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Inter office collaboration dillemma...

27 REPLIES 27
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Message 1 of 28
dzine14u
866 Views, 27 Replies

Inter office collaboration dillemma...

Dear P3D User Group & Autodesk Professionals:

 

In my 20+ years of doing CAD design it has never been an issue for multiple people to collaborate and work together on a single 3D model or drawing.  Before users would do their portion and then their work would be inserted into the main drawing or model.  However, this is not quite as simple with the P3D piping.  When inserting piping from another model often the colors and layers change or the connectivity of the pipes, fittings and valves are often lost.  Right now we are just using copy/paste from one model to the main model.  There must be a better way!

 

Can someone offer suggestions for multiple users to collaborate work in our office on 3D piping layout so we can easily mesh the piping work together in our main model fluidly, with far better results and less rework.  If that is even possible?  We have searched the Autodesk knowledge base and have not found any good advice.

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
27 REPLIES 27
Message 2 of 28
patpat79
in reply to: dzine14u

Is using Xref do not solve your problem? thanks


Best Regards,
Pat Andres
Autodesk Expert Elite
Plant 3D Administrator
GHD Manila

Message 3 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: patpat79

Not sure what you are asking there Pat.

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 4 of 28
jabowabo
in reply to: dzine14u

Bringing xrefs into a main model is a typical way to handle this. The main model itself would contain nothing but xrefs. This allows multiple users to work on various drawings and main model reflects all changes by reloading xrefs. This also keeps model sizes manageable.
Message 5 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: jabowabo

I fully understand the importance of xrefs in the model and have no issues with that.  My dilemma is with the intelligent piping.  How can multiple users work together on the same vast system of piping in a new pharmacutical grade production facility and integrate/connect the piping together from each designer.  Mind you that things are constantly being shifted, updated, added to, etc.  It just seems that when we try to bring the different sections of piping together into the master file...the piping sometimes loses it's associativity and become single pieces.  In addition, they always seem to switch layer back to 0 and color per size.

 

Is there a better way to integrate the entire piping system together from multiple users?

 

Another problem we keep having is the "orphaned fasteners" messages.  We click to remove orphans but they never seem to go away.  (Darn those pesky little orphans!  LOL)  What causes this and how can this be prevented?  Thanks

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 6 of 28
kennethmjones
in reply to: dzine14u

Sorry, I did not catch the drift of your reply. So, are your saying you are actually using xrefs and still get these problems?

Message 7 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: kennethmjones

Thought I was making myself clear on this....

We use xrefs in our main model.  For all "normal" entities there is no problem.  The problem is intgrating the intelligent piping together into one file without losing it's associativity.  It still ends up being a big job reconnecting everything together into the one master piping file along with a fair amount of rework.

 

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 8 of 28
patpat79
in reply to: dzine14u

Hello, just want to clarify more things. Do you already use Xref for connecting Piping models from different drawings or not? If you do, why are you using copy paste again? Sorry for these questions, just want to know the details so others could help you out more. Thanks


Best Regards,
Pat Andres
Autodesk Expert Elite
Plant 3D Administrator
GHD Manila

Message 9 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: patpat79

Pat:  I feel like I just keep repeating myself.  When I read my several posts in this thread I think I am being quite clear but I am going to start over one last time...

 

We have this model of a new facility with lots of equipment and a ton of piping.  The main model consists of many xrefs.  The only problem we are having is that to get this job done we need several people working on the piping.  The only we we know how to make this happen is for all my helpers to work on a portion of the piping on their own computer then to MESH ALL THE PIPING BACK TOGETHER IN ONE MASTER PIPING FILE.  When we do this we having to do a vast amount of rework because the existing piping we already have in the model is constantly being moved or changed and the new pipe that we COPY/PASTE from the individual models into the MASTER PIPING FILE sometimes looses its connectivity and almost always changes back to layer 0 and recolors itself per pipe diameter.

 

I will ask this once more:  Is there a better way for multiple people to work on the same piping system without needing to do so much rework?  We cannot see one another's work until we put it all together.  At that point there is a vast amount of fixing to get all the pipe integrated into one file.  I do not see how xreffing many pipe files together can work when they tee into many other pipes already in the model.

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 10 of 28
jabowabo
in reply to: dzine14u

Plant 3D will not retain line numbers when copying objects between drawings.  There are few posts on the forum here that detail this more.  As for aggregating drawings and using xrefs effectively with multiple users, we do not have the issues you describe when using Autodesk's suggested workflow which does not include copying items into the master drawing.  The advantage of using xrefs is that it isn't necessary to copy objects between drawings and all work done by individual designers is updated simply by reloading xrefs.  Other designers' work can be seen by xreffing their drawings into the current model and reloading as required.  I would recommend you check out this article for further info:  http://www.davetyner.com/plantBuddy/How-to-Manage-Large-Projects-in-AutoCAD-Plant-3D.pdf

Message 11 of 28
dgorsman
in reply to: jabowabo

Is this a client requirement to bind everything together into a single model?  If so (and thats the *only* reason I can think of this) that should be put off until the end of the project; preferably after as-build.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 12 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: dgorsman

Dgorsman:  That is now two replies where you are not responding to my problem.  Please do not reply again

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 13 of 28
jabowabo
in reply to: dzine14u

 
Message 14 of 28
patpat79
in reply to: dzine14u

Hi, as to what jobawoo have said, plant 3d components and piping can be connected visually and data base wise by xref, in our project, we have 1 pipe line number per dwg file and sometimes thus split lines in two or three more dwg files as per area. In our case, we have a master file which contains all the xref of the piping and equipment but we constantly use the navis works file of all our model for clash and progress checking. If you need to put all the piping and equipment in a single file for whatsoever reason, copy paste is not good, and as far as I know, there is no better way. The best way, well maybe only for our team, is use the navisworks. As for progress, report, connection issues, we haven't encountered any problems, even for. Client viewing only. The plant model is good. Sorry but I think I can't help you with any other way possible.

Best Regards,
Pat Andres
Autodesk Expert Elite
Plant 3D Administrator
GHD Manila

Message 15 of 28
dgorsman
in reply to: dzine14u

Hmmm.  I'm only seeing one reply.  I'll have to give the Admin a poke...

 

As for your problem - it *does* adress it, just not in the way that you want.  A solution which isn't what you want is still a solution.

----------------------------------
If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 16 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: dgorsman

None of you still seem to get what our problem is.  Just forget it, we will muddle through,

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 17 of 28
polandj
in reply to: dgorsman

It sounds to me like you are working in one file and copying the components out to a "new" drawing. Yes, it will lose intelligence always with that workflow.

 

In the Power & Industrial market, we model by Area, Discipline and Line Number.

 

We've found the best workflow/hierarchy in Project Manager to be:

 

Area Folder

Area 20-Master.dwg

     ME Folder

     ME-MASTER.dwg - All ME Working Files below "attached"

            ME-001.dwg

            ME-002.dwg

     PI Folder

     PI-MASTER.dwg - All PI Working Files below "attached"

            PI-001.dwg

            PI-002.dwg

     ST Folder

     ST-MASTER.dwg - All ST Working Files below "attached"

            ST-001.dwg

            ST-002.dwg

Project Master (.dwg) - All Area Master files "attached".

 

 

Project setup is a bit length with this but prevents tons of grief down the road.

 

 

Justin Poland
Mechanical / Piping Designer
Yates
www.wgyates.com
Message 18 of 28
Arun_Kumar_K
in reply to: polandj

Advance Steel has got an option for multi user in single dwg file, very interesting, if it is brought in Plant3d will be a gr8 advantage.

To reduce the file size, plant 3d should contain many parametric database driven tools, unless otherwise the file size in a single dwg file can't be reduced.

Unless the above comes, would be very tough for Adsk to enter into larger segment.

Pat, it's not a right solution to make every single drawing for line nos for speedy working. But this is the only workaround which I could understand, then when will Adsk bring a better solution for multi user.

From my opinion, Adsk is not seriously taking any of our requirement, I doesn't like to see plant3d future similar to Structural detailing.
Message 19 of 28
dzine14u
in reply to: polandj

Thanks guys.  Our model will have nearly 300 line numbers.  So whoever suggested an xref per line number...LOL.

 

Again...we fully understand the value of xrefs.  But when the pipes keep shifting and we keep tee-ing into other lines already in the model it just seems like xreffing multiple pipe files would itself create a new set of issues.  Those existing lines keep changing and shifting to make way for new lines.  With multiple users working on the pipe, it makes this a real dilemma.  We are still learning when it comes to the piping and are gtting closer to completing our first major liquid piping project using P3D.  It has been a level of stress I have never experienced in my 23+ years of doing CAD Design.  However, in the process we have learned so much which will make our next piping project much better.

 

Jabo: Thanks for the "How to manage large projects" link.  We will review that and surely get some great info for future projects.

Chuck Altmix
Lead Engineering Designer
Upper Consulting, Inc.
www.upperconsulting.com
Message 20 of 28
polandj
in reply to: dzine14u

I know that a single line file sounds completely ridiculous but once you nail down that workflow, it's not bad. The most time spent is setting up the project iniitally. Trust me the worst thing is to get to the point in your modeling where you have to break the lines out like you're doing now.

 

The other avenue we haven't explored is grouping the pipes into 5s or 10s per file on large projects. This overall issue on large is spreading the line access out enough that a checker can get into the file without bothering the designer.

 

Bottom line, there's no perfect workflow unfortunately.

Justin Poland
Mechanical / Piping Designer
Yates
www.wgyates.com

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