MicroStation .nwc Exporter

JetStream Roamer comes with MDL plugins for MicroStation 95, SE, /J and v8 that enable you to export .nwc files directly from the CAD application in which it was created. As long as MicroStation is already installed on the computer when JetStream is installed, the MDL plugin is installed with JetStream on a Custom Install or Full Install and ready for use.

You can also publish .nwd files directly from MicroStation if you have the Publisher plugin. For more details, refer to

There are two steps to exporting .nwc files from MicroStation - first you have to load the MDL plugin into MicroStation and then you have to export the file.

Loading the NavisWorks MDL Plugin

Loading the NWExport MDL plugin manually

1. Go to the Utilities, Key-in dialog box to load the application manually.

2. Type "mdl load nwexport5 " (without the quotes) and press return.

If you regularly export .nwc files from MicroStation, then you will not want to load the NWExport plugin manually each time, so do the following:

Loading the NWExport MDL plugin automatically

1. Go to Workspace, Configuration

2. Choose Design Applications under Category

3. Choose NWEXPORT5 under Available Applications

4. Click Add and confirm that you want NWExport added to your default configuration.

5. MicroStation will then automatically load NWExport in future sessions.

6. Click OK

Once NWExport plugin is loaded, you can export to .nwc using the nwcout command from the key-in command line.

Exporting .nwc files from MicroStation

1. Type nwcout at the key-in prompt.

   The MicroStation export dialog is displayed.

   

2. Select the location and filename you want to export to. The exporter will make a guess at a suitable filename for you.

3. Select the view number you wish to the model to be exported from.

4. Click on the Options button if you want to change the export configuration. See for more information on these options.

5. Click OK to export the file or Cancel to return to MicroStation without exporting it.

See for what entities are and are not supported by the MicroStation exporter.

JetStream colors are derived from either MicroStation cell colors or MicroStation materials, depending on the export options set during nwcout . The appearance of objects in Publisher will match the appearance of a MicroStation shaded render.

The view number chosen for export determines the initial view in JetStream, whether level symbology is used and which levels are hidden.

Quickly exporting files

If you want to export the current design file quickly, you can use the batchnwcout key-in. This will not display the export dialog box, and it will not prompt you to overwrite any existing files. It simply replaces the design file extension (usually .dgn) with .nwc when exporting.

Exporting from the command line

The MicroStation exporter can also be run from the command line. This is useful when you want to export lots of files using an automated script.

It uses the msbatch.bat batch file that comes with MicroStation. To export a file from the command line, you must first ensure that the MicroStation program directory is in your PATH environment variable.

The format of the command line exporter is:

msbatch nwexport5 [-f] FILE [OUTPUT]

FILE is the name of the DGN file you want to export. This is the only required option. If you want, you can specify the name of the output file with the OUTPUT argument.

The command line exporter will only convert a file if it has changed since the last time you exported it. This is useful for speeding up exporting of a large number of files. If you want to force the exporter to re-export a file, use the -f option.

If the exporter encounters any problems, it will produce an error log in a file called nwdout.err

MicroStation .nwc Exporter Options

Available from the NWExport dialog box, this enables you to configure various elements of the exported file to your choosing.

See for details on what each of the options does.

Once you have set the options, future exports of .nwc and publishes of .nwd files will use these settings.