Getting manual iso start and break points to work

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to iso, but unfortunately, the multiple stubins are too much for Plant and cause the iso to timeout when I try to force Plant to place everything on one sheet.  So I'm trying to add a break point in the middle, but iso generation keeps failing.  I like the idea of being able to manually place a break point, although I don't normally need to, but it doesn't help if the iso won't generate. 

What are the tricks to making this work?  In the pipework below, I've placed a start where you see the 'S' and a break where you see the 'B', but I've tried break and start in multiple other places too, and it never works.  If I just don't select any of the upper header pipework, then the lower portion of the iso generates fine.

I realize I could let Plant break the iso automatically, but then I wouldn't learn how to set those breaks manually.

The error message is There was an error reading from the pipe: The pipe has been ended. (109, 0x6d), but I realize that's just a generic error message. 

[Anonymous]

Okay, I've now realized that while the lower portion isos by itself, when I select just the upper portion, it fails to generate before timeout.  That means I jumped the gun in the OP, so I guess never mind, because I need to troubleshoot some more first. 

Still, any tips on how to best use start and break points would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

One more update...

Now I've got almost the entire line to iso even though, strangely, I didn't change anything from yesterday in 3D.  I only have to not select the interconnect flanged elbow at the bottom and I turned off all small bore dimensions.  The problem is that it looks like the screenshot below, so I still want to add a manual break point, preferably such that the top header w/stubins is its own sheet.  I still can't figure out where to put a start and break though.  Also strangely, when I turn on automatic drawing congestion splitting, the exact same selection that had been isoing will then fail to iso, so that's not an option either.

[Anonymous]

I tried using the 'Start Point' and 'Break Point' along with Iso splitting and congestion, and in my opinion, quite simply it is more trouble than it's worth.

Trying to edit or delete start and break points can be a disaster also.

Another user had a great idea of simply break your lines up into sheets manually, which seems obvious, but after realizing the inbuilt iso splitting features are costly for end users, manually splitting has worked great for me, albeit creating a little more work going back over lines. Also Iso's seem to obviously generate easier when less congested.

[TomislavGolubovic]

Can you upload the model here at all??

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your attention on this, Tomislav.

Attached is a simplified, proof-of-concept SQlite project titled "Project 1 - StartBreakIso" that you can extract directly to your C:/ drive (which is where the project's parent folder was on my hard drive).   

I turned dimensioning off because it's unnecessary for the purposes of this test.  You'll see that the Line 51 iso generates entirely and correctly as long as you don't try to use any start/break points.

[Anonymous]

It is an unfortunate fact that I must convey: welcome to Plant 3d......

I have been holding off on responding to this hoping that you would actually receive a solution on this, but it appears that the same problem still exists from when I last tried to use the software in a production environment....

We had the same problem and it was further compounded by the spools deciding to randomly start pulling in reverse order too. I hope that Autodesk fixes this sometime soon because we are at a crossroads where they want to kill a functional software (Fabrication) for a blind preference of Plant 3D/Revit. We don't really care so long as we aren't handicapped with half baked replacements. However, we aren't sure which direction we will go since none of the offering are deemed to be truly complete, but note that we are monitoring this particular topic very closely to make that decision. So, I wish you luck and would like to recommend to Autodesk that they lite a fire under this particular point of contention. Getting what we want/expect every single time is considered to be a minimum requirement from any piping software! There is no grey area here, we've had substantially better luck using P3D as an isometric generator than we have as a piping platform that can produce isometric drawings; kind of absurd if you think about it......

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your perspectives, concadman.  It's nice to know I'm not the only one.

[ryan.bales]

This was part of a broader issue with ISO's and stub-in connections that has been resolved in 2018:

[Anonymous]

That's good to know, Ryan, thanks.  Once I upgrade to 2018, I'll have to try it out myself.  Did you have to move the start and break points from the locations where I originally had them?

[ryan.bales]

No, I didn't do anything aside from migrate and then run the iso. Still took a few minutes to run it but came out nice and clean(ish?)