Let us get control of the Insulation colors

[hean117]

Since the release of the 2022 version we now have green insulation everywhere. Why? The transparency thing is pretty neat, even though I didn't miss it when it wasn't there. 

Could we please get control over the insulation layers? There are several threads in the forum where people are complaining about this. At least set the insulation color to the same as the pipes. This is really annoying, especially since the Navisworks model also get the green insulation since the 2022 version. This is what we show our customers and they think we're idiots when we forget to change the colors. 

[thebearjed]

a 1000X's...yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[George.Endrulat]

Yep, we have to go into navis and select all of the insulation and apply an aluminum material for presentations, it's a pain.  

[Bernd.Gerstenberger]

You can already change the color green to something differently in layer manager in Plant 3D. Also in Navisworks you can override the color as well. 

[hean117]

Yes, you can change the colors in layer manager. Then all of a sudden, it changes back to the green color again. At least that's happened to me a couple of times. 

Then there's the command "PLANTINSULATIONUSEPARTLAYER" which forces the insulation into the same layer as the pipe. Neat, now it gets the correct color! The only downside is that you can't separate the insulation in Navisworks, thus you can't hide it if you want to!

I think the only sane thing to do is to give the insulation the same color as the pipe. Why(!) apply the color green!? At least you could have made it white, that would have made more sense.

[hean117]

I found out when the colors of the insulation resets. The layers created for the insulation gets removed when purging the drawing. Then it is recreated when turning the insulation on again. And guess what... It's green 🙂

[pbowers26JWP]

Obviously it's green in order to save the environment!

[dracona.fachse]

This "improvement" gets even worse when it comes to orthos. A lot of working around is needed in our case to make insulation in orthos at least a little more decent as PLANTINSULATIONUSEPARTLAYER does not apply to orthos.

Many companies require pipelines to have colors depending on some attributes (service, size, spec,...). That "neat" green tone is mashing up drawing clarity pretty bad, though seeing insulation boundaries on the drawing is quite useful. (hidden line insulation view style)

If it is such a big programming deal to propagate the pipeline object color to the insulation layer (which enables transparency) why not at least make it up the user to choose how insulation is displayed? In our case a light gray with dashed lines would do the job in many cases on orthos.

[hean117]

So, what does the status "Accepted" mean? There has been no changes made in the new 2024 version. Any news on this?

[Bernd.Gerstenberger]

@hean117 Not true. In 2024 there are two new system variables: PLANTINSULATIONCOLOR and PLANTINSULATIONTRANSPARENCY. Try them. And also look for the new features of Plant 3D 2024: Plant 3D video blog series - YouTube

[hean117]

@Bernd.Gerstenberger Oh! I stand corrected. I have not seen this. Great news!

This almost solved our problems. I have one more issue. My insulation color is now set to the pipe color, but the insulation layer is still defined as color 112. This is the color displayed in Navisworks. Is there a possibility to get PLANTINSULATIONCOLOR to actually change the color of the layer as well?

[hean117]

@Bernd.Gerstenberger Nevermind that last post. Seems to work now after a restart. This is really appreciated!

[Bernd.Gerstenberger]

😊

[Vicky.Wu]

It has been implemented in AutoCAD Plant 3D 2024 RTM.

See 

https://help.autodesk.com/view/PLNT3D/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-F0615CAA-5977-42F0-9F6B-530379D03068

and

https://help.autodesk.com/view/PLNT3D/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-41BEF724-0C53-4D54-A93D-9DBE9AD5CCFA