Guide to create a complete P&ID Project Template for Autocad Plant 3D

[alissonsgarcia]

Hi.

I have been posting many questions in this Forum about tool palettes backup, customizations, Plant3D settings, creation of templates, etc. to gain a broader understanding of how to set a good Plant3D environment for the creation of P&ID drawings and how to create Project Templates to facilitate future works. I'll now share some of the information I have so far and the difficulties I'm encountering. It's intended to serve as a guide to whoever want to create a project template for Plant 3D.

Initial Plan and goals to create a Plant3D Project Template:

1. Get a clean Plant3D 2024 installation to identify all native Plant 3D P&ID objects.
2. Create a new project and pick your standards through the new project Wizard window:
   2.1 Symbology Standard: PIP was my choice.
   2.2 Units: Metric System (selecting millimeters in it)
3. In your new project, customize it fully.
   2.1 Customize the interface
   2.2 Customize Tool Palettes Groups
4. Add, from Project Setup, all P&ID objects that might exist natively in Plant3D, but are not displayed in your Group Tool Palette (check the line, equipment, valve, instruments, fittings and non-engineering palette tabs for that).
5. Create a New Drawing and customize a Drawing Template with TitleBlocks in it.
6. Customize your Paper Layout ("Page Setup Manager...")
7. Start the backup phase of the template creation by:
   7.1 Exporting a PROFILE file from the Option menu
   7.2 Exporting a "drawing template"  file from the "SAVE AS..." menu
   7.3 Exporting a " drawing standards" file from the "SAVE AS..." menu
   7.4 Exporting a Project.XML file (simply enter your reference Plant3D project folder and copy the file named Project.XML from there to a safe location. When creating new projects, in the wizard window, point to it)
   
   7.5 Export all "SUPPORT FILES".  In plant3D 2024, the SUPPORT folder was found in
   C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024\R24.3\enu\Support
   
   7.6 From Tool Palettes, right click, 'customize palettes' option, and ten export .XTP files from each Pallete in the left side of the window (Modeling, Annotation, Civil, Electrical, Valves, Equipment, etc.) and also export .XPG "tool palette group" from the right side of this window.
   7.7 Enter some random Plant3D folders and try to find everything that might be important in those folders to be backed up. Paths known so far are:
   C:\AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024 Content
   C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024\R24.3\enu
   C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024\R24.3\enu
   C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024\R24.3\enu

That's the most complete guide for creating a plant3D Project Template that people will find anywhere so far, in my opinion.

Whoever has anything to contribute to this list, please feel free to add extra steps or comments. Replicate the entire list in your reply with your suggested changes and/or comments. You are very welcome do to that!

While we keep updating those steps, I'll also ask for your help to troubleshoot any difficulties that others or I may encounter in the process.

The first issue, and very basic one, that I'll list here is:

- (SOLVED) Even before starting the backup process, after creating a new PIP, metric (mm), project, I created a drawing to test the native tool palettes, but surprisingly most of the P&ID objects in my tool palettes don't work! I tried the line object from the PIP tool palettes, and it worked. But when I tried the valves in the valves tab or a pump in the equipment tab, none of them worked and they all displayed the following warning:

How can that happen, when the tool palettes that I'm using is the PIP one, the project was created using the PIP standard, and the P&ID object I'm trying to use is a native object that comes with Plant3D, not a custom-made object?!?!

Thank you to all who decided to collaborate in the creation of this guide.

sd

[mtj73RN9]

There are many ways to approach making a project template.

I more or less followed this document: https://www.academia.edu/26521131/Tailoring_AutoCAD_P_and_ID_and_AutoCAD_Plant_3D

It covers most things in Plant 3D, and even have a suggested workflow in which order to customize Plant (I did mine slightly different, but it shows a good direction).

We already had an ongoing project, which was initiated before making a proper template. I used that project as a foundation since it had many lines and other customizations.

I deleted all standard classes etc. that weren't in use (we are talking several hundreds) - it could have been left in there, but that's in my opinion a lot of data to carry around. Of course many other things I also adjusted.

[alissonsgarcia]

@mtj73RN9I do have that document. It's a good reference material from 2014. It seems that there are more than one front cover page for this document, even though the rest of the document seems to be exactly the same. Thank you for sharing this reference material in this post.

[alissonsgarcia]

@mtj73RN9I found out the solution for the problem related to "symbol could not be found in currently project" and it comes from a bizarre action.

As I mentioned in my first message in this post, I created a drawing containing the titleblocks with attributes, just so we can have a ready to draw environment with all fields ready to be filled (company name, project name, etc.).

The bizzarre thing that is happening is that when inside a new project I create a new drawing and pick this template file as my DWG Template, Autocad Plant 3D bizzarrely switches from the current project to a different project that the template was created in! It's insane! The DWG template file (a .DWT file) was supposed to import only drawing settings like frame, titleblocks and their attributes, paper size, etc., but never import an action to change projects!

Is there any way for me to create this template file again forcing it to not carry this action to change projects when I use it as a DWG template file?

Thanks!

[alissonsgarcia]

Well, I have just figured out where the .XML file that you're supposed to use as a template for new projects should come from.

There is no export option that creates a .XML project settings file! That file is actually the project file itself!

Every time you create a new project, Plant 3D creates a new project folder with a Project.XML file in it.

So, all you need to do is to configure one project with all your standards, then enter the project folder and copy from there the Project.XML file to a safe location. Then, you just need to point the Wizard, from the image above, to that file in every new project you create!

I have also figured out how to populate the supporting folder. I found it in the following location:

C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024\R24.3\enu\Support

I'm updating my first message in this post to reflect that new understanding and allow people to use that message as a reference/guide.

[alissonsgarcia]

Hi again guys.

The current questions I think we need to approach here are:

1. Inside PROJECT SETUP, I found a field called Export and Import Settings. (Project Setup -> P&ID DWG Settings -> Export and Import Settings). The strange thing is that it doesn't have any icon to export/import!
   

   When I click NEW... I get the following window:

   

   After naming it and selecting all P&ID classes, and hitting OK, a file is created inside the current project folder in the path: C:\...\<Project_Name>\ImportExportSettings
   I can manually copy that file and paste it inside my new project folder, but what good would that do? Just by pasting it there won't add it to the Project Setup, as far as I could see. And again, there is no import option in the Export and Import Settings window, just a "NEW..." option.  Very confusing.

[hayden_priskSMGPA]

That import export tool is for exporting / importing attributes into data Manager, i.e  a pipe line list with custom attributes (the name is misleading) 

To export/import the PID Classes, attributes and blocks etc: use Project Compare

Create a project with your standard

• classes
• attributes
• blocks etc.

Create a new project then use the Project Compare tool to merge your standard classes into the new project

The compare function will allow you to merge one project and allow you to select what classes, attributes, blocks etc to merge. once you tick the green arrows they will show as red squares to be merged