Plant 3D pipe display style

[justinlahey1]

Hey all, I have a quick question regarding displaying Plant3D piping within Advance Steel drawings. I have attached a couple of pics, one is an Advance Steel drawing displaying pipe imported from Plant 3D and the other is a Plant 3D drawing displaying some pipe. I can't seem to change the visual style in Advance Steel (See pic). I would like it to look more like the Plant 3D picture. Can you tell me where I can change the visual style? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

  

[BIMDraughting]

It can not be done, I have complained about this for years Advance steel cannot generate and curved edges from AutoCAD objects.😡 It is AS biggest problem if they could solve this it would make AS so much more powerful, i would love to do a Tanks in AS with flanges, motors ect.. but have to use plain old AutoCAD.

What I do is, Xref the Plant 3D model into AS. so you can model around it. Switch it off when generating views.

In plant 3D or AutoCAD create 2D views and then scale paste them into the Advance steel ortho drawings.

[justinlahey1]

Thanks for the reply, I'm surprised this is not possible, this seems like it would be a deal breaker for some. I mean, it's not uncommon to have piping and mechanical components where you have structural steel, so to not be able to show these other important objects in drawings seems like a pretty big oversight.

[johnjmbennett · Accepted solution]

Hi,

so yes there has been a long-standing issue with the tessellation of solids within AS, due to the modeller used.

But in the past we had previously recommended the workflow of showing combined steel and plant drawings within P3D platform,  by placing the AS steel model under the plant project, with the use of the object enabler for AS, the AS steel model is visible within the P3D workspace and can be XRef into over models to co-ordinate back with the plant objects. 
within the plant  platform the combined drawings of P3D and AS can be created, thus bringing the detailed steel model back into that workspace.

the initial schematic steel model can also still reside as well.

you can also show the P3D model in the AS platform with the reciprocating OE for P3D.  
but I would say the drawing focus of AS should remain upon the steel details only.

if you embed the AS model within the P3d model structures, and set an AS template for that drawing/model file, then when you run the steel details for ga/parts/assemblies, they will form part of the plant project.

there are several videos out there on how to use this workflow and believe their are many companies adopting this approach.

HTH

[justinlahey1]

Thanks for taking the time to share these tips. I believe we did explore this workflow, for a bit of perspective, we were exploring the software for an upcoming project. From what I can gather, the project is quite large and will be, say, 70% structural steel, 20% mechanical and the rest piping. So as the steel makes up such a large component we assumed all the deliverables would come from AS, with referenced mechanical parts from Inventor and a bit of piping from P3D, we were hoping to do some nice 3D/ISO marking plans. I'm not in charge of the planning process, I was just helping by doing a bit of research. I believe we might be going with Prostructures. Thanks again for the replies.