How to Improve Tool Palettes Without Manually Creating new Piece of Equipment

[alissonsgarcia]

Hi.

I used a Plant3D profile file from a client company to create a Plant3D drawing. Their profile file changed the original Plant3D Tool Palettes, not only modifying the colors of the vales, as I'll show below with a printscreen, but also increased the number of elements in it. Even the line tab is very different.

I'd like to know if there is any settings within Plant3D which allows me to add extra valves for the valve tab for example, extra instruments for the instrument tab, etc.

If not, is there anywhere where I can get a consolidated database of valves and instruments for Plant3D, allowing me to avoid creating everything from scratch?

So, this is the original Plant3D 2024 Valve tab:

This is the valve tab that appears after loading the client's profile file in Plant3D:

(Notice that even the color of the valve lines changed)

This is normal Plant3D 2024 line tab:

This is the client's line tab:

My job is to create a new template for the company to start using plant3D, and they are requesting me to fill these tabs with as much elements as possible.

Thank you for all help that will be offered. Gob bless you.

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

You'll need to setup the valves/instruments/etc in the Project Setup, then click on "Add to Tool Palette" from the Project Setup to add the item you want on the tool palette.

[Michiel.Valcke · Accepted solution]

Just as @Tomislav.Golubovic  has said, you can add symbols to your toolpalette from within the project setup -

You can learn more about how to create custom toolpalettes for P&ID in the Autodesk whitepaper I've attached.

[alissonsgarcia]

@Tomislav.Golubovic @Michiel.Valcke I think you misunderstood my intentions.

I'll try to explain again, then you two let me know if I'm the one who understood your replies wrongly.

When you say I should edit Project Setup, you are suggesting me to create new items and icons manually for my project/template. That was not the intent of this post.

My intentions here were basically two:

1) Understand if the items displayed in the tool palettes when I loaded the client's .ARG Profile file were native icons from Autocad Plant3D or custom made by the client's company. It seems to me they were not custom made, at least the vast majority of them.

2) Understand how I can populate the basic autocad Tool Palettes tabs with all native available icons for each one. For example, the LINE tab, I'd like to populate it with all existing line icons available. The same for the instruments tab, the valves tab. All valves available natively in autocad plant 3D, I want them displayed in the valves tabs. Again, the client valve tab displays many more valves than the ones displayed when you first install autocad. Again, I doubt they were all manually created by the client. They are either hidden somewhere inside plant3D or it might exist an autocad repository from where they downloaded this "extra" elements from. So, how do I populate my tab with all available elements for each one?

Also, if you can explain in some details what you might think the client did to get that kind of tool palettes displayed in my first post, that would be awsome.

Thank you.

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

The palettes are built from the Project Setup. If the Project you're using doesn't have the classes for the lines/valves/instruments etc it won't work. If you want the icons to work as expected then you'll need to ask the client for the Project that they are based on, otherwise you'll need to make them all from scratch.

I'd also be talking to whoever gave you the palettes on how they made them. They would have created their own project with the appropriate classes to populate the tool palettes for them.

Do they work now at all when you click on an icon in a Plant3D Project?

[alissonsgarcia]

I never had any problem using neither the icons from the client's tool palettes nor the ones that appear in the Plant 3D natively.

I understand you can create your own project related icons, etc. but I don't believe you're supposed to make ALL of them. Plant 3D is supposed to have natively plenty of the most common ones available. That's the reason the software exist, otherwise, you would just use normal Autocad and create all elements as blocks as your personal library.

When I use the native autocad plant 3D tool palettes, the valve tabs already has some valves in there.

My purpose here in this post is to learn how I can load in this native autocad tool palettes all the elements that plant 3D offers its users natively.

Using the valve tab as an example again, how can I load all types of valves that Plant 3D has to offer natively in the valve tab?

Second question, is there a repository in autocad webpage to download extra ones?

Those are the main two questions I'm trying to answer with this post. I want to create a template with a tool palettes bar containing as much of the ordinary elements as possible, in the case of valves, all ordinary valves, like globe valve, butterfly valve, etc. I'm pretty sure these most common elements are either natively available inside plant3D or available to be downloaded from somewhere. People are not supposed to draw an create every single basic element used for decades and decades in P&ID projects all around the world. I'm not going to create them either. I'll use what's already available to create our template.

[Tomislav.Golubovic · Accepted solution]

So again, you'll need to go in to the Project Setup, look at all the valve classes that have symbols on them, and then click on Add to Tool Palette if you want to make one with all the valves available. If there are classes that don't have symbols, then you'll need to make symbols for them and add them to your template project, and palettes. There is nothing to download from Autodesk, its up to you and/or the client you're doing the project for. There are *some* in the Autodesk Out of the Box project, but you'll still need to add your own or more if you/the client requires it.

[alissonsgarcia]

@Tomislav.GolubovicI just did what you suggested, but new questions emerged.

1) In the Project Setup, when I looked for valves, I could find them only in the path: P&ID DWG Settings -> Engineering Items -> Inline Assets -> Hand Valves. From there I was able to add 17 valves in the palette called "ALL PALETTES".  They are appearing in the valve tab with a bold black line color, different form the rest. What's the reason for that?

2) And, why I wasn't able to see all the other valves that were already present in the valve tab when I went to the project setup? I could only find there valves that have no symbol associated to them and the 17 valves that I mentioned above and that were not present yet in the valve tab of the "All Palettes" Tool Palettes. Weren't all valves that exist natively in Plant 3D supposed to be there in the project setup?

2) After I finish tailoring the tabs of my new tool palettes as I want, to create a template to be used in the next projects, how can I create a file to this configuration? Do I do that simply by going to the Options -> Profile Tab -> Export and export the current profile in use? It that it?

3) Is it possible to create one simple template file containing the tailored Tool Palettes and a tailored paper titleblock page? Or I need to have the profile for the tool palettes and the template file for the paper titleblock template?

Thank you.

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

1) Can you share a screenshot please?

2) Probably because you're not using the same project that your client made their valve palettes from.

3) When you make a new project, there is a button on the first dialog that says "Use settings from existing project". This is the button you tick on to use for future projects. AutoCAD profiles have nothing to do with Project settings.

4) You make the titleblock in your template project (refer #3). From there you use your template project for future projects, ensuring you use the same titleblock and symbols for equipment/valves/instruments/specs etc.

[alissonsgarcia]

@Tomislav.GolubovicI think you understood my last messages wrong. I'm not using anything from the client's template. I'm using the standard Plant 3D tool Palettes and my objective is to put in there as many elements as I can find in the Plant 3D natively.

Since you asked me for screenshots, let's start again:

When you just open Plant 3D, basic original settings, after choosing the tool palettes named ALL PALETTES, what you get for valves is:

and

As you can see, the list of valves, is kind of big in the All Palettes toolbar. In the second image, with dark bold black line, inside the red ballon I drew, you can see the 17 valves that I was able to find in the Project Setup and add.

But, as I said, the strange thing is that all other 20-ish or 30-ish valves displayed in this tab DO NOT appear in the Project Setup.

So, why is that happening? Wasn't all elements displayed in the tool palettes supposed to exist in the Project setup?  Why the valves I added are colored different?

Again, this is standard Plant 3D profile and settings. I'm not using anything from the old client. I mentioned the client in my first message just to exemplify what he had in his tab and to ask if those elements were custom made by them or if they existed in Plant3D natively, but I was supposed to manually add them to the tab.

In Project setup:

Hand valves (the only valve type I could find:

From the above image I added the 17 valves that are displayed in bold dark black line in the valve tab. All other valves displayed in the project setup above, besides those 17, didn't have a image displayed in the PREVIEW window:

So, where all those other valves displayed in the valve tab came from?!

[Eugene05]

 alissonsgarcia, Did you get to resolve the issue maybe it seems like my issue created the standard symbol for my com...

[alissonsgarcia]

@Eugene05I kind of got to resolve the issue. THe short answer is: none of plant3D tool palettes are good enough and complete enough for us. The solution I was seeking was to buy a few P&ID standards, pick one to follow and add everything we needed in a customized tool palette template. We weren't able to buy PIP PIC001 standard because they are crazy and ask for more than 3.000 USD for 63 pages. So, I got the ISA and ISO. We're inclined to use the ISO with modifications, specially for pumps and motors.

But my manager still thinks it's too much work and believes we can find a complete and ready to use tool palette for sale online and that should be our goal.

So, it got resolved through a long road that we're not close to the finish line yet.

[Eugene05]

Currently, the issue is still active to be resolved by the Autodesk technical team about the dark background but all symbols working properly as smart P&ID.

As I understand your concern about how to generate standard symbols instead of creating them manually by the software or internal engine of Plant 3D. Fact, the block symbol you need to do manually as a company library and then add to the project setup. For the one-time setup, you need to make a standard Project structure as your company references for the projects. 

Anyway, What standard did you prefer the PID PIP adopted from ISO standards, and working already? Now the latest new in the Plant 3D 2025 version the PIP ISA symbol is updated.

[alissonsgarcia]

@Eugene05I just got my hands on the ISA and the ISO, as I previously mentioned.

The PIP PIC001, doesn't seem to be worth half of the money they are asking for it as it has only 63 pages and cost more than 3.000 US dollars.

The ISO seems to be the best choice, even though some very important symbols in there are bizarre and not so much used in any industry. Pumps would be the main issue with the ISO. All their pumps are circles. You don't find pumps on P&ID like that.

Butterfly and pressure relief valves are also super bizarre:

The ISO is very detailed and has 15 parts, so, it's much larger than any other standard.

• ISO 14617-1 to -15:2005
• ANSI ISA 51:2022

Those two above are the two standards I'm currently using.

I apoligise for not understanding the objective of your previous reply being the black colour of new tool palettes symbols. Nothing changed there and I believe it's the way AutoDESK wants things, so you can differentiate native Plant3D symbols from customized symbols.

One big thing that bothers me is that you can't readily use symbols from diferent standards that are natively available in plant3d. People should be able to mix and use any symbol they want in their drawings, like it's costumary to do. Importing manually a few standards from PIP, ISA, etc. to be used in ISO, for example, is just a bunch of unnecessary work. Just venting out my frustation here. AutoDESK could make so many things easier for users if they wanted to.

[Eugene05]

@alissonsgarcia, Great you have that standard, only you want to create the symbol as a block entity, then get into the project setup to become an intelligent symbol.