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Geographics: Installing a local Project

TRANSLATION NOTE: Please refer to the end of the post for knowing more about some Centro American Dishes and drinks.

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The case occurred in a project where the central database was Oracle, but for doing cadastral maintenance at municipalities level or public exhibitions features base was required in order to edit maps while offline.

How it was done

Only for those who love to know how was the smoke, I explain it here, because within a couple of years, this project will migrate to Bentley Map, and none of this will be useful, except for about 8 guys who know how to move (a Spanish idiom: “iguanear”, to move in the convenient way while the situation is passing) at the rhythm of public needs and private ingenuity.

It was created an Access file, from the Oracle project, which had 10 basic tables of a Geographics project, including its contents and saving it with the name generica.mdb. The tables are:

category
feature
maps
mscatalog
ugcategory
ugcommand
ugfeature
ugjoin_cat
ugmap
ugtable_cat

Then it was edited the user configuration file of Geographics called msgeo.ucf having the basics to connect to that database. This involved adding the following lines between the connection parameters:

MS_GEODBTYPE    = ODBC
MS_GEOPROJDIR   = C:/
MS_GEOPROJNAME  = proyecto_local
MS_GEODBCONNECT = 1
MS_GEOINITCMD   = PROJECT OPEN
MS_GEODBLOGIN   = proyecto_local

In principle, the expectation was that users who don’t know very well the guts of a project will avoid headaches when connecting. After explaining it several times on the blackboard, by phone, mail, messenger, I have no longer method than to write it here as I see this is the last place where you are calling for it.

If you want it step by step, without spending more than 850 words, it will leave no less than 15 steps … and as they say when sending the reports … here it goes!

Stage 1: Requirements

It’s necessary for the user to have at least these 5 inputs to proceed with the installation in no less than 15 steps:

  • MicroStation V8.5 Installer
  • The MicroStation Geographics V8.5 Installer
  • A seed file with the particular project configuration called seed2d.dgn
  • A user configuration file named msgeo.ucf
  • The database called Generica.mdb

Stage 2: Installing the programs

1. Install MicroStation

2. Install Geographics (it must be in this order)

3. Copy and replace the seed file in this address file:

C:Program Files Bentley Workspace System seed seed2d.dgn

4. Copy the user file at this address:

C:Program Files Bentley Workspace Users msgeo.ucf

5. Copy the generic database to this address:

C:Generica.mdb

We must be careful that if Windows is in English, the path must be C: Program Files Bentley … And it is preferably to install the program on drive C, even if you have more than one hard disk.

Stage 3: Creating the ODBC connection

6. As we’ve established that the connection will be via ODBC, we’ll configure it in a long step 6 (I’m using Windows XP)

-Start> Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Data Sources (ODBC)

-At the panel that unfolds, select the “User DSN” tab and then select “add” > Microsoft Driver mdb > end

-Select as data source name, proyecto_local and select the “create” button

-Then specify where to create the database, choose directly in C and call it proyecto_local.mdb, finally leave out the panel, saying Ok twice.

To verify that it has been done as we like, I mean the selected created origin and the “configure” button should look like this:

clip_image002

Stage 4: Creating the project in Geographics

clip_image0037. Enter Geographics

8. From the top menu select

Project > wizard > next > create project

9. Configure the features as seen in the chart. There’s no need to change the path of the seed file.

Then select:

create > next > verify, register mapid > cancel

This has created a directory where all the folders that uses the Geographics project and the necessary tables in the database called proyecto_local.mdb “live in”. Obviously, there aren’t features or categories. To verify this task:

10 Close Geographics

11 Open Geographics; while this task is executed, it must automatically be opened the project. (If it does not, there is something wrong in step 9 or we haven’t copied the ucf file as says in step 4)

12. If everything is in order:

Utilities > Feature manager

The project should be lifted but with no features or categories more than the dummy that comes from default.

13. Close Geographics

Stage 5: Replacing the database

Now what we must deal is to deceive Microstation, removing the blank database, so:

14. Delete the C:proyecto_local.mdb database

15. Rename the C:Generica.mdb database so that it will be like this form: C:proyecto_local.mdb

16. Go to Geographics

The base should run automatically, if it doesn’t, it has not been well assigned the file name in step 15

17. If everything works well, while going to Utilities > Feature manager it should be lifted the categories and attributes of the database.

clip_image004

And a bit more (Spanish Idiom: “chascada” a little gift additional to all which has been given)

Hey my partner! Next time you should have me in your project even like a border totoposte (*). And if you want to see my faith and mania for the totopostes, here you can download:

The database Generica.mdb

The seed file seed2d.dgn

The file msgeo.ucf.

TRANSLATION NOTE:

Totoposte: a little baked ball of corn, typical in the border of Guatemala and Honduras, where the technicians were working when this post was written

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