Different Types of Bends on same Design Line

[Washingtonn]

A typical vertical plumbing waste offset has a Quarter BEND at top and a Short Sweep BEND at the bottom - two different BENDS needed on the same Design Line. Because of Button mapping, the first Button which geometrically fits the situation will be used.  The result is that ALL BENDS of the same Design Line will fill with the same type of BEND.  A user can manually change a fitting after using 'Fill in 3D' but with any use of 'Erase 3D Item(s)' and subsequent 'Fill in 3D', the manual changes are lost and will need to be redone - making further use of this Design Line a manual affair. 

Is there any way use the Design Line 'Fill in 3D' and 'Erase 3D Item(s)' features without losing manual BEND changes?

[matthewweake]

As you are drawing the design line you can select the bend you want from the buttons and it will be used.

Alternatively you can delete all of the items, place the required fitting at the node and fill in 3D.

For each one you have overridden, there is an X at the node.

Hopes this helps. (I got stuck with this too!)

Regards

Matthew Weake

CADPRO Systems Ltd

[Washingtonn]

I can't get that to work - I checked and it only gives me one bend type for both locations regardless of which button is selected. 

The problem is that the design line does not consider the leg length of a bend - the intent is for 'Fill in 3D' to correctly fill a design line with different bend types. Check out by turning on design line annotation - only 'Bend' is shown, not the particular type of bend selected.

Please review the actual fittings being placed and If you can get it to work on your end, it would myself and others if you could post a video so the steps could be replicated.

[Anonymous]

I would agree that this method doesn't work very well on basic types. However, I do subscribe to the possibility that it could given the right configuration/circumstances. Certainly seems like on occasion it does and I just haven't figured out the criteria to make it work on demand.

[Washingtonn]

I would agree that under the right configuration/circumstances placing different basic fitting types would be possible with the procedure suggested by Matthew, but if you consider what those ‘right’ configuration/circumstances are, you would have to admit that they would rarely be encountered.  

Refer to the attached example:  2” NoHub cast iron short sweep and quarter bend, you could get them to populate the Design Line correctly IF they were fitting-to-fitting with a coupling between. The user would have to draw the design line offset with the precise total lay length. Does anyone have that distance off the top of their head?

I am interested in a general solution to the problem.

[matthewweake]

The screen cast is what I was talking about. It looks like you have got beyond that.

[Washingtonn]

The method worked in the screencast because one of the Node Keywords was BEND and the other BENDMF - results would be totally different with both Node Keywords as BEND.  Different BEND types could be manually placed but if the Design Line is then put through a sequence of  'Erase 3D Item(s)' followed by a 'Fill in 3D', only one BEND type would survive at both locations. The failure of Design Line to recognize more than one type of BEND (or any other type of fitting), causes additional work for users - EVERY time the 'Erase 3D Item(s)' and 'Fill in 3D' are used in these situations. 

Design Line should allow the user to select the individual fitting desired at each node instead of having the user select the fittings to exclude from every node.

[matthewweake]

Hi Washingtonn

You are correct.

As the the designline is interpreted from the source, as soon as the criteria is met then that item is used.

You can create your own Button Codes in your service and when used they survive the 'erase' and 'fill in 3d'. They need to be in your service as alternatives if they are stacked. I think this could help you out.

If you have 2 bends on one Button then you need to set the lower and upper limit for each Item. I think the size limits are the only way for the software to determine which one to use. (You might be able to do something with scripts.)

Hope this helps.

[Washingtonn]

I agree that custom button codes can be created, but for the original posted example (see the PDF above), both BEND types (a quarter bend and a short sweep) would not survive a ‘Fill in 3D’ after an ‘Erase 3D Item(s)’.  In order to have both BENDs used on the same Design Line, the user must manually place one of the BENDs.

If the user needs to place fittings manually, then the Design Line ‘Fill in 3D’ and ‘Erase 3D Item(s)’ commands become potentially costly pitfalls.  How can users place the first fitting (a short sweep) and then exclude it from the second BEND location (the short sweep still satisfies that second node’s criteria)?

The situation presented was for a single size for all pipe and fittings.  Both bends have similar size ranges so we are not interested in excluding the use of a BEND based on size alone.

[matthewweake]

I can see what you want to do and can see why. 

Doesn't using different button codes solve the problem? Something like BendLong and BendShort?

I have often thought that by deleting an item on a designline and replacing it with something manually would be useful and have the deletion remembered through the erase and fill in 3d, would be desirable. The flip side is that the abuse this would take and the mess some would make.