I was evaluating new MicroStation View8i from the WMS perspective- it is much more better than previous version that just stuck while the window was redrawing. View8i is reading WMS request in background, allowing you to do some manipulations with application. Bentley added support for reading WMS servers and switching layers( but it works only with newer XWMS format 1.1.2 that is not recognized by previous XM version).  XM edition could read WMS layers at once, however v8i just uses tiles – this might be based on speed of WMS server more time consuming than obtaining one image at once..[updated: I didn’t realize how bad this might happne to be …v8i with its  tiling on WMS request (from slow servers) is nearly 9 times slower than XM edition that just request whole window at once. See the second picture bellow. That turn your 45 sec in XM edition into 6,5 minutes. Note I didn’t check  any extra settings and I use defaults in both versions]  XWMS is a format that is XML and describes WMS server parameters, but you can’t join various WMS servers into one XWMS.

For Czech WMS servers I have prepared some set of XWMS files for viewing them in freely available MicroStation v8i. But the free version doesn;t allow you to do any modifications – it uses only read-only mode. Thus I have wrapped each XWMS under dgn file and all referenced into top most dgn file called “openMe.dgn” (otevriMe). There you will find among WMS references also free slots (called “myDrawing/dgn” or “MyDrwaing.dxf”/MujVykres.*) for attaching your custom files (understand you need to rename you file and put it into the root folder of the XWMS set. This is displayed in picture.

You can download experimental XWMS pre-set for Czech Republic  here http://www.sumbera.com/blog/XWMS-SET.zip

If you have installed MicroStaiton Bentley V8i then just click on file OtevriMe.dgn.

To display this arrangement V8i took 6m38sec but XM only 45 sec !

XWMS example (for Czech Cadastral Map) in JTSK projection  (katastr.xwms):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<BentleyWMSFile>
    <VERSION>1.1</VERSION>
    <URL>geoportal2.uhul.cz/cgi-bin/oprl.asp?</URL>
    <REQUEST>
 <VERSION>1.1.1</VERSION>
       <SRS>EPSG:102067</SRS>
<LAYERS>BIOCENTRUM_USES,BIOKORIDOR_NR_F,BIOKORIDOR_R_F,BIOKORIDOR_L_F</LAYERS>   
        <WIDTH>800</WIDTH>
        <HEIGHT>500</HEIGHT>
 <BBOX>-910000,-1230000,-420000,-930000</BBOX>
        <FORMAT>image/png</FORMAT>
    </REQUEST>
    <SERVERCAPABILITIES>
        <MAXBITMAPSIZE width="1024" height="1024" />
    </SERVERCAPABILITIES>
</BentleyWMSFile>