With the release of AutoCAD Plant 3D 2017.1 Plant 3D users on subscription have the ability to tie their 3D piping spec to their P&ID drawings for the first time using Plant 3D’s new spec driven P&ID feature.
After installing the 2017.1 update Plant users will see some small changes to the interface. A new size and spec drop-down selector on the Schematic Line panel (inside your P&ID Workspace) will be visible and a new node in your project manager palette called Pipe Specs will show all the specs defined in the current project.
When placing schematic lines, in the updated Plant environment, the tag values (and the applicable property values) for the size and spec of the schematic line will adopt the values set in the Schematic Line panel's drop-down. Once a schematic line is placed the Assign Tag dialog box will show the selected size and spec used during its placement. All that remains fully tag the line with is service and line number (assuming the out-of-the-box line tag scheme is used).
Whether or not you enable the spec driven P&ID option in your project, these size and spec values will always be set during schematic line placement.
In addition, the Pipe Specs node allows you to create, edit, remove, rename and update specs in your project. It will also allow you to copy specs into the active project much like you would copy a drawing into your project. There are tools to check-in or check-out spec files if you are working with Vaulted projects and the ability to view a piping spec using the spec viewer palette.
These new selections are nice enhancements that allow access to the spec files from inside Plant instead of having to browse a project directory in windows or Vault. The commands are accessed via the right-click menus on the Pipe Specs node or on the individual spec file nodes.
To fully enable the spec driven P&ID features in a project; access the project setup and under P&ID DWG Settings select the Pipe Specs in P&ID node. In the setup page displayed, on the right side, select the Spec Driven Project option.
Once Spec Driven Project is enabled, select the Pipe Spec Object Mapping node to match the spec objects to P&ID symbols and set any property mappings.
To verify that each object in your spec is matched to a P&ID class definition select the component category button for either Lines, Valves, Fittings or Specialty items, respectively.
With the object type displayed (such as valves shown below) select a component in the list of P&ID objects on the left of the panel. Then, on the right hand side add a check mark to the corresponding object from your 3D piping spec file. P&ID objects with no matching spec object will appear as lighter grey text in the P&ID object selection panel.
In most cases your spec objects will automatically be matched to P&ID objects through acquisition rules. This can be seen because the lightning bolt icon is displayed on the bottom right of the page. If desired you may click the lightning bolt and override the spec object class and link P&ID objects to different object category from the piping spec.
The result of this selection is seen on placed components in your P&ID drawings. Matched components will have a Class and Spec Part property value filled out automatically. If there are multiple components of the same type in the piping spec (ie. multiple Globe Valves or Gate Valves, etc.) then the Spec Part property, when selected, displays a drop-down list of the specific components that can be selected from the piping spec.
If the Map checkbox is unchecked in the project setup then there will be a Class property filled but no Spec Part value displayed and no connection to your piping spec will be seen for that component.
Once the applicable components have been matched to you piping spec you will see in your P&ID tool palette which parts are available in the selected piping spec and which are not. Any component that is not available in the selected piping spec will show with a darker grey cross-hatch. This is a quick indicator of your organization's available components when creating your P&ID drawings.
While the hatching is a good indicator of "in spec" parts it can be deceiving. For example; I may have gate valves available in my piping spec and therefore no cross-hatch is shown in the palette. However, if my gate valves start at 4” and get larger then looking at my palette I would not know that I can’t place one on a 2” line. In fact there is nothing to stop me from putting any out of spec component on any line even if the object is hatched in the palette. To find out what symbols are in or out of spec on a drawing we need to use another new-in-2017 tool called the P&ID Painter.
The P&ID Painter was new for the 2017 RTM release of Plant 3D. Included with the 2017.1 update is a new out-of-the-box configuration for the P&ID Painter named Off Spec Piping that can be used to highlight out of spec components in your drawings. The painter will temporarily colorize all the inline components yellow if they are "in spec" and red if they are "off spec". This provides a quick visual guide to help validate that designs are in spec.
As you can see above, by enabling the P&ID Painter, the 4” schematic line and gate valve are “in spec” while my needle valve is “off spec”.
Some final notes about the new spec driven P&ID's feature before you get started:
- No update or migration is needed to the spec files to enable the link to P&ID drawings.
- Spec driven P&IDs are disabled by default in all existing projects.
- The spec driven P&ID feature must be enabled in the project setup.
- Set template projects to have the spec driven P&ID feature on or off as desired for new projects.
-DAP
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