Partitioning divides the surface of the digitizing tablet into two areas or partitions. One area, the screen partition, continues to provide standard tablet-to-screen mapping. Within the screen partition, moving the tablet cursor results in a corresponding movement of the screen pointer, regardless of what is displayed on the screen. The other area is the digitizing partition. Within the digitizing partition, movement of the tablet cursor results in a corresponding movement of the screen pointer only within the part of the design plane to which you are mapping features of the hard copy.

After you partition the tablet surface, you will notice a change in the behavior of the screen pointer, depending on whether it is in the screen or digitizing partition. When in the screen partition, the pointer moves on the screen in direct proportion to the movement of the tablet cursor. If you have two screens, the screen partition corresponds to the rectangular area encompassing both screens.

When the tablet cursor is in the digitizing partition, the tablet cursor position determines the position of the pointer in the design plane. MicroStation places the pointer in the first open view where the design plane position is visible. The open views are checked in sequence starting with the lowest numbered view. If the design plane position is not visible in any views, the pointer is not displayed. Nevertheless, even when you cannot see the pointer, you can continue to enter data points and place elements into the design.

The screen partition takes priority over the digitizing partition. If data points are entered in the screen partition, their position in the design plane reflects their position on the screen. Therefore, make sure not to stray into the screen partition while digitizing.