**People of Earth! - Plant 3D Isometric input please!!**

[damian_willcox]

Hello all,

I'm going to ask a HUGE favour of you all - We, your friendly neighbourhood AutoCAD Plant 3D team are looking to tighten up and make iso generation better for you in our next release, and of course how can we do that without you?

Can you please reply to this thread with a list your TOP 5, 10 or gasp 20 pain points/issues with generating/setting up isometrics in Plant 3D.

We are talking 'MUST FIX' for the next release level of severity.
(Feel free to add some "nice to haves, could be better if" as a secondary list also if you would like, but the immediate focus is getting rid of trouble spots that are affecting your isos, causing you a lot of rework, or just making the process unreliable or unacceptable )

Think of this as a contest where everyone wins 🙂

Thank you very much, it is extremely appreciated.

-damian willcox
AutoCAD Plant 3D team

[Anonymous]

1, Supply the "Isogen Symbol Key (SKEY) Definitions" manual so people can find different SKEY's
2, Turn on "Content Iso Symbol Definition" as standard to Plant 3D so items can be changed out easier
3, Supply "Option Switches and AText Reference Guide" for the *.opl file and have this file retain the "switch purpose" information.
4, have the dialog box's not reset information in the *.ddf file (i have added "THICKNESS 0 0.0" added to the "PIPELINE-ATTRIBUTES" so my layer colours drive the drawing information not the polyline thickness.
5, have it so when you are customizing borders attribute information locations& sizes are shown so you can see how it looks without having to test run it, also you will be able to change the location easily without having to use chord information in the *.pos file.

there are my top 5 issues with ISOGEN, hope this is what you wanted. (the truth is find ISOGEN pretty good but i was lucky and had a contact using *cough* AutoPlant *cough* so was able to get the above 2 files i suggest you supply which has my life with ISOGEN so much easier.)

[damian_willcox]

Great list, thanks a lot!

For item #2 - At what stage are you typically needing to edit the Content Iso Symbol Definition property - in the 3D Model or the Spec Editor, and how are you editing it? - is it more of one off or editing the property for multiple components at once?

Thanks again,

-damian

[Anonymous]

most times if i'm making a user item (groups of items ie valves etc) i try and entry it in the spec editor, but with the likes of user items (one offs) and pipe supports which has an issue with making user supports and saving them to the tool pallet (i'm running metric) i'm need to view and edit the Skey to these.
Its "one offs" for user items but for likes of Pipe supports i tend to do that multiples at a time.

Hope this helps. Edited by: philip@cosl.co.nz on Jan 12, 2010 8:26 AM

[Anonymous]

6. as i've posted else where having the "Select Line" dialog show alphanumeric order not random/drawordered

[damian_willcox]

Yes, very helpful, thanks for the details.

-damian

[damian_willcox]

Yes, another good one!

Starts to get annoying after say 5-10 line numbers. 😉

Feel free to add more.

Thanks again,
-damian

[Anonymous]

I have several documents with isogen information, like Atext, option switches, symbol keys and so on.
With this documents it’s for me still not clear how to add information in the right way on my isometric.
For example: how I create a bill of material with the information I want and on the location I want.
It looks like a whole new discipline next to plant3D. To have some basic instructions for isogen would help me a lot.
In the near future I start projects in plant3D for several different clients, all with there on settings and standards (drawing borders and layouts).
I realise that isogen is an older (old fashion?) programm. For a good functionality it should be changed in a window based application that can be used in the plant3D program in a easy and user friendly way. (without to become an isogen expert).
Please some help and advice how i can use isogen in a proper way.

With Regards,
Henk Segveld

[damian_willcox]

That is great feedback thank you. I will see what can be done about this.

Thanks again,
-damian

[Anonymous]

It would be nice to be able to select for each pipe run which way north is instead of a general 1 fits all.

Also the ability to force onto X number of pages I know you can do this through the OPL file but would be nice to have it on the fly.

Revision Number

The way i was thinking was something along these steps

Existing - Select line number
Existing - Selected Default Template (ie Check, Final, Stress) this only take the border info and start point for the OPL
New - Select "north direction", Select "Force page No." - number of pages / off default. Revision Number

It would also be nice to have the OPL for each pipe saved so you don't have to re enter information & it populates the different options when you reselect that pipe again.

[Anonymous]

I was dreaming of I-Sketch in Plant 3D.
draw non-scale isometric drawing in paper space, then convert to real Plant3D pipe. it could be used for quick MTO for proposal, and shop drawing at construction site. then I can sell Plant3D to large EPCs today. Edited by: intratech on Jan 21, 2010 3:01 PM

[damian_willcox]

Thanks for all of this feedback everyone!

I've been on the road recently and didn't have a chance to get back to this, but wanted to say thanks for all of your input. It is appreciated and all helps!


Thanks again,
-damian

[Anonymous]

How can I show both mm and inch in the isometric drawing?

[Anonymous]

an Iso symbol editor so you can mod or make new isogen symbols.

[Anonymous]

A way to customize the annotation style for continuation drawings in th UI as per this thread.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Plant-3D/Continuation-Reference/td-p/2762184

Thanks,