The SET RANGE Key-in Command

By Steve Palmer, Axiom
February 26, 2004

The SET RANGE key-in command is not documented, but is supported in all versions of MicroStation. This command displays element ranges on the screen. The range of an element is given by the lower-left and upper-right coordinates of the smallest box that will contain the element. You can think of the range of an element as a box - parallel to the x and y-axis of the design plane - that precisely encompasses the element.

Below is an example of how elements look after keying the SET RANGE command and updating the desired view:

The SET RANGE command displays the range data that's stored in the element (V7 or V8). This key-in command can be used to diagnose why you can't snap to or select an element or why an element is excluded from fence operations.

Below is an example where the range for a shared cell is wrong (taken from an actual Axiom customer file):

The bold red rectangle identifies the incorrect range rectangle for the "S" shaped element. This range error throws off the range for the whole shared cell.

The SET RANGE command graphically illustrates that the stored range is incorrect, as illustrated above. As a strange side effect of this range error, other elements near this shared cell were un-selectable. To remedy this, you could redraw the shared cell definition — or you can automatically handle this and any other corruption in the MicroStation file using FileFixer.

The SET RANGE command is also useful when examining elements with Axiom's Problem Element Viewer - the utility that lets you graphically view the problem elements found by FileFixer or EdG.

 

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