The Criteria2000 library is the first to be written with Project Manager in mind. Previous versions of the NCDOT Criteria Library could not be run under the Geopak Project Manager; for several reasons.

1. English and Metric Projects The NCDOT library was designed to function on Metric and English projects alike, the inclusion of the proper Standard definition file was necessary to define english or metric values for a multitude of defined variables that are used by the entire library. This inclusion statement had to occur before the first CRITERIA FOR SHAPE CLUSTER statement. Project Manager does not make provision for any inclusions outside of the CRITERIA FOR SHAPE CLUSTER statements. Therefore, to run the criteria exclusively from Project Manager would have required that there be two separate libraries, one with english values and one with metric values. Further complicating this was the fact that those two libraries would have to exist in two separate folders. This situation would have required changing the inclusion path. Of course, another alternative would have been to place both libraries in the same folder and rename each file according to english or metric; I.E. E_tmplt01.cri and M_tmplt01.cri.

2. Variable definition would have been a nightmlare. Project Manager requires that variable definition be done through it's dialogs. It accomplishes this by searching all the included criteria files and offering a list of all the defined variables for the user to provide values. The NCDOT criteria library contained approximately 600 unique variables. Of these, about 580 were default defined by the standard definition files (which could not be used under Project Manager). Therefore - you, the user, would have had to provide the value definition for ALL of these variables.

With Geopak98, the Project Manager changed in the way it used and defined variables. Geopak98 (and now Geopak2000) offer , for user definition, a list of only variables that do not begin with a "~". Or maybe I should say that variables that do begin with "~" are not offered for user definition?

NCDOT Criteria2000 library contains over 1400 variables. Perhaps half of these variables are "internal" with absolutely no user definition intended, required or allowed. Over half of the remaining "external" variables still require no user definition - they are default defined. The number of variables that absolutely require user definition is less than 10. Careful consideration was given to the naming of all the variables in Criteria2000. Most were named with the beginning "~". That means you will never see them in the Project Manager dialogs. The variables that are shown in the dialog will already have default value definitions that can be accepted or changed.

The following information turned out to be incorrect. It dont work. Instead of trying this, let's just say we'll never use Project Manager to run criteria.

But! What if you need to over-ride one or more those "hidden" variables? Project Manager not only doesn't offer those variables for definition, but doesn't provide any means whatsoever of "pre-defining" those values. Never fear. The author of the criteria has provided a "back door" in the event of this situation occuring. The criteria automatically attempts to find and include a file named " UserCriteriaDefinitions.txt ". It looks in the current working directory for this file, the directory from which Microstation was started. If this file is found, any variable definitions therein are read in first, thereby over-riding any subsequent definitions in the criteria itself.

Demonstration: Assume that the Hydraulics engineer has requested that all typical ditches have a minimum depth of 2 feet instead of the standard 1 foot. There is a global ~variable in the criteria called "~MINIMUM DITCH DEPTH" which is defined as 1. There are also local versions of this variable such as "~LD01 MINIMUM DITCH DEPTH" and "~FD01 MINIMUM DITCH DEPTH". To over-ride the definition of the global variable, all that is required is to create a file named "UserCriteriaDefinitions.txt" and insert a single statement: define "~MINIMUM DITCH DEPTH" 2.
When the criteria is run, it will find this file and use the definition of 2 instead of the default 1.