Here is a tough one

[Anonymous]

I'm currently running a trial version of Autocad Plant 3D and happen to stumble across the following difficulty. I live and work in Russia and it is needless to point out that transferring our standards is THE nightmare. I figured the catalog customization pretty fast, since it's very similar to the one of Autocad MEP which i had a chance to utilize for about half a year. The issue at hand is that i cannot force pipes to become metric.

I started my own catalogue based on ASME pipes and fittings, eliminated all the parts i need not to use, created my own tees, flanges and elbows according to our standard and everything went ok, till i actually tried to pull same trick with pipes. No matter what i do - interface won't let me assign primary units of pipe as metric mm, so in the the size column i have values like " 15(1/2") " BUT when i try to sort pipes by diameter to create piping spec it magically transforms inches into mm, so 15 mm nominal diameter pipes turns into 0.5mm diameter pipe. Again, all the rest of components seem to behave properly.

When i try to create my own custom element, pipe is simple not in the list. It means that when i choose from available fittings - there is everything but simple cylinder. My current workaround is to leave pipes imperial, so i can create the piping spec for 3D, but i strongly suspect, that metric fittings won't work with imperial pipes.

Fidning resolution to this matter is quite vital, because i already submitted and application for purchasing Plant 3D building suite, but my superiors require solid presentation of the association between P&ID and 3D model.

Best regards, Fedor Kulikovsky,
Piping design engineer, PSK Neftekhim, St.-Peterburg, Russia.

[Layout-Bob · Accepted solution]

This may not be a permanent solution, but you can edit a metric catalog and add pipes from that catalog to your spec. Maybe that will work better for you. In a later version i think it will be possible to merge catalogs. I'm definitly waiting for that feature!

I have also encountered different bugs with the spec editor like port faces not changing to what i have set them to when using them in plant.

[Anonymous]

Quite an embarassment, for i should have tried that in the first place. Many thanks for the fast response - that worked quite as i hoped.

[Anonymous]

Another tiny addition, so nobody else would waste another 6 hours just like me... Thing is, as obvious as it may sound, pipes, fittings AND flanges with gasgets and bolts absolutely need to be in same spec. Problem in my case is that i cannot combine in 1 catalog metric pipes and metric fasteners. I presume there are some russian users in this forums or any other users who are struggling with this metric/imperial standard collisions, so by all means help yourselves and use DIN catalogs (C:\AutoCAD Plant 3D 2011 Content\CPak DIN) as the base for creation of metric equipment sets.