Can Plant 3D survive in the market?

[vannmannen]

Highly disappointing that Autodesk did not upgrade Plant 3D 2014 to a level that is closer to the competing softwares.

Major shortcoming IS STILL 3D-clipping. This topic has been commented over and over again.

See attachment of how it looks when I use the section plane (which I assume is supposed to give me a volume box) The whole thing is just a joke (I get zero clipping) and you do not need to be in the engineering businees for a long time to realise that a 2 or 3 storey process module can NOT be designed in this software without any proper clipping features.

And please do not ask me to use Navis for this. The feature has to be impletemted in Plant 3D.

[h_eger]

http://docs.autodesk.com/PLNT3D/2014/ENU/filesPLNT3D/GUID-603078D5-1709-4DDF-BD3A-FE98C7C5B201.htm

Plant 3D training?

r.

Hartmut

[JohnHolder]

It does not look like he was in an ortho drawing.

[Arun_Kumar_K]

He is asking about, clip funtion in Plant3d space (section box) as like availble in Revit.

I asked this wishlist in 2012 to provide this feature. The section is a tool, you should define the parameters, if you drag the box, only the items inside the box will be visible.

The same question is being asked.

I too wonder many times, how many didn't arise this question in this forum, now little satisfied. Please throw some light on this topic, to make understand how important the tool is, instead trying to defend.

[vannmannen]

Sorry my friend, this is not in ortho mode. This is in the modelling mode.

Actually the ortho is quite good now after iso views are available in the 2014 model.

The whole clipping thing is giving us headache. If the feature is not added to the next feature my company has to consider looking into other software.

[Arun_Kumar_K]

Lets hope, we get this function. There are only in few areas, Autodesk development to concentrate, once those are completed, I am sure the product is more worth for investment.

[Bernd.Gerstenberger]

Teh best place to post your product feedbacks is here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1109794

Regards

Bernd

[alvaro.nimasco]

This is a good place too, it help us to take accurate decisions when it's time to choose the correct tool

[Arun_Kumar_K]

Everyone can see what are the bugs and improvement required in the software here. Posting there will not let everyone knows.

[paragnewe]

Hello friends,

anyone got any solution for this Clipping problem?

We are using ACAD Plant 3D 2014. and still It seems that there is no development for this issue from Autodesk. 

[patpat79]

I dont know about this clipping thing, could anyone elaborate its use and the PROs of having it? actually right now in our company, we are good with the ortho, yes there are many work arounds that we had fixed but, overall the AP3D functions well for. But as work around is concerned, if only there is a native autoannotation/dimension in the Ortho of AP3D like PDMS and SP3D then, everything is good to go.

[TRdesigner82]

As far as I know you still can't use clip boxes in the modeling space. Seems like a pretty big downfall to me. It can be pretty hard to see into places at times. I guess you could break the dwgs up ever further but at a certain point the xrefs become too hard to maintain and deal with. As stated previously, the ortho creation has improved quiet a bit but the fact that you still can't turn off/freeze layers without creating holes in your drawings isn't something that I can understand. Neither is that fact that dimensions don't ATTACH to anything and update when things move.

[patpat79]

I think i know what you are saying, maybe just like the feature of SP3D right?? which you will only see the area you are doing your work, actually i think the hide/unhide function of plant 3d is the counter part version of that. But maybe if Plant 3D would have an addtional feature that you can also hide or isolate the selected component in a" selection box", that would result into a "clipping thing" like output, that would be good.

[paragnewe]

John,

You are right. 

In PDMS / SP3D there are clipping option by which we can hide part as we need.

It is very good tool to work effectively and folike 3d-boxr very dense piping area. This is kind of isolate / hide object. but if we isolate line, entire line will get isolate. in Clipping we can give co-ordinates () and other than that limit entire model will hide. 

[blorich]

I think the program will be around for a long time.  Used Bentley Autopipe for years and I was glad to make the switch to P3D.  I personally feel the program is more geared towards drafters more than pipe designers which was fruastrating at first, but that makes it much faster at getting designs out the door.   Also most schools and colleges are teaching Autodesk based products. I was an ITT-tech Grad and all we learned was Autodesk programs. So with new hires it is much easier for them to learn the program becuase it feels so fimiliar. I find it's much easier to find solutions to problems with P3D since I have a vast knowledge of Autodesk based products.  Yes there are some limitations to what P3D can do but I have been able to work around all of these and send out some large projects that include 100+ lines. Ortho gen and isogen require clean up work but I have always found that clean up is required with such things becuase they never get them the way I want.   I have made a number of customizations to xml files and such but its only becuase of company standards.   This whining about lack of clipping planes while modeling is annoying since people dont want to use the hide comand.

The price of the program is way cheaper than others also, and with all the suite stuff you can't go worng. I plan to continue to use the program for a long time.

#P3Dforever

[patpat79]

Actually, we dont have any issue about the clipping thing because we had set standard in Model dwg file and folder creation. So in our ortho, and our drawing xrefs, we dont have the issue because our drawings are segregated by area and fluid. So, in our part, clipping is not needed.

[paragnewe]

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@patpat79 wrote:

Actually, we dont have any issue about the clipping thing because we had set standard in Model dwg file and folder creation. So in our ortho, and our drawing xrefs, we dont have the issue because our drawings are segregated by area and fluid. So, in our part, clipping is not needed.

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John,

i don't know what settings you have done for your company,

but if in one Drawing (I assume there are some xref for - equi, structure, and other area piping ), if we want to work and due to all xref as well as piping it self in drawing, area might be dense. and in that dense area, if we need to work it is quit difficult. 

so at that time Clipping is needed.

i am attaching 2 snap-shots. we are having projects more than 500 Lines and more than 50-60 equipments and multistory RCC buildings. if we add all xrefs to drawing while pipe routing, then it is difficult. so while routing we generally unload all xrefs which we do not required. but some time for fine tuning we must have to add (LOAD ) all xrefs. and that time it is like hell to work around with small part. 

Please correct me if our working procedure is wrong. or you have any other solution. 

[patpat79]

In our setup, We have separate folders for piping, equip, structure as per area. Meaning, we have more or less 1 thousand DWG files in our project. Our recent project consists of 1020 large bore lines, 200+ equipment and pipe racks which we segregated and designate per AREA. Prior to that we have 8 Areas and some sub areas. In our set up, 1 line number per drawing is our policy. Therefore, making an ortho/plan drawing per area does not cause head ache for us. As for modelling, the designers just xref the equipment, pipeline or structure he needs. And simultaneously check in the Navis if there are clashes, but normally i am helping them and the checkers in the checking of the lines.

Is the snapshot a PDMS project of yours?? It looks like one for me. Thanks

[paragnewe]

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@patpat79 wrote:

In our setup, We have separate folders for piping, equip, structure as per area. Meaning, we have more or less 1 thousand DWG files in our project. Our recent project consists of 1020 large bore lines, 200+ equipment and pipe racks which we segregated and designate per AREA. Prior to that we have 8 Areas and some sub areas. In our set up, 1 line number per drawing is our policy. Therefore, making an ortho/plan drawing per area does not cause head ache for us. As for modelling, the designers just xref the equipment, pipeline or structure he needs. And simultaneously check in the Navis if there are clashes, but normally i am helping them and the checkers in the checking of the lines.

Is the snapshot a PDMS project of yours?? It looks like one for me. Thanks

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you are working on big project John.

is your workstation can handle this project easily?

i m wondering what will be the configuration for your workstation and server.

We are trying to evaluate capability of AP3D and somehow our AP3D is responding very slow on my workstation. (this workstation handles other 3D software very quick)
I have post one new thread about System configuration. please look into that also.

Regarding Project setup..

I have also set up same system for my project as per your suggestion.

there are different folder for different discipline. and different drawings for equipment and structures.
we don't have any designated AREA for piping and so our all pipes are in one drawing only.
(in your case - you have 1 drawing per one pipe. I think this is very hectic for designer to work.if he want to work at complicated area where pipipng is jugglery and he have to adjust many lines to get proper routing,
then he have to jump from one drawing to another and always reload all drawings to get updated work) every time it is not possible to go into naviswork and find clashes. we can encounter some clashes in model itself with adding all related / nearby lines.

how you are managing xrefs?
do you have any lips to add / remove xref or some other trick?

[patpat79]

Actually, piping modelling/editting in our set up right now is very safe. Even in report, we can segregate, and find errors or designer mistakes by Line number and DWG. Therefore the result for us is possitive. Even just tag errors are easy to handle because we can identify mistakes upto the exact DWG file that it would be found. I had set up miscellaneous report files like "model line lists", "Modelled equipment List" to evaluate our progress, even the nozzle report, which we have reference upto the DWG. So there are no time wasted finding or searching the Line number, or equipment that needs editting.

The downfall of this is, if in a pipe rack, or in an area, you need to move lines (let's say 5-10 lines), and we need to move them in parallel corresponding to each other, it would look hectic right? But then, for us it doesnt because, safe routing is the most important factor to us, therefore unecessary mistakes in editting is limited by our current setup. By the way. Autocad requires more juice in the Spec of the machine Designer is using than other software. So expect that other software would be faster (maybe) in your machine than the AP3D. Right now, my machine's spec is Only i5, 8G Ram, and k4000 quadro.

As for your worries about editting lines that could affect other lines. As for us, we do every day checking so there is not much issue about clashes. And normally, lines are checked and finalized each and every time. And issued lines must not be revised right? In our case, designers have designated Area which they are working, therefore, clashes really in there respective area are not a major issue. We finalize a line before jumping to another. Thanks