MAN File Reader

The file reader supports MAN files from Informatix's MicroGDS™ version 6.0 or later. MicroGDS™ projects are not supported. The workaround is to export the desired project window with a .man file extension.

In Autodesk Navisworks, MicroGDS renderer materials are shown in their flat-shaded colors in shaded mode. In full render mode, or with Presenter rendering, the full shaders are used. Only the standard LightWorks shaders are available. The shaders which are unique to MicroGDS are not available inside Autodesk Navisworks, and are converted as follows:

• Height band color shader is treated as plain gray
• Wrapped random color shader is treated as a plain color using the flat-shaded color from MicroGDS
• Wrapped stencil transparency is ignored
• Undulate, wrapped brick, wrapped grid and wrapped ripple displacement shaders are ignored
• Object axis texture space is equivalent to the Autodesk Navisworks box texture space
• Auto axis and object XY axis texture spaces are treated as the Autodesk Navisworks box texture space
• Grid background is treated as a plain background using the background color, that is grid lines are not shown
• Foreground and environment shaders are ignored

Note: All other shaders, as of MicroGDS 7.2, are correctly imported into Autodesk Navisworks.

MicroGDS materials are specified in millimeters, and are converted into metres to make Autodesk Navisworks materials, dividing distance parameters by 1000.

Windows with Perspective Views are converted as viewpoints.

Supported Entities

• Clump primitives
• Line primitives.
  Note: The color of line primitives is determined by the first phase in which they appear in the Principal window of the MAN file. If they are not included in the Principal window, the color is determined by their style.
• Light styles.
  Note: Projector lights are treated as a spot light without the transparent image.
• Material styles, both plain and most LightWorks Renderer materials.
  Note: For materials using wrapped images, you must specify the texture paths.
• Layers.
  Note: All layers are read, and made visible according to their status in the Principal window of the MAN file.
• Instances
• Object data structure

Unsupported Entities

• Text primitives
• Photo primitives