An InRoads user recently had these questions for Mark: 

Hey Mark,

I know I mentioned it a little bit at lunch the other day, but I'm not sure if you've heard about our current upgrade of ProjectWise and MicroStation here. The IT group was given the task of upgrading the system and we are completely out of the loop and are only to "test" the finished product.

My questions to you are regarding InRoads, of course. While they have chosen to upgrade PW to SS4 and MS to SS3, they elected to leave InRoads as is (SS2). This was decided mostly because they didn't want to "deal with the headaches" of upgrading InRoads (if there are any). The decision was not based on functionality.

Questions:

1. Do you see any issues with this setup when it comes to InRoads?
2. Will we lose any functionality?
3. Is it worthwhile to look into upgrading InRoads and possibly having to retrain staff?

I brought this issue up as a possible red flag and management has asked me to do some research on whether the setup with InRoads SS2 will function as we need it to after the upgrade. I need a decision based on functionality, not headache, if you know what I mean. Any thoughts on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I can't find any documentation on what the InRoads version 08.11.07.615 fixes or updates. Do you have that info handy? I've been all over the internet looking for something that identifies what fixes and changes are made in a particular version! Is this somewhere online that I can access or is it Top Secret info for Gurus only? 

I'm getting a lot of push back from IT because they don't want to move forward with the 615 patch. Instead, they are asking our ProjectWise support person if we need the patch.

Let me know.

Thanks,

Jason

Here's a direct link: ftp://ftp.bentley.com/pub/help/bentley_inroads/

You can also get to the Bentley FTP site following this route... (Unless you have some company or agency website browsing restrictions.)

Go to...www.bentley.com

And then to Support & Services > Support ...

And then click on FTP.BENTLEY.COM

What's New or Changed in Bentley InRoads Group V8i

V08.11.07.615 (SS2)

NEW

General

• Added integration of the ALG file with ProjectWise for both single and multiuser access.
• Updated the Trimble Link Engine installation.
• Added report style sheet for intersecting alignment stations.

FIXES

Evaluation

• Cross Section Title Block Information placed incorrectly when the file has a global shift.
• Custom Cross Sections crash in PowerInRoads.
• Incorrect elevations being reported for specific dataset in Site Visibility > Roadway Visibility.
• Sight lines intersecting the DTM from the bottom are not being drawn as unacceptable in Site Visibility > Roadway Visibility.

General

• Element Information returns different values for perimeter and area values for shapes once InRoads has been loaded and InRoads' File and Open has been selected.
• The path in Project Defaults, $(_USTN_PROJECTDATA), is parsed incorrectly.
• Target symbol for vertical change in plan is always placed on the active level rather than on the level as defined. This happens with target symbol only.

Geometry

• Incorrect Vertical Regression Points due to points that don't project onto the horizontal alignment.
• Error Writing file when COGO Audit Trail Lock is ON.
• Geometry project files (*.alg) that are saved down to the 8.2/8.3/8.4/8.5 Compatible version cannot be opened in InRoads 8.5.
• When saving project file (*.rwk) through ProjectWise, the path for the geometry file (*.alg) is to the local ProjectWise working directory rather than the ProjectWise path with a GUID that was selected.
• Multiple alignments disappear when multiple users access ALG.
• Opening geometry doesn't honor read-only settings from Project Options.
• Two users can take Read-Write of a single alignment in an alg file.
• Profile Annotation issue - the location of the first station is wrong.

Modeler

• In Roadway Designer, crash detected with View Components toggled on.
• The Vector/Offset constraint isn't held for points In End Condition Exceptions.

Survey

• Survey Data to Geometry: renames points and creates new ones unexpectedly. 

V08.11.07.566 (SS2)

NEW

General

• Added support for AutoCAD 2012.
• Updated the example XML style sheets for Quantity Manager.

Evaluation

• In Profile Annotation added an option to place the horizontal and the vertical scale above table title box.
• Included functionality in Profile Annotation for custom prefixes (or Name option) so that each event can be defined independently for Horizontal Event Point Name.

Geometry

• Enhanced to allow users the ability to place curve set annotation into a cell / block.  In addition it will orient the annotation to the left or right of the alignment.
• For Stationing, added an Elevation option to Vertical Station leaf.  This allows the user to include the elevation for PVC, PVT, Sag and Crest stations.
• Enabled Vertical Elevation in Drafting such that Place Note can extract the elevation from the selected alignment's active vertical alignment.
• In View Stationing > Radius+A, added capability to annotate lengths of elements.

Modeler

• In Roadway Designer, added the ability to display any character set displayed by MicroStation in InRoads templates.

Survey

• Add support for Delete Point in the Trimble DC parser.
• Added the ability to ignore 69CC & 69FD Code in Trimble Import.

Tools

• In Add-Ins changed Site Modeler to an Add-In that does not get persisted automatically to the registry.  There is a variable to turn persistency on in Variable Manager.
• In Reports added style sheets for an interpolated / combined horizontal / vertical slew report.

FIXES

Drafting

• In Slope Direction Pattern change scale pattern so the tadpoles do not overlap the features.

Drainage

• After running Network Design  and generating design log, when editing and reviewing,  the Froude should change, but doesn't.

File

• In the Translator, Leica DBX 1200 added the option to specify units to be written to the DBX files.

Evaluation

• When annotating Cross Sections, Collision Free Text Leaders are crossing and overlapping.
• On Cross Sections some components are not plotting on the cross sections as expected.
• In Create Profile, Surface in Profile Shifts - this fails when the DTM falls completely inside a horizontal curve and the starting station is not zero.
• In Profile - Processing Pipes message is given, and then it hangs when projecting drainage into an existing profile.

Modeler

• Points placed correctly in Roadway Designer are not in correct location when surface is generated due to the order of processing. The style constraint should always calculate from original template point location before any external controls/solutions are applied to template.
• Style constraint range is applied from original location of point, instead of final position of point.
• Subsurface component points not honoring vertical constraint.
• Correct regression where Cut and Fill Features have gaps in transitions.
• Corridor Point Control not updating with changes to the Roadway Designer.
• Crash when opening specific IRD file.
• When creating surface, found issue where Target Aliasing is failing.
• When creating surface, some features are being created in an area where "Clip All" should have removed them.
• Performance degradation in situation where views are getting drawn twice each time a previous/next button is pressed.
• Milling components are doubled when Parametric Constraints are applied.
• Slow performance in display of transition graphics. To address add variable to turn off transition graphics.
• When target aliases are created the corridor will not see the other corridors without going to each one and selecting Process All.
• When external control points are enabled, duplicate station drops are being created inside Roadway Designer.
• When switching to a different corridor Roadway Designer is incorrectly setting the dirty bit on a corridor when nothing was modified.
• Roadway Designer crashes in the certain IRD files if the right click option of 'Display' is selected.
• Roadway Designer fails to rebuild temporary DTM for Corridor Point Controls.

Survey

• Leica DBX 1200 Translator need option to specify units to be written to the DBX files.
• When importing TDS RAW (*.raw) the import is incorrectly converting DMS angular units.

Tools

• Need a report for Triangle Volume By Station Report, similar to the "End Area Volume Report" without the areas.
• In XML Geometry Report, the SettingOutTableDefelection.xsl style sheet, needs correction for navigation to the data.

ProjectWise Integration

• The startup time for MicroStation in PW using Managed Workspaces is very slow due to the loading of Civil Platform.

V08.11.07.536 (SS2)

NEW

General

• Added functionality to Data Acquisition for exporting an InRoads DTM with the Feature Names and Styles.
• Changed Site Modeler to an application Add-in.
• Modified startup icons for all InRoads products. (For information on configuring program association in ProjectWise to program icons, see the document PW association updates.pdf). This change allows MicroStation to load up without the overhead of a Bentley Civil application loading.
• Bentley Map version has been updated to Bentley Map (SELECTseries 2).

Geometry

• View Stationing > Annotate POB/POE [Radius + A] will annotate as Radius = infinite if it is a tangent.

Modeler

• Added a variable to InRoads' Variable Manager to turn off the displaying of features in Roadway Designer plan view.
• Roadway Designer > Create Template > Multiple merge points are selectable when placing a component.
• Improved *.IRD load times

Tools

• XML Reports > Added an interpolated / combined horizontal / vertical slew report.
• View XML Reports > Evaluation > Roadway Designer Component Quantities Summary report was added.

FIXES

File

• Export > Micro Drainage - When attempting to Export Micro Drainage, the *.SWS file appears to have no data in it.
• Import > LAS - Error importing LAS file due to the version of the LAS file.
• LandXML Export > When a LandXML file is exported with Features, Triangles, Un-triangulated Features and Triangle points there are issues bringing the data back into InRoads and creating a surface. 

Surface

• Draw Slope Direction Patterns > hangs when trying to annotate using specific XIN file.
• Utilities > Divide Surface - "Dividing line end points must fall outside the surface boundary" error is being given even when the line does fall outside the boundary of the surface in some datasets.

Geometry

• Geometry > Horizontal Curve Set > Events > Alignment Points to Cogo reassigns names to the alignment points. When the alignment has point names already assigned, this command does not recognize the point names and the cogo points get assigned new names from the seed.
• Geometry > Horizontal Curve Set > Table Editor > ReDesign All is causing error message and removing Clothoid definition from transition elements.
• Geometry > Vertical Table Editor > Add before and Add After does not obey the Undo operation.
• Geometry > Wrong Geometry Information due to a station gap.

Evaluation

• Cross Sections > Alignment with Station Equation yields incorrect Cross Section Stations, the program anticipates the station equation and places small section at the difference in the equation instead of the station of the actual equation. 
• Profile > Network > Crossing Utilities - Sanitary and Sewer Utilities that cross a profile directly under a structure (manhole or inlet) do not appear in the profile.  If the Utility crosses a pipe, the crossing Utility does show in the profile. 

Modeler

• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - An End Condition Exception causes a crash during Surface Creation after doing a Process All.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - Crash when creating surface after adding point control.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - Crash when running with External Control Points and Densify with Horizontal/Vertical Chord Height Tolerance on.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - Getting "Triangulation halted" on DTM created by Roadway Designer.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - Hang creating surface with specific datasets when adding Transverse Features and Exterior Boundary.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - Locks Up with specific dataset.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - The surface set in Active Surface is not being used when the Create Surface command is ran.
• Roadway Designer > Create Surface - When creating an alternate surface in modeler, points are not created between transitions.  This only happens when the template is edited to include an alternate surface in the ird. 
• Roadway Designer > End Condition Override - the results for the EC Exception are not displayed when edited in some cases.
• Roadway Designer > Roadway designer will lock up when you put an end condition exception or point control in and immediately try to create a surface model.  It will work if you Process All prior to creating the surface.
• Roadway Designer > Shoulder Rollover Lock not honored in reverse curves.
• Roadway Designer > Slow performance after Process All for very large datasets, this is due to displaying of features in Roadway Designer plan view. A variable has been added to InRoads Variable Manager to turn off the display of these features.
• Roadway Designer > Surface Creation > Crash when trying to build surface with small tolerances and close template drops.

Survey

• Trimble File Does Not Import Correctly if the Tools > Survey > Options > Units is to DDD.MM.SS. The horizontal and vertical observation angles are not converted correctly.

Storm and Sanitary

• Utilities don't project to profile to show crossings.

Tools

• XML Report > When running station offset report from an alignment to features the Station Offset Report is blank.
• XML Reports > Geometry - SettingOutTableDefelection is wrong. The data in the .xml is correct, but the style sheet is wrong.
• XML Reports > Station Base report does not work, only the geometry data is written to the XML.
• XML Reports > Station Offset report does not provide correct stations and offsets when an offset is applied. 

Hopefully this and our upcoming phone conversation will give you the answers that you need to help others make a more informed decision about the InRoads upgrade strategy.

I'll call you soon...

Civilly yours,

- zen