Using 3D Piping Symbols

Bentley Plant

Description

Specs and Catalogs

Defining the block name in the Spec

Project Specific Symbols

Using symbols in the AutoPLANT Piping Application

Alternate Spec column name for symbols

Description

This document describes the mechanism of how to create and use 3D symbols in the AutoPLANT Piping application.

Specs and Catalogs

All Specs and Catalogs delivered with the XM release have an additional column called “SYMBOL_3D”. This column has been created for the users’ convenience to enter the name of the drawing file and associated AutoCAD block.

Defining the block name in the Spec

When the block name and drawing file name are the same you may just enter this name in the SYMBOL_3D column of the spec. For example if the drawing file containing the block bv50 is called bv50.dwg then the name bv50 can be entered into this column.

If you wish you can specify a different drawing file name than the block name then both names should be entered in the column. For example the drawing file bv50.dwg contains the block name MyBv50 then the entry in the SYMBOL_3D column should be bv50;MyBv50.

Project Specific Symbols

By default AutoPLANT reads all symbols from the following path:

%Network_Root%\Modules\Base\%APP_DIR%\symbols

If you wish to make this path project specific then the project modules definition file (modules.ini) must be modified in the project location with the following change:

This example shows the change for the Base module only; this step should be repeated for all other modules you want to affect.

%project_root%\Config\modules.ini

[Base]

...

SYMBOL_SEARCH_PATH = %Network_Root%\Modules\Base\%APP_DIR%\symbols

Change to

[Base]

...

SYMBOL_SEARCH_PATH = %PROJECT_ROOT%\Config\modules\Base\%APP_DIR%\symbols;%Network_Root%\Modules\Base\%APP_DIR%\symbols

Using symbols in the AutoPLANT Piping Application

Now that you have your symbols defined and the specs modified the designer can toggle the use of symbols in any session. To do this select the drawing preferences dialog from the menu Piping\Setup\Drawing Preferences…

If the "Use Symbols" check box is set and the spec defined correctly then the system will automatically try and use the symbols, no other changes are required in XM (in previous versions script changes etc were required). If the check box is set and there is no symbol defined in the spec the system will behave as before by scripting the component display.

Note if the symbol size does not match the sizes specified in the spec then the resulting display may be incorrect; see the example below where the bottom valve symbol is too small for the size specified resulting in the flange appearing to be disconnected.

Alternate Spec column name for symbols

Should a user decide to use a different column name than that delivered i.e. SYMBOL_3D then the class property field 3D_SYMBOL_NAME_FIELD, should be modified as demonstrated below, to match the column name used in the spec.

Using 3D Piping Symbols Page 1 of 6