Is there a way to easily use P&ID symbols of one standard in a different standard drawing?

[alissonsgarcia]

Hi.

After almost a month trying to create my company's Plant3D template, we found out that most companies don't stick strictly to one single standard when they draw P&ID objects in normal CAD. They mix symbols of PIP, ISO and ISA usually. So, half of the native tool palettes for equipment and instruments usually is useless and needs to be customized. But, drawing and creating new P&ID objects from scratch is too much time consuming, and many of the P&ID objects I want, Plant3D already have them in a different standard than the one I'm using. So, I was wondering if it's not possible to change the standard symbol Plant3D is using in the tool palettes, overwriting the native choice.

For example, if I'm drawing in an ISO standard drawing but I want the butterfly valve to be represented just like it appear in the tool palettes for the PIP standard, is there a easy way to make that change?

If I just change the tool palettes from ISO to PIP and try to use the objects, I'll get an error saying that I can't use the PIP object in a ISO drawing.

Hope I could make my question clear here. Please let me know if I wasn't clear enough. Thanks

[h_eger]

Dear @alissonsgarcia ,

Simple answer: No, this is not possible
You can change the symbols between the standards and integrate them into your Plant 3D configuration, but you can customise the tool palettes each time.

[alissonsgarcia]

@h_egerthanks for the reply. I believe you meant to type "CAN'T" a couple of times in your replay above, but typed "CAN" instead. May you review your reply?

If I understood your reply correctly, I might be able to open two drawings in different standards, copy the object from a different standard, paste it on the other drawing, and then manually transform that new object in a P&ID object and manually add it to the tool palettes after that. That way it would work right? Is that what you meant?

Also, why do you say I would have to redo that every time for new projects? If I reuse this project as a template for new projects, it should carry all customized p&id objects to the new project, as well as the customized tool palette. Wouldn't it work like that? 

thanks.

[Michiel.Valcke · Accepted solution]

You always start from one of the pre-defined standards like ISO, then you can create custom symbols, whether they look like ISO symbols or PIP symbols doesn't matter. 

To create your custom symbols you can copy the block geometry from other standards. Or you can choose not to add them to project setup and just copy the basic AutoCAD geometry and use PIDCONVERT to convert them on the spot. 

You can use your project as a template project and you're right that will allow you to use the same custom symbols in other projects. But to create and share a custom toolpallette between projects you need a bit more than that. I've added a whitepaper in attachment about creating custom toolpallettes for P&ID.

[alissonsgarcia]

@Michiel.Valcke  thank you for your reply.

Your help would be much appreciated in my other post about creating templates:

Creating Autocad Plant3D Templates 

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@Michiel.Valcke wrote:

To create your custom symbols you can copy the block geometry from other standards.

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What is the fastest way to copy the geometry from other standards? Is there a way for me to visualize all p&id symbols to copy and paste them? Is there such a tool in Plant3D? Plant3d has tools to create a table of materials, and others, is there any tool inside Plant3D to create a table of symbols? Can the ProjSymbolStyle.dwg file be configured to display all the symbols of a chosen standard, for example?

My main objective here is to find out how to make the addition of all P&ID symbols that I need, in the fastest way possible, making use, if possible, of all symbols that already exist natively inside Plant3D, but spread and locked across multiple standards. As I said in my first post, most companies and drawings that we've seen through the years make use of a mixed symbology and do not stick to one single standard, since in every standard you can find some symbols that are too exotic, bizarre or bad representations. When that happens, most companies just use a different symbol for it, even if that means they are not sticking firmly to one single standard in their drawings.

- I wish to avoid having to draw all symbols that I need, but already exist inside Plant3D in a different standard.

- I wish to avoid having to copy and paste multiple object drawings, converting every single one of them in P&ID objects, and then sorting them out in Plant3D Setup.

Any tip to speed up this process and to make use of smbology/symbols that already exist natively in Plant3D, but are spread or "locked" across different standards?

Thanks

[Michiel.Valcke]

There are a lot of resources available on the internet for this, but I would advise you to find an ATC (training center) in your region and contact them for training and consultancy.
https://www.autodesk.com/partners/locate-a-reseller

[alissonsgarcia]

@Michiel.Valcke 

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@Michiel.Valcke wrote:

There are a lot of resources available on the internet for this,

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Sorry, but I disagree with you about that information. The only thing you usually find are guides on how to create customized P&ID objects through the option "convert to an P&ID object". But, as I said, that would be extremely time consuming and, most important, most of the symbols people usually want already exist inside plant3d natively. The problem is that they are locked and do not work outside of their original standard drawing.

By finding a way to utilize the P&ID symbols that already exist in Plant3D is the ideal solution. Please, feel free to prove me wrong with a couple or more links to solutions in that direction.

[Michiel.Valcke]

As I said, you will have to create custom symbols
https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-create-a-ne...

There is Autodesk University to find seminars about P&ID specific tasks:
https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/search?query=P%26ID

and if you're taking the mantle of becoming your companies' P&ID / CAD administrator you might want to read the advanced configuration guide:
https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/AutoCAD-PandID-Adv...

not to be glib, but all these links were just one google search away. It does help offcourse knowing they exist and how to search for them. In any case, I would recommend finding a training center that can give you a full training about this program. All the above resources cannot always be an adequate replacement for basic training.

[alissonsgarcia]

I thank you for your good will in posting those links.
It seems like you didn't get the purpose of this post.
If I were to create the drawings for every single P&ID object that I need, or most of them, transform the drawings into P&ID objects and then customize a tool palette, that would defeat the purpose of my intentions here, that being making use, somehow, of the existing library that exists in Plant3D but have their application restricted to types of drawings.

The ideal and good approach here was for AutoDESK to allow us to use whatever symbol we want, switch between tool palettes as we see fit, and pick the p&id objects that we want, from any tool palette. If they had done that, this post wouldn't even exist.

[Michiel.Valcke · Accepted solution]

I got the purpose of your post just fine, and we replied with how you can recover off-standard symbols in your project: create custom symbols. 

If you want to "easily" recover the geometry of other standards, make a project in those other standards and with adcenter or with the regular insert command, insert the block definitions from the projsymbolstyle.dwg into a temp.dwg then create new symbols based on the imported block definitions in your temp.dwg. You will have to make sure all the definitions have a similar size, that way you can keep a consistent scale factor for all your symbols.
As you asked before, you can do this in a template project, so you don't have to do this for every new project. You could also use PROJECTCOMPARE to introduce these new symbols into already existing projects. 

I'm not being facetious, there are good reasons why what you're asking is not possible at the moment and will not be introduced in the future. 

[pkolarik]

FYI:  I'm working through trying to set up Plant 3d in our office for PID use and stumbled upon this factoid yesterday buried in the help files somewhere:

You can use ISA and PIP standards in the same project, switching back and forth as needed. You can also use ISO and..... I forget the name of the other one... in the same project. We're going with ISA here, so we can use symbols from ISA and PIP libraries if needed.

[daniel.klingspor]

@alissonsgarcia 

Additional reading:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-plant-3d-forum/p-amp-id-tool-palettes/m-p/10812999#M52785

To reiterate what others have said, there is no "Easy" button when it comes to setting up and customizing Plant 3D, and unavoidable menial and repetitive tasks will be required.  The software has a steep learning curve but rarely will you encounter a situation that has not been solved before.   

[alissonsgarcia]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[alissonsgarcia]

@Michiel.Valcke, @daniel.klingspor , @pkolarik , @h_eger 

I just had a thought here: if I copy the drawing and create a new P&ID object from it, say for a valve, how am I supposed to configure the object to have two drawings, one for Normally Open (NO) and one slightly different for Normally Close (NC)? Otherwise, I would have to create 2 P&ID objects for every single new item I add to the project as a custom one.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Michiel.Valcke]

The short answer is: Yes, you create a new symbol for the same class, so yes, you need to create new block definitions per symbol. Make a symbol list property (you can only have one per item class - and for valves that one is already used for the 'Normally' property) you specify which symbol needs to be used per value. 

[alissonsgarcia]

Well, it seems like I found a way to reuse symbols from other standards.

It seems if I create multiple projects, each in a different standard, I can then go to my main project that will become my template project, and then start opening the files named projSymbolStyle.dwg for each project. From those drawings, usually totally empty, I can have access to the project blocks and get them from there.
I can also get the block symbols much easier directly from the project setup.

Open the project setup, go to the equipment that is missing a symbol or create the new equipment you want, and then hit the bottom to add a symbol. Navigate to the projSymbolStyle.dwg file that has the block with the symbol that you want, and just add it!

I'll try this method extensively during the weekend.

Besides telling you guys this possible solution to make our lives easier, I also have a question.

Is there a command in Plant 3D to print a table with all symbols and their names, so I can create a drawing with a list of symbols and names easily?

Thanks

[DBuzinari]

Well... I believe you should be sorted now. 

I didn't have to create a whole P&ID Class Definition item per say, but I had to use a cyclone in my P&ID which didn't have a block to it in the PID, but I found one in the ISO style, so I opened the projSymbolStyle and used the ADDCENTER to copy the block from the ISO template to my job.