Iso configuration feedback

[damian_willcox]

As many of you know, there are an extremely large number of settings available for iso generation in several different text files (OPL,POS,etc). In Plant 3D, we have exposed a small number of the most common iso generation settings through the Project Setup interface....but of course there are still a number of you needing to edit text files to get what you want to make your isos come out as you expect.

Which iso configuration options are you setting or modifying in text files that would be more convenient if available through the Project Setup UI in the program? Are there any iso settings exposed through Project Setup that you never use?

Please email me any feedback on this: damian.willcox@autodesk.com

Thanks!

-damian willcox
Plant 3D Team
Autodesk

[btrevena]

Damian,

I have always named and saved my isometric files by their Line Number, (Size-Spec-Area-Count-etc).
So an option to select the P3D Line Number Annotation field from the model (if no P&ID) or
the Pipeline Tag from the P&ID would be handy.

Also:
I am still coming to grips with the multiple heirarchial references to "TAG", "NUMBER", "LINENUMBER" in P&ID and 3D project setup.
In some instances Tag is the unique Count and in others it is the concatenated Line Number string.
Or am I over complicating things?

Thankyou,
Bruce

[damian_willcox]

Hi Bruce,

That is great feedback, and no you aren't overcomplicating things - I think we need to clean up some of the nomenclature and fuzziness surrounding tagging for line numbers across 3D and P&ID in the program.

For example, The property 'line number' in P&ID isn't what you and I would consider a 'line number', but is merely the sequential 'number' portion of the line number. We have changed this on the 3D side simply to 'number'.

So basically you'd like to use an existing line number tag or annotation format you have already set up in the project instead of having to respecify the whole thing out again for iso drawing names...good suggestion, makes sense.

Thanks!

-damian
Plant 3D Team
Autodesk

[philip]

not to sure if these are able to be adjusted in the isogen settings but being able to add iso messages to "existing" status lines and have the message appear on the iso drawing would be nice, also the ablity to turn off dimensioning of "existing" status lines.

[damian_willcox]

Hi Philip,

This is great feedback - I will check into what we can do in terms of these two.

Thanks!

-d

[4ndy_Morris]

Hi Damien,

I am an AutoPLANT administrator in my day job and I'm just getting my hands on P3D now.

Regarding ISOGEN and its setup I think that it is essential that you provide the Alias option switch editor plus the associated help files. But that is just my opinion.

One thing I am struggling with at the moment is I can't see an option for changing the North direction on the isometric. That is an absolute must. Also, you need to be able to modify the graphic area settings and what style of material list you are using otherwise you just can't create a border that is suitable for your client.

And while I'm here, I wondering if you are going to consider the possibility of outputting a much richer PCF file. Over the years using APLANT I've been outputting my isometrics more and more by document number rather than line number and at the moment I can't see a way of doing this with P3D. The script files are much more open to the end user with APLANT and so gives us much more flexibility when it comes to configuring our deliverables and that is quite important. Being able to work in 3D is great and up to now I can see that P3D does OK in that area but it all falls flat if you can't get the isometrics to look how you need them to.


Sorry for going on about AutoPLANT but at the end of the day that is what, in some markets anyway, you have got to aspire to.

regards

andy

[4ndy_Morris]

What a wally... I spotted another post entitled isogen and I realise I've been missing the ability to specify the north arrow direction, drawing/plot area and material list setup from the title block editor.

Please forgive me... I'm getting there...

[damian_willcox]

No problem at all Andy, this is good feedback.

Glad you found the title block/North Arrow info.

In regards to your BOM's what level of customization do you want to see exposed there?

thanks,
-damian

[4ndy_Morris]

I'm looking at my latest iso, now that I've spotted the editing tools, and I think that the material list is going to be ok. I like a continuous material list. When the iso is created there are no headings for part number, size, tag, description and quantity but you could add these to the frame itself once you know where the material list appears.

There are other minor issues that are bugging me at the moment but it might just be me again, not bothering to read the help files and just jumping straight in.

If I can't sort it I'll start a new topic, after searching the existing threads here of course...

[damian_willcox]

Ok, well if you have thoughts on improvements you'd like to see feel free to mention them here.

Thanks for the feedback!

-damian

[4ndy_Morris]

Well, I think that the thing I would most like to see is the ability, as I touched on above, to be able to output isometrics by some other attribute other that line number.

What we do in APLANT is add three new attributes (Project Objects) to the project database : DOC_NUM; SHT_NUM; NUM_OF_SHTS.

We are then able to select piping components and set the attributes to suit. Being able to do this really helps repeatability of the isometric runs. APLANT is not fussy where it splits large pie systems and the split position can change with each run. By applying a document number attribute and then outputting by that attribute solves that problem.

cheers

[RoyDunn]

I would like to be able to get the decimal point out of the dimensions and bill of materials, and separate the Ft and inch with a dash.  How can I do this in P3D?  Removing and replacing the offending items takes time for something that should be easily configurable.

Thanks

Roy Dunn

Sr. Mechanical Design Technician

Fossil Power Group

Engineering Design Services

Tennessee Valley Authority

[JRPalmer]

I would enjoy the ability to increse the size of the ISO plot area. Curently the ISO does not use up the space allocated for it when I setup the title block using Define ISO drawing Area.

Does the Define ISO Drawing Area mean the whole piece of paper you would be printing on or just the square where the ISO is being placed in. I believe it is the latter, but I could be mistaken, because there is alot of wasted space in the ISO area.

This is a duplicate of what I have posted in user wish list, but since most of these pretain to ISO development, I will insert it here as well.

The ability to set a maximum length of pipe, and when you go over that length AutoCAD automatically inserts a weld, a flange, or whatever the user needs. I have been able to add welds through a custom part but the downside if I use the Weld list in the ISOgen settings, it counts it as 2 or 3 welds instead of just one. Another problem is that I cannot modify that pipe as it  one entire piece. The most frustrating thing is that I seem to be unable to delete the WELD later on, even after I deleted the entire pipe.

When creating breakpoints there should be an option to crete the breakpoint in the middle of the pipe or split it into 3,4,5...etc pieces and when the pipe breaks it automatically creates a field weld marker. Currently the breakpoint seems to break the pipe into random pieces that I have no control over.

I would like to be able to see the lengths of the sections of the pipe automatically appear on the ISO, such as between the fittings and the indivual pipes. Currently you can select cut sheet list but that just placed numbers above the pipe and probaly placed some info into the Data manger. This is not bad, but it creates the need for one more lookup which IS what I want to avoid, I would like everything to be on the ISO, so there is only one place the fabricator needs to look.

The ability to call sections of pipe by a control number. Every seperate ISO would have its own Control Number. So every ISO has its own number and instead of saying continue on DWG 2 it might say continue on Control Number 002.