topic Another Line Number Question in AutoCAD Plant 3D Forum

Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 21:42:45 GMT

I thought I had our company line number format figured out in plant & iso. This was all working great in plant & Iso, except I had forgotten to add the insulation parameter info to the annotations.

Some info.

This is how our company line numbers are formated:

SIZE-SERVICE-NUMBER-SPEC-INSULATION, an example, 6"-GP-1234-A1-ET

And if no insulation is present:

SIZE-SERVICE-NUMBER-SPEC, an example, 6"-GP-1234-A1

I added the insulation parameter to an ortho annotation and tested it out. It worked good on an insulated line, but on an uninsulated line I get an extra dash at the end and period. Like: 6"-GP-1234-.

Is there a way to have lines with insulation show the "-INSULATION" information and the lines without to just end after "SPEC" like my examples above? If the insulation field is Nil, can't it just be ignored?

Re: Another Line Number Question

dave.wolfe — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 12:53:18 GMT

There's only one solution I can think of, and that's to include the dash in the insulation value.

For most cases, I think we recommend using something like XX to represent no value, but some companies don't want to do that.

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:08:00 GMT

So if we went the XX way, as you suggest, we would need to input the XX value into every line? Or is there a way to set it up so a nil value equals XX?

Re: Another Line Number Question

dave.wolfe — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:23:09 GMT

I'd set the default value to XX.

Then in the data manager, sort by the insulation type and copy the XX value to all the cells.

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 19:50:41 GMT

I believe I found a solution for my issue where if a line has insulation it shows the insulation code and if no insulation is on the line nothing is shown.

Dave's solution above works, but I couldn't come to terms of seeing the XX on the drawings as it looks as I forgot to fill something out.

My line number format is like the following: Size-Service-Number-Spec-Insulaltion If the line does not have insulation, the final -Insulation is omitted.

First thing I did was to remove the dash (-) delimiter between spec & insulation on all my annotations.
Recreate new insulation codes that include the dash (-), for example, instead of "ET", use "-ET" for electric trace.
Create an insulation code for no insulation using the unicode value for carriage return, \U+000D and call it None.
Set the None insulation type as the default insulation code.

In my limited testing, this seems to be working pretty good.

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 17:17:48 GMT

After some more testing, \U+000A is working much better for me. The \U+000D was giving me an underflow error at the commad prompt when I would move the annotation.

Re: Another Line Number Question

craig_wood — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 20:50:47 GMT

One other idea to think about...we use the designator "NI" for non-insulated lines.

Thanks for the other innovative ideas!

Cheers

Re: Another Line Number Question

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 20:26:43 GMT

this may help.

excerpt is from a 2009 AU article

google on "CustomizationFromTagsAndAnnotationsToSymbols.pdf"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

For example, an optional field would be indicated by:

#(HotWaterPipe.Insulation~A*)

Optional fields are never autogenerated, but may be assigned back.

Optional fields will not cause an error condition if they cannot be assigned or retrieved.

They will simply be skipped.

Note that the optional syntax isn’t surfaced in any UI.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

you have to add the "~" tilde character in the edit block attribute text string in the project setup program.

I am going to start a new thread adout line number annotation.

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 22:31:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
you have to add the "~" tilde character in the edit block attribute text string in the project setup program.

I am going to start a new thread adout line number annotation.

Played with the "~" tilde character and it has some promise. But for my example, it breaks down as I need the "-" dash delimiter to be dynamically added some how. If I add the dash to the Insulation type, for example "-ET", the dash confuses the expression #(TargetObject.InsulationType~A*) and doesn't work. If I add the dash as a normal delimiter, it adds it to all the annotations.

Re: Another Line Number Question

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 14:24:38 GMT

please explain the use of the unicode \U+000A or \U+000D, I am not familiar with these.

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 21:29:05 GMT

You type the Unicode character code, "\U+000A" (without quotes), as one of the values for the insulation type property for NONE. The Unicode works like the ASCII characters for AutoCAD, for example, %%d for the degree symbol.

This allows you to use the same ortho annotation for insulated pipes and non-insulated pipes.

Re: Another Line Number Question

roystercabral — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 14:08:28 GMT

Hi Eric,

I tried your method, but the line number tag displays the unicode instead of being blank.

What am i doing wrong ?

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 15:09:31 GMT

Have you tried it with an annotation tag in an ortho drawing?

Re: Another Line Number Question

roystercabral — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 18:23:30 GMT

Eric,

I haven't generated any ortho drawings, but in ISO the line numbers tag on the line is displaying correctly but the tag at the end of the line showing continuation onto next sheet shows this UNICODE.

How to resolve this?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 18:53:14 GMT

That may be why I haven't come across this issue. In my models, line numbers are identified by service & number only. Using my example at the top of this thread, that would be "GP-1234". I don't include the insulation code in the line number identification.

I show the insulation on the iso (dashed line) and then I have a table on each iso sheet calling out particulars like paint code, hydro press, insulation type/thickness, etc.

Re: Another Line Number Question

roystercabral — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 08:10:57 GMT

This is our clients standard line tag format, cant change it.

Thank Eric

Re: Another Line Number Question

Anonymous — Fri, 03 May 2019 21:30:48 GMT

Eric, you had the right idea, but like others I also had the issue of the unicode "\U+000A" appearing in my line number tag in the data manager, properties, etc.. I FIXED this issue and created a BLANK row by doing the following.

1. Edit your property that you would like to add a blank row to. In my case, I have two lists where I needed a blank. I had one called "INSULATION". For example, if the user sets the pipe to insulated, then the line number would appear as "2"-PA-001-A1-I". If it is not set as insulated then there is just not "-I" at the end. I had an additional list for tracing type following insulation in the line number tag. I wont explain that, because its the exact same process to setup.

2. Click "Add Row..."

3. Right click the "Value:" field and select "Show Unicode Control Characters".

4. Right click the "Value:" field again and expand the "Insert Unicode Control Characters" option. Select the "ZWJ Zero width joiner" option as shown below.

5. Click OK and close the Project Setup.

6. Select the properties your pipe requires and your line number should reflect them! This will work no matter how many other similar lists you stack on. Just make sure you set up your tag format without a "-" delimeter in the previous parameter and it should appear this way.

Please mark this as a solution if it works for you!

Regards,

Neil

Re: Another Line Number Question

EricNyh — Fri, 03 May 2019 21:55:30 GMT

I like this. I'll give it a try. Thanks.

Re: Another Line Number Question

jdflipside — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:52:00 GMT

Hi, this seems like a great solution, but now in 2023 P3D, won't work. You cannot generate an isometric using unicode in the tag format anymore. On the official help topic for this, this is Autodesk's recommendation:

"Don't use unicode values for filling the properties of the pipe line tag. If it is needed to get a "blank" value for a property of the pipe line tag, use a dot (".") instead."

The issue with this is that a dot ("."), produces exactly that on the isometric, a dot. We need it blank for insulation. We're still trying to figure out a solution to this.

Can anyone expand on what was explained above about optional fields? Where is this done? Appreciate any help.