Bentley MAPscript

Simple Setup and Administration

Setup is easy and administrative tasks associated MAPscript can be conducted from any computer. Setup includes definition of printers, queues, job defaults, papers sizes, media and users. Tasks such as creation of queues, pausing queues, deleting jobs, changing priority, and others can all be done from any workstation on the network, provided the user has the appropriate passwords and permissions.

Plot or publish MicroStation DGN files completely WYSIWYG

What You See is What You Get when publishing DGNs via Bentley MAPscript. When used with a Bentley CADscript client, you can add a host of sophisticated visual effects to DGN elements to your published document or plot. MAPscript supports, color, grayscale, and B&W output, including color Postscript, EPS files with variable headers, 24-and 3-bit RTL, PCL, and a variety of digital output formats such as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, and others.

MAPscript will read ZEH element tables and IPLOT pen tables automatically, convert unfilled “see-through” DGN files to WYSIWYG DGNs, convert RGB data to CMYK, and convert plot patterns to WYCIWYG associative pattern by cells.

Empower Users with High Quality Output at Any Format Size

Plot sizes can be predefined or user selected. There is no limit on the output dimensions. Users can also specify DPI for vector or raster output.

Supports Many Types of Input Formats and Output Files

Cross-media Publishing and Archiving. With a single click, users can quickly publish documents in common formats such as BMP, PDF, TIFF, JPEG, TFW, PNG, PostScript, RTL, PCL, DGN, and DWG. Multi-page PDF files can be created by selecting a set of files and desired order.

Sophisticated, Yet Easy-to-Use Queues to Drive Any Number of Printer/plotter Models

MAPscript is a queue based plotting system. Essentially a queue has an output file type and location, typically a printer or file system location. An unlimited number of queues can be defined in MAPscript.

MAPscript provides the ability to group queues into domains. When a user account is added to MAPscript, a domain will be assigned and only the queues available in that domain are visible to the user. A global domain can also be used to include queues that can be viewed by all users of MAPscript.

Queues can be purged, paused and redirected. The redirection of a queue allows all jobs submitted to be automatically submitted to a different queue. This feature is particularly useful should a plotter go offline for maintenance reasons.

Queue creation is a simple process as many printer definition files have been included with MAPscript. With printer definition files it is not necessary to know the technical specifications required to successfully set up a queue. Print options like maximum resolution, plotter language, etc are pre-defined.

Provides Complete Cost Accounting and Auditing Capabilities

MAPscript has integrated accounting capabilities which provides the ability to define cost / accounting codes and the cost of media. This enables the cost of each plot to be distributed to the correct departments or costed towards specific projects.

When plotting to a queue that has accounting switched on, users are prompted to either key-in an account code or select a code from a drop down list, making the task of auditing the costs of printing a simple task.

The MAPscript Accounting module can provide reports written to a text file or stored in a database. Information includes account code, user name, what computer, media type, and other information.

Flexible Plot Set Creation for Archive and Reprint

Within MAPscript, you can define a set of documents to be printed called a Plot Set. A Plot Set Definition contains the network paths to all the documents in a Plot Set along with all the necessary parameters needed to replicate a print run. Each time a the Plot Set is sent to the printer, the current documents as defined in the Plot Set are sent to MAPscript for printing. This Plot Set is saved either as a personal Plot Set or a shared Plot Set. Shared Plot Sets can be submitted by anyone sharing the domain in which they were created.

For example you may have a Plot Set called "Tender Documents." In this Plot Set you might have a file to be printed at A0 on the plotter, another at A4 on a small laser, and a PDF generated to be submitted elsewhere. This Plot Set can be defined, and plotted as needed, with as many copies as required, ensuring that the latest copies of the documents are used in the print run.

Archived print sets are a special type of Plot Set that store the printed renditions of the job on the server and can be resubmitted to produce identical reprints even if the underlying files have changed. This type of Plot Set is useful as an archival tool by keeping a record of exactly what was printed with the ability to reproduce the output at any time.

Offers a choice of Windows, MicroStation, or Web clients

MAPscript Explorer is the client component of MAPscript. It was designed to resemble a mail client, and to be simple to use. MapScript Explorer can be installed on user’s desktops, providing them with a full featured application that provides the gateway for plot submission to MAPscript. MapScript Explorer is used to submit jobs to the server, check the progress of jobs, create plot sets, and register files.

MAPscript comes with a Web Server Plug-in that is compatible with Web servers that can process ASP based pages. The Web client can be used to submit jobs from remote locations to any queue, and if the output of the process is a file, this can be downloaded to the client from anywhere an internet connection to the Web server is available.

MAPscript is fully integrated with Bentley CADscript.  When using CADscript, each MAPscript queue in your domain is seen in the "print to" selection within CADscript providing a powerful combination of state-of-the art publishing solutions.

Integration with ProjectWise and Document Management Systems

MAPscript simplifies and automates in-process and archival workflows with easy creation of document-sets for publishing and single-click printing. It supports fully indexed sets defined in ProjectWise and document-management systems, as well as simple definitions of sets using Windows files.