RAM Concept CONNECT Edition: Error Finding Enhancements
RAM Concept CONNECT Edition (version 06.00.00.30) is now available on Bentley SELECTservices Online:
http://selectservices.bentley.com
This article discusses one of the principal features introduced in this release: the Warnings and Errors Management Tool. RAM Concept CONNECT Edition includes a new graphic interface dedicated to identifying, locating, and resolving warnings and errors delivered during the analysis and design processes (commonly referred to as CalcAll).
Figure 1 - Sample errors and warnings that may be encountered during the RAM Concept calculation process.
Figure 2 – Warnings and Errors dialog new in RAM Concept CONNECT Edition that organizes messages and enables user interaction.
As in previous versions of RAM Concept, during the calculation process a message is shown on screen each time an error or warning is encountered. The user has the option to review or dismiss each message, or even stop the CalcAll process altogether. In previous versions of the program, once the CalcAll process was complete, the user needed to open the log file to revisit any of the messages that were delivered. This log is simply a text file and thus locating specific types of messages needed to be done using a word search. In order to pinpoint the plan location of a specific error/warning, the user had to use the coordinates associated with the error/warning to manually find the location on the relevant plan.
Figure 3 - RAM Concept Calc Log showing error and warning messages resulting from the most recent calculation.
RAM Concept CONNECT Edition offers a new graphic interface to facilitate the error finding process. This is accessed with the Display Warnings command under the View menu or the toolbar. All warnings and messages are listed in an interactive dialog, with the ability to sort and filter the messages by type: Failure, Error, Warning, or Performance (see Figure 2).
Figure 4 – Display Warnings command within the View menu.
Controlling what is Shown
By default, the Errors and Warnings dialog is shown immediately after the calculation process has completed, regardless of the level of severity of the messages that result from the run. The user can control whether or not the dialog automatically appears after subsequent calculations by using the Automatic Display Severity setting (see Figure 5). The severity level chosen here will cause the dialog to appear only if messages at or above (more severe than) the selected severity have been encountered. For example, if a severity of Error is selected and there are only Warnings and Performance messages following the calculation process, the dialog will not appear. In order to review the messages in this circumstance, the user would need to open the dialog from the View menu option or the toolbar button.
Figure 5 – Option for hiding messages below a certain severity level
The visibility of messages can also be limited according to the message type. The Filter by Type button in the Warnings and Errors dialog allows messages to be turned on or off based on their general description. So in the example shown in Figure 6, the user may hide all messages except for User Bar Spacing Too Tight in order to focus on correcting the reinforcing layout. All warnings may be turned on or off using the Show All or Hide All options.
Figure 6 – Options for showing and hiding messages according to type
Locating Errors and Warnings
With a specific row selected in the Warnings and Errors dialog, clicking Open (or double clicking) will bring up the plan on which the error can be resolved. For example, for the Error listed in Figure 7, clicking Open will open the Manual Latitude Tendon plan, on which the elevations of the tendon can be adjusted to resolve the error. Further, the relevant object is highlighted on the plan. In some cases this will be an object that users can edit directly. Examples of this include a tendon or a reinforcing object. In other cases, this object will take the form of a marker drawn only to visually clarify the error/warning. Examples of this include a distinct point on a plan, or a segment denoting something such as a design section.
Selecting Zoom will zoom in on the location of the error/warning on the plan.
Figure 7 –‘Latitude tendon profile error’ selected, with the tendon high point that is in error highlighted
Figure 8 – ‘Latitude tendon out of slab’ warning selected, with the tendon that is in error highlighted