__________CONTENTS_________________________________________________

o   Current News
o   Next meeting date, time & location
o   Minutes of the last meeting
o   MicroStation Tip of the Month
o   Unsubscribe information
o   MMLC Officers contact information

_________CURRENT NEWS______________________________________________

Hello everyone! We at MMLC hope you enjoy our new MMLC Update
newsletter, which will be sent out about a week after the monthly
meetings. If have any comments (good OR bad), please contact one the
MMLC officers or send us an e-mail to the address shown in the Contact
section.

We have new officers, a new website and a new e-mail address to start
to the new Century! Let's get together and share our knowledge for
working on those 21st century projects! We still have cookies and pop
and sometimes will draw for a prize! More on that in a later update.

Please note the new Tip of the Month section where we will be
selecting the best tip submitted by mail or offered at a past meeting.
An archive of tips will be on the MMLC in the future.

_________NEXT MONTH'S MEETING DATE/TIME/LOCATION____________________

November's meeting will be hosted by Cindi Olichwier at SRF Consulting
Group, Inc. The Itasca Group will be giving a presentation on
Microstation Descartes. The date has been set for:

      November 23rd, from 5:00pm to 7:00pm

SRF is located at Suite 150, One Carlson Parkway, North in Plymouth
(612) 475-0010

Directions are: take 1st exit (Carlson Parkway) north of 394 & 494
Interchange. Head west (left) and SRF is the 1st office complex on the
right (One Carlson Pkwy). Enter through main doors and follow signs to
meeting room.

SRF will also be giving a tour of their facility along with an
overview of the services their company provides.

We hope to see all of you there! Please feel free to contact any of us
for futher directions (if needed), to RSVP, or just show up.
Everyone's welcome!!!

_________MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING_______________________________

DATE:      October 19, 1999
TIME:      4:00 to 6:00 PM

HOST:      Mike Yoho and MTS Systems Corporation, Eden Prairie
LOCATION:  MTS Conference Room

ATTENDEES: Pam Jones, Cindi Olichwier, Steve Stewart, Scott Ornat,
            Mike Yoho, Chad Berreau

TOPIC:     IDEAS and managing MicroStation in a large scale setting

Chris Holliman gave us an overview of the use of I-DEAS software in
MTS's materials and stress testing facilities. I-DEAS is a mechanical
3d and animation software similar to PRO/E. It is used for designing
and planning the mechanical engineering constructs used in it's
testing projects. He showed example renderings and video animations
using I-DEAS for selected past MTS projects.

Chris also gave use an informative tour through the testing labs of
MTS, showing the end result of all that high-end CAD designing.

After the tour, Mike Yoho gave us a presentation of his techniques to
manage MicroStation at MTS using the new MS/J directory structure and
configuration variables. MTS has over 100 seats of MicroStation served
by a main Server and a backup server. He uses Select Server to help
manage user installations. Mike's presentation was very informative
(we wished more of you out there could have shared it with us) not
only for large organizations, but for smaller ones as well. One of his
innovations is the use of a corporate intranet website to
manage/locate/checkout drawings and provide tips and standards
information.

After a productive question and answer session, the meeting broke up
at around 6:15 PM.

There was no discussion about next month's meeting location (11/16 5:
00-7:00). See the NEXT MONTH'S MEETING section for details on the
latest date, time and location.

_________MICROSTATION TIP OF THE MONTH_____________________________

BATCHPLOT FROM THE COMMANDLINE (OR SHORTCUT)

The only way to do it now is to use a blank design file and BatchPlot
key-ins in a script file.

Suppose you have a job set named sample.job. To plot this set from the
command line, first create a script file (named sample.scr here, but
the name can be anything):

     mdl load batchplt -nodialog
     batchplt open sample.job
     batchplt print
     batchplt exit
     exit

To execute the script, use MicroStation's -s option:

     ustation -ssample.scr blank.dgn

This keyin can be run from the Command Prompt, Start -> Run, or
programmed into a Windows Shortcut.

MicroStation will display the file as it normally does (that's why you
should to use a blank file -- to reduce the load time), execute the
key-ins in sample.scr, and then exit. It's not pretty, but it works.

To check the results of BatchPlot's execution, examine the
batchplt.log file in MicroStation's out/plot directory.

This tip was taken from a post by Ron Stewart at Bentley Systems on
the comp.cad.microstation newsgroup.

If you have any tips to share with us here, please send them in and we
will publish the best one next month. The selection will occur at our
next meeting, so come and vote for yours! The rest will be on our MMLC
website (see the Contact section at the end).

_________UNSUBSCRIBE INFORMATION___________________________________

If for any reason you don't wish to continue to receive future
newsletters or e-mails from us, please send an email (or just reply to
this email) to:

    mmlc_mail@yahoo.com

You don't have to write anything except 'unsubscribe' in the Subject
or Body. If you want to explain why, please feel free, otherwise it's
no problem, we understand.

If you know of anyone who has moved away or is not using MicroStation
professionally anymore, please contact us.

_________MMLC OFFICERS CONTACT INFORMATION_________________________

If you want to contact one of MMLC's current Officers:

    Chair:      Dave Dickson      dixie@visi.com
    Vice Chair: Dean Sturgis      dean.sturgis@dot.state.mn.us
    Secretary:  Scott Ornat       sornat@ci.minnetonka.mn.us
    Treasurer:  Cindi Olichwier   colichwi@srfconsulting.com
    Web Design: Pam Jones         PJones@HNTB.com

For general questions regarding MMLC, please send email to our
Official Web-Mail address at:

    mmlc_mail@yahoo.com

Remember to check the MMLC Website: