Dimensions Disappear When Updating Model (Tube and Pipe Feature)

[Anonymous]

I am having trouble with dimensions disappearing in the drawing when I update my model.

I add the correct dimensions then when I update my model, all dimensions on the drawing disappear and I have to make them all again.

A little more info:

I am using the tube and pipe feature to drawing tubing inside of an assembly.

Process:

1) I draw the tubing routes and populate them (to show an actual swept tube)

2)Right click on the newly created route in the explorer and open the tube.

3)File->new->drw.

4)Add necessary dimensions to the tube drawing.

5)Save and close drawing

Up until this point everything is fine.

6)Edit the tube route in the assembly and save

7)Upon opening the drawing of that tube route ALL dimensions have disappeared.

If anyone has any advise or can point me in the right directions, It would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Jacob

[brimal]

We have the same issue here.  I have a feeling that it is "intended functionality" (one of my favorite phrases) but I'm hoping the programmers at Autodesk come up with a new intent soon that involves updating the dimensions rather than deleting them.

[blair]

Part of the problem is that the T & P module maintains "Adaptive" on the assembly and runs within the T & P. We do a lot of Flexible T & P for air control lines. I don't use the Fitting in the T & P. We place all our fittings within the main assembly and only use the T & P for the run itself. We then use View-Reps to isolate only the T & P and end fittings and component the fittings are in for our IDW's. Not really how it the T & P was intended but all the end components never loose their dims in the drawings.

[blair]

You could still do the same thing but dim the ports of your items. I never have created a IDW/DWG from just the T & P assembly, they are always View-Reps from the main assembly.

[cbenner]

Are you all doing rigid tube & pipe, or flexible tubing runs?  I believe that, in flexible runs at least, when you make a change to the route, it recalculates or addes ( or subtracts) nodes at bend points, intersections etc.  These are logically where dimensions would be placed in a drawing.  As these nodes change, the link to them from the dimension is lost... because it may or may not still be the same node.

I don't do a lot of flexible tubing, so this is just my theory.... but i dare say it makes at least some sense.  I see this in rigid piping if I completely delete or replace a fitting inline.  When you do that, the spools on either side may actually become new ipt's... therefore blowing the link to any dimensions that have alreayd been placed.  I guess I've just gotten used to it, I come to expect it.

Blair's suggestion would probably work (again for rigid pipe & fittings), but it relies too much (for my taste) on standard assembly constraints, and as he mentions, is not how T&P was intended to be used.

Good luck!

[brimal]

The problem arrises when you are doing hard pipe runs with bends.  You must dimension to topology on the pipe itself in order to show the bend locations and bend radii.

[blair]

Can you try doing a View-Rep only of the run required and see if it still looses the Dims

[brimal]

Redoing dimensions on 1 or 2 drawings because of a pipe model change is acceptable, but when you have a group of pipe runs with many pipes and 30 to 40 individual pipe drawings (necessary for our line of work, where every welded pipe must have it's own drawing), the time required to redim everything is unacceptable.

[brimal]

I'm already using view reps.

[cbenner]

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@brimal wrote:

Redoing dimensions on 1 or 2 drawings because of a pipe model change is acceptable, but when you have a group of pipe runs with many pipes and 30 to 40 individual pipe drawings (necessary for our line of work, where every welded pipe must have it's own drawing), the time required to redim everything is unacceptable.

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I won't disagree, and this may not work for your application,... but I tend not to dimension my pipe run drawings until I know the design is close enough to minimize the number of changes.  Like I said, that may not work for you.