Windows Server 2008 may be installed and evaluated for a period of 60 days. This evaluation period can be extended or re-armed a further three times giving a total evaluation period of 240 days!
To begin …
Cisco systems are the leading supplier of networking equipment and network management for the internet. This category contains articles relating to ICND1 & ICND2 and CCNA qualifications and includes common IOS commands.
This category contains articles relating to Microstation V8i. Bentley MicroStation V8i helps engineers, architects, GIS professionals, constructors, and owner-operators by promoting collaborative, streamlined workflows among multiple disciplines and across project teams.
The articles in this category cover Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange, and Windows 7 operating system platforms and products. The articles cover some of the topics on the MCSE, MCSA, MCITP and MCTS qualifications and discuss some of the new features in Windows Server 2008.
Autodesk are one of the market leaders for design software. This category contains articles relating to AutoCAD & Revit design software. AutoCAD is one of the world’s leading 2D and 3D CAD tools and is used extensively throughout a range of industries.
VMware is the leading business virtualization infrastructure provider, offering the most trusted and reliable platform for building private clouds and federating to public clouds. This category includes articles relating to products such as VMWare Workstation, Server, ACE, ThinApp & ESXi.
I recently came across a site called smart blocks http://www.smartblocks.co.uk/ that allows you to place blocks in drawings that automatically mask out the line work behind them when they are placed within a file. AutoCAD has a few more tools available to mask out information (the WIPEOUT command and XCLIP being two of them). Microstation users are stuck with having to use fences and the clip mask tool for references which can be tedious to say the least especially if you are using a lot of cells within the drawing.
In this post I am going to create a cell in Microstation that will mask out background elements. For this I am going to use a tree cell that we commonly use in our drawings. I started by placing the cell in a new drawing and dropping it to geometry.
Now we need to use the create region tool. Set the tool to use an opaque fill type and set the fill colour to BG (Background) also turn on locate interior shapes and keep original so that it retains an outline. As we set the fill colour to be BG this will mask out elements behind the cell when it is placed down.

You might notice that the lines around the edge of the tree appear faint, to fix this select the lines and then go to the Edit menu and select Bring to Front. This brings the lines over the top of the background fill.
Now create the cell by attaching an existing or creating a new cell library, defining a cell origin and selecting the elements and then click the create button.

Now when this cell is placed down in a drawing background elements will be masked out.
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Sometimes older AutoCAD software is unable to open files created in newer versions. If you want to find the version of a DWG file you can right click on it and open it in notepad …
Have you ever spent ages selecting elements within a design and then accidentally cleared your selection? If so there is a Microstation key-in that will activate your previous selection. Open a key-in window and type …
When creating a B-spline curve sometimes the points are still visible after you have finished drawing with the tool as shown below.
The display of these control polygons can be turned on and off by using …
If you have used transparency on elements in your files Microstation will not print the transparency unless Rasterized is checked on in the Print Dialog box.
Microstation v8i comes out of the box with standard rendering setups in this post I am going to go through the process of drawing a simple 3D model and rendering it using Ambient Occlusion.
For a …
Microstation v8i allows you to save different dialog layouts for the Reference manager, Level display and Level Manager to name but a few. In Microstation open the dialog you want to create a layout for …
Microstation v8i now includes a new feature that allows you to modify a reference file without having to open it! Using the reference manager right click on the reference file you want to modify and …
AutoCAD has a handy tool for re-mapping layers. If you are working with other consultants on a project and find the need to remap their layers to your own company standard this can be an …
AutoCAD uses plot styles to control how CAD data is displayed when plotted. There are two types of plot style tables that can be used. The first are colour dependent plot style tables, the second are named …