Yes, TT2 - I got the message. I want to respond in detail, but Thanksgiving is getting in the way.

I'm in the opposite situation - I love MicroStation, but find myself in a place where AutoCAD is the standard. Too often, the best technical solution and the more elegant implementation is not the most successful. I followed Intergraph, Jim Meadlock, and the Bentleys for years. It was an interesting family history, but both lost in the long run.

Intergraph started way before AutoCAD - back when everything had to be based on a mainframe. To save time and effort under the "terminal mode" and graphics refresh speed of the day, they developed these twin-screen behemoths for terminals. That made Intergraph famous and the "cadillac" choice in the early days. The Bentleys eventually developed a PC version of Intergraph's IGDS, and started to compete with AutoCAD, and called it MicroStation. Unfortunately, Jim Meadlock (Intergraph's founder) saw Mstn as an opportunity to sell all sorts of add-on applications (PDS?) with mainframe heritage. The Bentleys correctly saw it as an opportunity to compete directly with AutoCAD, but had little venture capital. Meadlock bought 50% ownership in MicroStation, and a love-hate relationship lasted for a few years. Meanwhile, AutoCAD got copied from the office to everyone's home PC, which created a huge user base that was never overcome. As for MicroStation, the Bentleys resented the partial ownership, and chose to compete with Intergraph instead. They started offering their own application add-ons to compete with everything Intergraph had. By this time, Intergraph ahd fashioned themselves as a mini-IBM, offering total software/hardware solutions. Unfortunately, like IBM, they became an expensive, slow moving corporation that began to lack inovation. The Bentleys finally sued Intergraph to dissolve the ownership, but it was too late to make much impact on AutoCAD's PC establishment.

TT2 - you stand as minority example of a new customer to MicroStation. Ordinarily, the Mstn customer base was made up of organizations rich enough to have invested early in the Intergraph mainframe solution. Then they progressed to Mstn to preserve the investment. Most new CAD users overwhelmingly choose AutoCAD, for the reasons described above.

Some of my old work (or at least some that I commissioned) was even on a cover of MicroStation Manager Magazine: [link=http://MicroStation Mgr - Nov 96]http://archive.msmonline.com/1996/11/index.html[/link] . There was no article, but the inside flap had this to say,

"This month's image is a view of a modern-day dogfight from a pilot's perspective. The model in the foreground is an F22. ModelVision created the model in MicroStation 95, under the supervision of Tom Blanchard, using data supplied by Lockheed Martin, the company responsible for the design and manufacture of the fighter. The model is constructed with B-spline surfaces, which allow the highest level of dimensional and visual accuracy. Apologies are due to the U.K., as the plane being targeted in the Heads-Up-Display (HUD) and "bugging out" is a British Tornado. The HUD effect was accomplished by adding a translucent layer in front of the rendering. The rendering was done by ModelVision's Bill Sabados, using MasterPiece 5.6. The processing of the high-resolution raytraced image took only six minutes using the MasterPiece raytracer on an Intergraph TD-30 workstation."

I'm the "Tom" in the paragraph. * Sigh * - those were the good old days when rendering was a big deal. If I remember correctly, I think the TD-30 used a 486 chip. I got into a little bit of trouble because of the published picture. As a CAD exercise and visual effects achievement, using the HUD display effect was neat - and ModelVision (the 3D services company) just happened to have some Tornado models they could use. Unfortunately, that was right at the time we were trying to sell the UK to become the launch customer for the C-130J. Senior management didn't take kindly to the playful reference of putting the British in the crosshairs.

Anyway, I'm in the Federal Government now, but not the Corps of Engineers, which does use USTN.