About Microstation
MicroStation is the only computer-aided design (CAD) software purpose-built for infrastructure design, helping architects and engineers like you bring their vision to life, present their designs to their clients, and deliver their projects to the community.
With MicroStation, you can model, document, and visualize infrastructure projects of any type, scale, and complexity using a comprehensive set of design and documentation capabilities to reliably deliver even the most demanding projects. In addition, you can speed the production of detailed drawings and documentation, renderings, and animations. You can also reliably integrate any existing design content and work with any-size team using virtually any mix of design applications. MicroStation enables you to develop and document better designs in less time by better connecting you to your tools, data, and teams.
Programming Options with MicroStation CONNECT Edition
Whether you are a MicroStation user, CADD administrator, someone interested in getting started with programming in MicroStation, or an intermediate to advanced software developer; MicroStation CONNECT Edition provides everyone options suited toward your individual level of experience and needs. The graphic below helps illustrate each of the options available, what knowledge each solution requires, and the progression users with no programming experience can work towards someday creating the most robust MicroStation programming solutions possible.
MicroStation CONNECT Edition SDK Overview
The MicroStation CONNECT Edition SDK installs as a "stand-alone" product separate (yet dependent) on the MicroStation parent product. Allowing developers to install multiple versions of the SDK side-by-side or install to custom locations that meet your individual needs or requirements. MicroStation APIs, includes and libraries have been reviewed, organized, and isolated, to help ensure a new level of improved consistency between native and managed APIs opening up new API possibilities.
Within the SDK you will find, a comprehensive set of MDL C++ API libraries you can more fully leverage within Microsoft Visual Studio 2013, apply elegant C++11 coding styles and techniques, STL programming, and much more. MDL .NET APIs are a thin managed wrapper around the high performance MDL C++ libraries and use similar library and terminology naming conventions. The new .NET managed API assemblies are no longer based on MicroStation VBA's - Microsoft COM object model. This more direct level of access ensures improved performance and reliability, as well as more accurate error messages.