these statements -
      If CustomLinetype='( Center )' Then Linetype=CENTER Endif
      If CustomLinetype='( Phantom )' Then Linetype=PHANTOM Endif
      If CustomLinetype='( Dashed )' Then Linetype=DASHED Endif
  The quotes ' are required because the linetype name has parenthesis () and/or blanks.
  

The problem is the designated layers in the acad dwgs weren't translating to the correct levels in microstation. This is going from acad to microstation. My commands look like this:

    IF LAYER=H*LBL THEN

LEVEL=34,

COLOR=0,

FONT=3,

WEIGHT=0,

LINETYPE=0,

    ENDIF
Can you help?

• Your commands will not work correctly as written. The * will only match everything following, not in between. So this command will match all layers starting with H. You need to use the ? to match inside characters in a string. You have to the exact number of ?s for the number of characters to match. To handle a variable number of internal character matches, you can use a command like -
      IF LAYER=(H?LBL, H??LBL, H???LBL, H????LBL) THEN
          LEVEL=34,
          COLOR=0,
          FONT=3,
          WEIGHT=0,
          LINETYPE=0
      ENDIF
  

I have an AutoCAD file, with a border is made of of several widths including:

No width (0)

Width of .01"

Width of .02"

I assembled a .con file taking this into account, but no weights in the border were translated. My .con file contains the following:

    If Width = 0.0000 Then Weight = 0 Endif

    If Width = 0.0100 Then Weight = 1 Endif

    If Width = 0.0200 Then Weight = 2 Endif

    If Width = 0.0300 Then Weight = 3 Endif

    If Width = 0.0400 Then Weight = 4 Endif

I thought this would change the AutoCAD widths to the named MicroStation weight, but it doesn't.

• The actual widths in your AutoCAD file are .0125 and .0175. That is why your control file commands did not work. The units command in AutoCAD was set to show only 2 decimal places. So the width shown was rounded to the nearest value at 2 decimal places. When you change the number of decimal places with the units command, you will see the true value. If you change your control file to use these values you will get your weights. Your control file commands could also use a range to catch these cases, e.g.
  
      If Width=(.005-.0149) Then Weight=1 Endif
      If Width=(.015-.0249) Then Weight=2 Endif

I have a file that when translated using your CATS translator, produces a file named aplan.s01 and a reference file named aplan.dgn. Can just a single design file be created with the border and inside the border information on it instead of a design file and a sheet file?

• The .s01 file is created for the paperspace entities. The modelspace entities go into the .dgn file. Each modelspace viewport in the paperspace creates a reference file attachment for the modelspace .dgn file and other reference file attachments for the other xrefs attached in modelspace. This is the only way to simulate the AutoCAD paperspace and modelspace features. If you want the paperspace and modelspace in a single file, you either have to fix it in AutoCAD before translating or merge the resulting files in MicroStation after translating.

DGNLink

I got some files from my client with a .sht extension. Can I translate these files?

• SHT files are the same format as DGN files. They are sheet  files, similar to Dwg papersapce. MicroStation does not require the file extension to be .dgn, it can be anything.

My autocad file has several fonts in it, including some "Goudos" style text in the title block. Using dgnlink, all fonts are mapped to 0.

• You are using the font name instead of the textstyle name in your ini file. DGNLink uses the textstyle name for matches. The textstyles names in your file are HEL3, HL12, S2, S3, etc. You can use the Create button in the Setting section of the Dwg to Dgn Option Dialog to examine the file and list the textstyles found in your file. DGNLink also supports wildcards for the textstyle names, so you could setup an assignment for S* to get all of the textstyles starting with the character S.
  

 I just upgraded to DGNLink 5 Now when I open DWGs translated from DGN, I get an error that the file was created by an incompatible version. What's wrong?

• You are probably using R13. DGNLink 5 creates R14 files by default. You can change the output file type in the Dwg Output Tab in the Dgn Options Dialog.
  

When I convert dwgs, I, on average, convert 25 dwgs. Is there a easy way to translate a group of drawings all at once?

• DGNLink 5 supports drag and drop for batch translations. Put a DGNLink 5 shortcut on your desktop and drag a group of files from explorer and drop them on the icon and DGNLink 5 will translate the whole batch. You can also select a group of files in the Open dialog. Just use the control or shift keys to pick several files.
  

When translating over, I believe our paperspace drawing is converted to a "S01" file? Should we just work in modelspace. Does DGN files have paperspace/modelspace? Can you provide a brief description on how the scale system works in Microstation?

• MicroStation has an equivalent of paperspace called a sheet file, normally used with the .s01 extension. This a separate file and the other files are referenced to it. DGNLink converts paperspace to .s01 and modelspace to the .dgn and creates references for each paperspace viewport to match the view from AutoCAD paperspace. A lot of MicroStation users do not use sheet files, instead they do everything in the .dgn file, similar to just using modelspace in AutoCAD. Check with your client to see how they like to get their files.
  

In dwg to dgn files, xref are converted to reference attachments. Does this mean that the dgn file will look for other dgn files? And are the reference attachments hard drive location recorded, so that the person receiving the dgn drawing will open up the drawings, and microstation will look for the reference attachments at a specific location on the hard drive?

• DGNLink creates reference and Xref attachments with no path, so that MicroStation or AutoCAD will automatically find them if they are in the same directory as the main file. Both MicroStation and AutoCAD have methods to specify search paths for references or Xrefs if they are not the same directory as the main files.